Where are you geographically? I’d love to see this first-hand.
I made an offer several pages ago. North Wales, about halfway between Gwydir and Penmachno, so you wouldn’t have a wasted journey 😀
You can (or should) never be sure of anything, just differently confident
In other words, probability, as I mentioned earlier.
Entertaining doubt does not mean you assign the same probability to all outcomes. When you say that you believe astrology has been disproved (you did actually write that down!) I assume you mean that because there is no supporting experimental evidence, there's a high probability it doesn't work, and a low probability that it does work.
Ditto dowsing. I think the balance of probability is that it is not a real phenomenon, because I don't believe that controlled testing and anecdotal evidence have equal value.
We’re in the East Midlands. You’re welcome to come and watch us go “this is obviously nonsense” and then find something.
...
I made an offer several pages ago. North Wales,
WEJ, sorry, I missed that.
You're both about two hours from me, I'm in East Lancs. If you're happy to do a weekend and feel that you've sufficient confidence that it'll work, I'll gleefully do it.
Anyway, in case you missed it, the real reason I am arguing here is because the absolute certainty being displayed here in the face of mystery,
Who's doing that?
I’m not sure as I follow the logic here. If “they” (someone else) called a diviner then it doesn’t matter how sceptical your friend is? Or was that a gender-unspecific “they” and you mean it was your friend who made the decision?
sorry, my poor writing style.
'They' being the prospecting team/the Company. My man tested the water after the fact but had no decision or role in the hiring/prospecting.
Entertaining doubt does not mean you assign the same probability to all outcomes.
Of course not, I'm not doing that. That would be ridiculous!
I don’t believe that controlled testing and anecdotal evidence have equal value.
Generally I'd agree, but a controlled test can very easily be flawed (having faith in the scientific method is not the same as having faith in the experimental conclusions of every scientist) and anecdotal evidence can have value. I'm not making any predictions in this case since I haven't done a lot of research into it.
It's normally easy to explain away anecdotes for implausible claims, but in this case it's rather more difficult for me to do from my armchair. There's quite a few comments online saying 'scientists think it's "just" an ideomotor effect based on subconscious clues' and that's probably true in my opinion but it's still pretty remarkable and mysterious given that these 'clues' are visible to untrained people and the fact they would have to be operating 'subconsciously'. That would be the mystery for me - not magical energy.
Seeing as Anecdotes are the new Facts:
Not at all what I've been saying.
As Cougar points out that wasnt tested whether proper horoscopes* work but instead whether fake horoscopes seem to work for many people.
As I recall it was a 'proper' horoscope based on time and place of birth etc, just for one individual that was given to everyone.
Howver, if you can’t demonstrate reliable, repeatable scientific evidence in support of an alleged phenomena, the probability of it being real is very low.
Many concepts in Physics haven't been experimentally proven at all, and many took half a century for experimental evidence to agree. There are lots of odd observations that get shelved for many years until someone figures out what's going on.
This attitude of certainty does not fit well with my understanding of physics. The Socratic paradox seems very appropriate here.
The truth though, Mr Mulder, is that the vast amount of supernatural doings have pretty mundane rational explanations.
Yes, of course, and that is exactly what I would be looking for. Again - I don't believe in magic or new age woo. Definitely not. If dowsing works, then rational is exactly what it must be. As for mundane - maybe, yes, or maybe it'll turn out to be something truly scientifically remarkable. We won't know until we discover it.
Just chipping in a bit again, not getting involved seriously, CBA to argue.
You wouldn't use diving to find pipes, that'd be daft seeing as there are accurate maps of every DMA in the country. The guys I worked with used to use the rods to find a leak, you walk along the pipe and then the rods swing when the water is moving in a different direction. One guy's crossed, the other one's swung out.
They did work for finding the pipes, but you wouldn't use them for that.
Also they weren't paid to use the rods, they had proper equipment they were supposed to use, but the rods were faster and more accurate. The most commonly used piece of equipment though was a listening stick, which was just a metal pole with a block of wood on the end.
Molly that is an oxymoron
Oh I know it is junk but I was just curious why molgrip wasnt applying the same approach to astrology as to dowsing.
As I recall it was a ‘proper’ horoscope based on time and place of birth etc, just for one individual that was given to everyone.
I would doubt it was a proper one as opposed to a newspaper one. Since to be fair to the believers/scammers for the one to one jobs they put in more effort. So I cant see why you can discount it so easily. Particularly since the experiment only showed there could be alternative explanations.
Oh I know it is junk but I was just curious why molgrip wasnt applying the same approach to astrology as to dowsing.
It's easier to refute evidence in favour of astrology, in my view. A horoscope is vague enough that you can retro-fit what it says to stuff that has happened or is happening. An X on a map that locates a pipe isn't vague. Of course, in the case of finding places to dig a well - that is vague, since there could be water over the entire area, and digging a hole anywhere in that area would find it. Likewise leaks, there *could* be leaks everywhere, but one would assume that if there were still loads of other leaks they'd notice they'd still be there. However in the case of finding a pipe in a field - there's only the one pipe in the entire field, and if the dowser finds it, then there's something going on isn't there?
I would doubt it was a proper one as opposed to a newspaper one. Since to be fair to the believers/scammers for the one to one jobs they put in more effort. So I cant see why you can discount it so easily. Particularly since the experiment only showed there could be alternative explanations.
Fair enough. Still waiting to be convinced. But predicting what's going to happen in the future to a human being is a much taller order than finding a chemical in the ground that's definitely there. So I'd need more convincing of astrology. And to re-state, I'm not convinced of dowsing, I just don't know what's going on.
Also they weren’t paid to use the rods, they had proper equipment they were supposed to use, but the rods were faster and more accurate.
@Cougar this is relevant to your discussion of facts earlier.
this is relevant to your discussion of
factsanecdotes earlier
FTFY.
A horoscope is vague enough that you can retro-fit what it says to stuff that has happened or is happening.
"A" horoscope is not all horoscopes. Are you judging the entire field of astrology based on something that a copy editor makes up in the Daily Express? That would seem to be rash thinking to me.
there’s only the one pipe in the entire field, and if the dowser finds it, then there’s something going on isn’t there?
There certainly is.
There certainly is.
Ok so you would take issue with all those people saying 'it definitely does not work' ?
As I recall it was a ‘proper’ horoscope based on time and place of birth etc, just for one individual that was given to everyone.
Two things here.
1) If someone thinks their horoscope is accurate then ipso facto astrology works (see the homeopathy thread - homeopathy does work, just not beyond placebo). If you're giving someone else's horoscope to someone then that's not proving anything, you're just providing a control group. You might as well claim you've proven that arsenic isn't poisonous by eating an orange.
2) Given that you can't accurately recall what you yourself said on the previous page, maybe this discussion would be best advanced by you digging out a link to the actual study you're referencing?
I don't know if this has come up in this thread .. i've only read the first few pages.
But for those who defend divining as a method for finding things, have a read of these.
https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/research/a21678/dowsing-iraq-bomb-detectors/
This stuff is just a harmless way to find things that you know are already there, until you trust it with something important like keeping car bombs out of Baghdad.
that’s not proving anything
Not convinced that's true. If the same text describes everyone, how can it be providing any useful insight into one person?
And I want to know - do you take issue with the people who say dowsing definitely does not work?
This stuff is just a harmless way to find things that you know are already there, until you trust it with something important like keeping car bombs out of Baghdad.
a) That's tragic, but not what's being talked about here. Con artists will always con. What's the issue on this thread is whether or not you can find water with two metal rods.
b) The allegation is that you can find water when you *don't* already know it's there.
Ok so you would take issue with all those people saying ‘it definitely does not work’ ?
I would, but that's a non sequitur. My point was that "something" is going on, but that "something" isn't necessarily what's being claimed.
Personally, I think it's all bollocks. But I don't know enough to say - yet - that it definitely doesn't work because as you're keen to keep reminding us plenty of people are attesting that it does, and because I can attribute a number of possible explanations as to how the effect might occur.
Not convinced that’s true. If the same text describes everyone, how can it be providing any useful insight into one person?
The "horoscope" in your increasingly fictitious example worked in so far as it was observed to be accurate (which incidentally tells us a great deal about our ability to objectively report on things like divination). Who said anything about "useful" being a required metric?
I don't know why you're making such a meal of this, TBH. Astrology is fairly readily disprovable, simply by dint of comparing horoscopes from several different "professional" astrologers. If there was anything in it, there would reliably be some common crossover between them beyond the probability of chance. As Dire Straits once sang, "two men say they're Jesus - one of them must be wrong."
My tuppence worth.....presented as anecdote only and not evidence of anything much.
As a newly minted and extremely wet behind the ears young surveyor, working in the first real job of my career, I was sent to to the site where we were constructing a new sports pavilion in a public park in Lesmahagow.
Part of the works required us to dig trial pits to establish the existing depth of the mains water supply to the existing building to see if it met current regs and allowed us to reuse the supply and avoid digging a 150 yard track through the park for a new one.
We had a clear starting point ( the existing building) and a clear finishing point ( the stop valve in the street)
Having drawn a straight line between them across the park and then digging a series of perpendicular trenches across this line to try and intercept this pipe, no sign of the main was to be found.
An old plumber working on the site announced that he would get some divining rods and dowse for it.
I , in my youthful naivety, proclaimed that to be "a lot of shite".
He then suggested that, instead of him doing it, that I did it instead. He fashioned some rods from the wire of a chain link fence which was being removed from the tennis court and gave me some simple instructions and told me to carry on, egged on by the site manager.
I knew full well they were ripping the piss out of me, but ever game for a laugh, I carried on as instructed.
After walking a grid of the park , pushing markers into the grass wherever the wind or my random unbalanced walking style caused the rods to cross I had eventually marked out a meandering path that , for the most part, was nowhere near where the water main was supposed to be.
After digging a few holes, it turned out however that the water main was pretty much where I had marked out.
Do I believe in the magic power of water divining? Not really.
Do I believe in the wisdom of aged tradesmen? You bet I do. That was a lesson that has served me very well over the years.
until you trust it with something important like keeping car bombs out of Baghdad
No reported water balloon attacks in Baghdad in that period though.
Makes you think.
After digging a few holes, it turned out however that the water main was pretty much where I had marked out.
Chance, then?
Maybe? ....but if it was, it was directed chance rather than random chance.
We were digging in places marked by my dowsing but in places that common sense would not have dictated but also not randomly all over the park.
Again, not presented as evidence of anything other than the existence of wily old plumbers and stupid young surveyors.
What did you do that was stupid in that instance?
We were digging in places marked by my dowsing but in places that common sense would not have dictated but also not randomly all over the park.
That suggests that your dowsing was doing something, doesn't it?
What did you do that was stupid in that instance?
Opened my naive, inexperienced mouth and told someone 30 years more experienced of the world than I that his idea was "a lot of shite" without any real idea of what I was talking about.
That's the lesson here.
That suggests that your dowsing was doing something, doesn’t it?
Mibbes aye, mibbes naw!
that his idea was “a lot of shite” without any real idea of what I was talking about.
So for the benefit of the Jury, your honour, the defendant has admitted that his idea was NOT a lot of shite, therefore dowsing works.
therefore dowsing works.
Therefore dowsing appeared to work in that instance.
You can't infer the general from a single instance of the specific.
I was swayed but not convinced and given the same situation again would use the now readily available scanning equipment..
Ok so you would take issue with all those people saying ‘it definitely does not work’ ?
Who's saying that?
That’s tragic, but not what’s being talked about here. Con artists will always con
But how do you know it was a con? There was anecdotal evidence from Iraqi users that the devices detected weapons and explosives.
The answer, of course, is that you do proper, controlled,scientific testing, and demonstrate that the bomb dowsers don't perform any better than chance.
So what's the difference between the bomb detectors and water divining? Why is one obviously a con, and the other one is not?
So what’s the difference between the bomb detectors and water divining? Why is one obviously a con, and the other one is not?
Lives aren't at stake when engineers use water diviniation. What the alleged divination was being used for, and how it was being used, is completely different.
Bomb detection clearly didn't work well enough to be useful. But apparently water divination DOES work well enough to be useful, according to the stories.
If only bombs contained water, we'd be golden.
Bomb detection clearly didn’t work well enough to be useful. But apparently water divination DOES work well enough to be useful, according to the stories.
I expect that the primary difference between the two techniques here is that when you get water divination wrong you get to have another try.
Bomb detection clearly didn’t work well enough to be useful. But apparently water divination DOES work well enough to be useful, according to the stories.
So does bomb detection, according to the stories.
And miraculously it works on your 5th go and you forget about the first 4 failed attempts.
'It really works!'
So does bomb detection, according to the stories.
Which stories?
And miraculously it works on your 5th go and you forget about the first 4 failed attempts.
‘It really works!’
Is that what's happening here? I don't see that being described on this thread...?
Here's the thing. A very common response is that it's an ideomotor effect- that you subconsciously do it yourself. But then people use that to jump to "dowsing doesn't work", which is wrong. The correct conclusion is that if it's an ideomotor effect then dowsing does work, as it's an effective way to get results from your subconscious- which is actually pretty hard
And miraculously it works on your 5th go and you forget about the first 4 failed attempts.
Or, in my case, you try it precisely once, it appears to work and you spend the next 25 years maintaining a 100% record of success but still remaining sceptical.
molgrips,
"can you find water with two metal rods"
No.
The Amazing Randi tested dowsers for his million dollar prize. He said that, although they _all_ failed his double blind experiments, that they were always the most surprised to fail (compared to psychics, mediums and mind readers of various kinds).
They (in his tested cases) were apparently not frauds and genuinely believed that the experiments they agreed to participate in with Randi would be easy (detecting which upside down buckets in a room concealed full or empty cups of water.
Importantly, when the dowsers tested themselves in the same way, or had some practice before the event by getting a friend to conceal a cup under a series of buckets, they were always successful. But in a room where no-one knew anything (double blind in that the person who was observing had no idea where the water was either) they failed (did no better than chance).
That should tell you something important about dowsing. When there is someone or something in the area capable of giving conscious or unconscious cues, dowsing works!
When finding pipes and drainage etc there will be local cues in the slope and shape of the land, the color, type and size of the vegetation or the distance from nearby roads or infrastructure, and their orientation.
This effect is probably increased if the person holding the dowsing rods has a lifetime of experience in digging holes to bury drainage pipes, and digging them up again.
Basically,
a) Reaction to environmental cues explains the hit rate.
b) The ideomotor effect explains the movement.
c) The failure under double blind conditions shows that a) and b) are a better explanation of dowsing than intelligent sticks.
So for all of you believers, try the experiment
Google randi dowsers (like I just did without thinking at work :O) and fill yer boots, with double blind evidence based loveliness.
Bomb detection clearly didn’t work well enough to be useful.
From Wikipedia ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADE_651):
A senior [Iraqi] ministry official, Assistant Deputy Minister General Tareq al-Asl, told Asharq Al-Awsat: "The reason the director of the company was arrested was not because the device doesn't work, but because he refused to divulge the secret of how it works to the British authorities, and the Americans before them. I have tested it in practice and it works effectively and 100% reliably."
100% reliable according to General al-Asl. Why should I discount his anecdotal evidence and believe your opinion that "bomb detection clearly didn't work well enough to be useful"?
I don't believe General al-Asl because reputable people tested these devices properly, and demonstrated that they did not perform any better than chance. I think it is very unlikely that dowsing is a genuine phenomena for the same reasons.
As a follow up, I did hear a tale of a way to convince people of dowsing and show them it was false at the same time.
Do the whole "Hey I found a thing" demonstration with some water/gold etc. hidden under a series of buckets.
Then teach others to repeat your success "wow it moves, without me trying" etc.
Then show them there is no water/gold under the bucket and explain the ideomotor effect.
I think this has been done (although I lack a reference), but the results showed that many of the new trainees refused to believe the trainer when they were told it was a false result.
P.S. I have a feeling that Assistant Deputy Minister General Tareq al-Asl was potentially in the frame for spending a considerable amount of cash on pseudoscience.
I have a feeling that Assistant Deputy Minister General Tareq al-Asl was potentially in the frame for spending a considerable amount of cash on pseudoscience
Oh yes, everything involved in the bomb detectors was getting big kickbacks, but proper scientific testing doesn't care if you are genuinely dishonest or a misguided believer. All that matters is objectively testing the effect that is being claimed.
eat_the_pudding - thanks, this is the kind of discussion I was hoping for.
Reaction to environmental cues explains the hit rate.
Yes, but these environmental cues are what interests me. If you knew what these cues were, then you'd not need the rods, you could just say 'ok well see that dip there, that's an old trench so that's where the main is'. The interesting thing is that people seem unable to consciously see the cues (if they are visual) and yet with two sticks in their hands their subconscious sees them anyway and goes direct to their hands.
If people who haven't been taught what to look for are able to recognise the cues anyway then that is a pretty interesting psychological phenomenon, isn't it?
The Amazing Randi tested dowsers for his million dollar prize. He said that, although they _all_ failed his double blind experiments
Is Perchypanther's story not of interest? What holes can you pick in it? No-one knew where the main was, did they?
Is Perchypanther’s story not of interest? What holes can you pick in it? No-one knew where the main was, did they?
You can't entirely dismiss the possibility, for example, that the wily old council plumber might have been there 20 odd years earlier when the original main was laid.
I certainly had no idea of the location but, might well have been subconsciously picking up clues from the environment or from the plumber himself.
Nobody is more sceptical about it than I am. I do believe that the plumbers believed in it.
Edit: You can't also discount the theory that I might be an internet bullshitter and you only have my word that I ain't. Hardly compelling evidence is it? 😉
I was sent to to the site where we were constructing a new sports pavilion in a public park in Lesmahagow.
Ooo, was that in the glebe? I have vague memories of the old one
McKirdy Park - the changing rooms for the tennis courts. 1995-ish
Behind the Black Bull
Cheers. Not where I thought at all but it was fun hunting it on Google maps.
the carpark example also points to the fact that trenches were initially dug to rule out the incorrect locations so the 'diviner' had basically the one remaining route to dowse where the main actually was
