# divining rod **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 13, 2004, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/divining-rod/259621 "2004-08-13T00:39:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2004, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/divining-rod/259621/81 "2004-08-18T14:24:00Z")
That’s a bit of a distortion, isn’t it? maybe you should try reading what I said. I’m not trying to prove any paranormal ability here. What I’m showing is the dishonesty and incompitence of Randi. The fact is Randi repeatedly issued a challenge to “find a dry spot” Randi declared that it would be a “better test” of ability. I say finding dry spots is easy, Randi says its paranormal. Randi is a complete isiot. It was foolish to offer the test in the first place. He has negligible scientific knowledge, and an utter inability to design tests properly. Then when I accepted his test, the way he behaved shows him to be a weasel. By the way, the purpose of the test is to challenge people to prove their claims. According to you, anyone that takes the test really believing that their claim real must be lying. Anyone that can really perform shouldn’t take the test, according to you. ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2004, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/divining-rod/259621/82 "2004-08-18T14:43:57Z")
> [@](#): > > I say finding dry spots is easy, Randi says its paranormal. No, he says that _if_ you are claiming a paranormal ability it would be a better test than finding water. > [@](#): > > By the way, the purpose of the test is to challenge people to prove their claims. No, you have that the wrong way round, and have omitted a vitally essential element. The prupose of the _challenge_ is to _test_ people’s claims **of paranormal ability**. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2004, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/divining-rod/259621/83 "2004-08-18T18:22:27Z")
> [@Peter Morris](#): > > I’m not trying to prove any paranormal ability here. What I’m showing is the dishonesty and incompitence of Randi. And why (more Socratic irony, here) would that be worth a milion dollars? ---
**Author:** ![Zakalwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zakalwe/32/270_2.png) [@Zakalwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zakalwe)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2004, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/divining-rod/259621/84 "2004-08-18T19:11:57Z")
**Peter Morris** , No response to my post? I’m curious to see your reaction. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Miskatonic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr.miskatonic/32/310_2.png) [@Mr.Miskatonic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Miskatonic)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2004, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/divining-rod/259621/85 "2004-08-18T20:51:43Z")
I dunno if this sums things up but: Imagine there’s an expert marksman who has a challenge out for you to beat him in a shooting contest. There are a few takers but no winners. Some soon sing the praises of a group of shooters who fill a shotgun with buckshot, put up a target larger than the side of a barn, and shoot at it from point blank range. These shooters and their supporters point at all the holes in the target and sing the praises of their shooting skills. The marksman quips that under such circumstances, it would be a harder trick to miss the target than to hit it. One clueless boy assumes he’s talking about the shooting contest and claims that if he canavoid hitting the target then he is a better shooter than the marksman. ---
**Author:** ![Futile\_Gesture](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f05b48/32.png) [@Futile\_Gesture](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Futile_Gesture)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2004, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/divining-rod/259621/86 "2004-08-18T22:16:12Z")
> [@Mr. Miskatonic](#): > > One clueless boy assumes he’s talking about the shooting contest and claims that if he canavoid hitting the target then he is a better shooter than the marksman. Spot on. But you missed out the bit where he misses the target, but shoots self in foot. Everyone laughs. Well, almost spot on. More like the marksman has challenged those who claim they can hit a target with their eyes shut. This, the marksman says, is impossible. Except the target they want to use is the side of a barn from a distance of 1 foot. Well, says the marksman, if you’re going to do it that way… etc, etc… ---
**Author:** ![ambushed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3bc359/32.png) [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2004, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/divining-rod/259621/87 "2004-08-21T12:07:39Z")
> [@Peter Morris](#): > > Sigh. Belief in James Randi is as crazy as belief in the supernatural. Why are some people so naive as to take him seriously? > > I am not, repeat NOT claiming that dowsing ‘works’ I have no reason to believe that it does. Since you are so petulantly harassing the hell out of Randi with your utterly unjustified insistence that you can claim his prize by paranormally detecting dry spots (note that the prize is **only** for demonstrating a paranormal power), you **ARE** implicitly claiming that dowsing works! You cannot detect a dry spot paranormally without being able to detect “wet spots” paranormally! Your ridiculous claims represent at least as much dishonesty as Uri Geller’s, and _infinitely_ more than Randi’s. ---
**Author:** ![ambushed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3bc359/32.png) [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2004, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/divining-rod/259621/88 "2004-08-21T12:15:51Z")
**buck69** , you and your self-deceiving fellow believers are utterly mistaken. **No one** has **ever** demonstrated the ability to dowse for _anything_ under controlled conditions. You only _believe_ you can dowse, and your belief is completely unjustified and unsound. In any case, it is up to you and/or your fellow self-dupes to present scientifically controlled, methodologically sound, overwhelming scientific evidence that establishes your (or another’s) paranormal claims (even though no such evidence exists). Only once you **prove** it works can you ask how it works! ---
**Author:** ![ambushed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3bc359/32.png) [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2004, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/divining-rod/259621/89 "2004-08-21T12:21:34Z")
> [@buck69](#): > > Ok I know that the subconscious is very powerful, but… I use them all the time in excavating to find these lines and others get the same reading in the same spots without witnessing my doing so. And, it finds the buried lines for me just fine. While there’s good reason to believe you are telling us honestly what you believe, there is no reason at all to believe what you claim. Your (and your fellow believers) unjustified, undemonstrated, counter-evidentiary assertions are a consequence of well-known species-wide psychological reasoning and perceptual flaws. Science exists first and foremost to examine claims in such a way that those flaws are minimized to the fullest extent possible. And science says you are dead wrong. ---
**Author:** ![ambushed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3bc359/32.png) [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2004, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/divining-rod/259621/90 "2004-08-21T12:25:43Z")
> [@Telemark](#): > > Until you do a double blind test, you don’t know that it works. > > As has been shown time and time again, people who believe that divining or witching works for them fail when taken to an unfamiliar environment. Most likely you are picking up on clues that perhaps you are unaware of, but the visual clues _not the divining rods_ are what is driving any success you may have. Remove the clues and they stop working. I’m afraid there’s no reason to believe it works for _any_ reason. It’s not the familiarity with the environment, it’s that dowsing **always** fails whenever it’s carefully examined or tested. As soon as good controls are put in place, the dowser fails completely, even on his home turf. ---
**Author:** ![ambushed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3bc359/32.png) [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2004, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/divining-rod/259621/91 "2004-08-21T12:33:32Z")
> [@Stinkpalm](#): > > I can’t speak to the divining rod being able to find water, but I have witnessed and then performed the operation of using 2 metal rods dangling in my hands and then they cross when over an electrical line. I didn’t believe it at all until I tried it myself. > > When i was in Kuwait another troop claimed that the bars would cross when he walked over the top of a buried comm line. I saw him do it and I thought that he was turning them himself when he went over the line because he knew it was there. So I tried it myself, letting the bars dangle as loosely as possible and looking straight up at the clouds. As soon as I heard the bars hit each other I looked down and I was standing directly over the top of the comm line. I’m sure I didn’t somehow turn them myself and I wasn’t even looking at where I was going. > > I know there is no way to talk the skeptics into believing that this works, but I’m one of the most skeptical people out there and I know it works now. Try it out. I’ve tried it. It doesn’t work; it’s entirely a psychological illusion. If you had read the previous posts more carefully, you would have learned that the “dowser” brings the rods together all by himself. Only the tiniest muscle efforts are needed, and it need not be a conscious movement. All that’s happening is that your brain interprets your perceptions and your beliefs and forces the rods to come together (or whatever) only because you _know_ that’s the right place. If you _didn’t_ already know, such as if you were asked to find water beneath one of ten sealed boxes (all of the others being empty), you would fail miserably, just as every other dowser in the world who’s agreed to be properly tested has failed. ---
**Author:** ![ambushed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3bc359/32.png) [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2004, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/divining-rod/259621/92 "2004-08-21T12:40:28Z")
> [@John Carter of Mars](#): > > Over the years I’ve witnessed a number of new houses built, and thus a number of new wells dug in this rural area where I live. I’m guessing that about 1/4 of the wells that were dug without “witching for water” turned up dry. > Every single well that was located by “witching” has produced water. Make of that what you will. > > If I ever have to get a new well dug, I’ll get the community Witcher to pick my spot. So what if it’s all hokus-pokus and the guy is just lucky or very observant about the indicators of water deeper down. Luck, science or pact with the devil, it’s worth a few bucks to get a good well on the first try. 😛 That’s utterly meaningless. If you dig just about _anywhere_, you will find water (eventually). A friend moved into a house with a pre-existing well that the previous owner proudly insisted was discovered by a water witch. The problem was that it was incredibly deep, as it needed to be to find any water at all. That was a big miss for dowsing! My friend had a new well sited by a professional geologist, and that well only needed to be about a quarter the depth. There is no such thing as a real, genuinely successful water-witch. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2004, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/divining-rod/259621/93 "2004-08-21T13:40:22Z")
> [@ambushed](#): > > I’m afraid there’s no reason to believe it works for _any_ reason. It’s not the familiarity with the environment, it’s that dowsing **always** fails whenever it’s carefully examined or tested. As soon as good controls are put in place, the dowser fails completely, even on his home turf. The point is that there are visible cues for finding pipes and water that people may not realize they are using. If you know in advance where things are, even if you are not contious of the fact, it’s easy to convince yourself that water witching works. If you remove the clues by placing people in an unfamiliar environment, they find themselves unable to pick up the clues and it won’t “work”. I completely agree that dowsing never works, but people carrying dowsing rods can find pipes for example if they are able to use familiar clues in the environment. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Carter\_of\_Mars](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/2bfe46/32.png) [@John\_Carter\_of\_Mars](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Carter_of_Mars)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2004, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/divining-rod/259621/94 "2004-08-22T13:38:49Z")
> [@ambushed](#): > > That’s utterly meaningless. If you dig just about _anywhere_, you will find water (eventually). \ There is no such thing as a real, genuinely successful water-witch. Maybe not. There clearly is no rational explaination for it. Water-witching isn’t something I spend a lot of time thinking about, one way or the other. It’s kinda’ fun to watch somebody do it and harmless, except for possibly continuing the spread of ignorance. The guy that does it around here only charges $20, and it’s worth that to sit on the tailgate of your pickup truck, drink a beer and listen to the comments while everybody waits to see the stick get jerked downwards. Yeah, I’m easily amused. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2004, 10:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/divining-rod/259621/95 "2004-10-12T10:20:42Z")
> [@Peter Morris](#): > > Abe, you missed his best efforts at rebuttal, where he continually called me **f—wit** and **s— for brains** , which passes for logic in Princhester-land. It is not necessary to listen to me. My posts have no substance. In fact, you’d miss out on nothing if you put your hands over your eyes and shouted “I don’t have to read Princhester’s posts because he’s just a name calling troll” at the top of your voice over and over. > [@Dog80](#): > > Still, although I agree with Randi changing the experiment, I find it rather disturbing that some people here rushed to defend him without knowing the full story… > > Bryan Ekers used his psychic powers to detect the selective quoting. Actually he probably just used experience. Some of us know Peter’s techniques well. > [@Peter Morris](#): > > Randi said that water is easy to find, and dry spots are rare. The geologists I consulted said the opposite. Some of them said that. Some of them said the opposite. As anyone can see who goes to the cites you have given and doesn’t take your word for it. But you have only ears for those who agree with you. The key point is, as Randi told you in his very first response, his whole “find me a dry spot” thing is a figure of speech, it’s rhetoric. You attempted to turn it into some sort of exact definition and Randi wouldn’t because it was a mere figure of speech in the first place. > [@Peter Morris](#): > > So, Randi declared finding a dry spot to be paranormal, and accepting his challenge is a “lie” is it? Accepting the terms that he laid out, is dishonest? Yes, because it was only ever a rhetorical challenge. > [@](#): > > I am stating a scientific theory that Randi has been attacking since 1980 or earlier. > > I say that: > > - underground water is fairly rare, and hard to find. > - almost anywhere you dig would be a dry spot. > - underground rivers exist. > - water flows underground according to **Darcy’s Law**. Actually this whole sad business tends to be a prevarication on what "underground water’ means. > [@](#): > > - almost anywhere you dig would be a “successful well.” Is this actually a quote? I can’t source it. > [@](#): > > - underground rivers don’t exist , and belief in them is a delusion. Of course, as you know, what Randi actually has said is that the notion of underground rivers that dowsers believe in is fictional. You like to try to segue that into a suggestion that Randi simply believes all underground rivers are fictional, but as you well know that is not what he has said or means. And as you know, the actual notion of underground rivers that dowsers have is indefensible, even by you. > [@](#): > > In any event, you’re missing the main point of my article. I presented that little anecdote as a demonstration of Randi’s appaling childish and unprofessional behaviour. This is how Randi acts when someone approaches with a reasonable claim. Randi’s behaviour makes it nearly impossible to negotiate a test with him. > > Now, suppose someone with an actual paranormal ability ewanted to be tested. You can bet that Randi will do the same thing. Someone willing and able to show a paranormal ability in the lab would have the same problem. Except that numerous people do apply, do agree with Randi on a protocol, and then fail. In other words your theory has everything going for it except any connection with reality. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2004, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/divining-rod/259621/96 "2004-10-12T15:32:44Z")
**Moderator’s Notes:** **Peter Morris** , [please don’t make accusations of trolling in the public forums](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?postid=2670336). **Princhester** , I don’t think it was really necessary to drag this thread back up at this point. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/divining-rod/259621.md?page=4)