And also according to his website he has absolutely nothing to do with the tests or how they are conducted. And the money involved isn’t his personal money but money collected and held in trust by the foundation which he heads.
But the dowsers don’t claim that, they claim they can find water (or electrical current, or metalic ores) regardless of the location. If they agree to the test, and fail them, who are we to complain.
Let someone come up with a testable claim about geographic formations or energy fields and that will be tested, but it’s silly to say the test isn’t very good when it tests exactly what the dowsers claim.
Oh, well, if Princhester says so, it must be true, cause an obsessed Randi fanatic would never make things up. Merely because he is unable to produce any major examples of errors on my part doesn’t mean that they don’t exist, right. The guy invents ridiculous hypothetical situations, and speculates what I would say in that situation, but that is just as good as producuing actual examples of error. What does he need facts for when he has his hate to carry him through. 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.
Sarcasm aside, Princhester is (mostly) a troll. He has little to say other than flames and insults. I have learned not to bother replying to the type of post Abe quotes above. Its rare that he produces anything worth responding to, and this certainly wasn’t one of them.
Abe, out of “a hundred concise and highly factual posts” you have selected this one as the single greatest rebuttal to my points. You were apparently unable to find any listing facts that I had got wrong. Did you actually read the posts, by the way? Do so, you’ll find that the ones with scientific credentials mostly agreed with the points I raised. It’s just that they say they are willing to “overlook” it because attacking the paranormal is more important that accuracy. There was some attempt at word games, trying to argue that Randi didn’t actually mean what he said, so his errors don’t count… Most of the rest was trolls hurling insults.
Did you notice that Randi promised to answer my points, then failed to do so.
Maybe Randi has better things to do.
Fortunately, we don’t, and can give you the ridicule you so richly deserve. For starters, if I may suggest, a two-prong test for being “an obsessed Randi fanatic” is to dismiss all evidence that Randi was ever mistaken about anything and to attack without cause those who claim anything even remotely anti-Randi. The lead-into-gold example ilustrates that Princhester is willing to entertain the notion that Randi can be demonstrated wrong, if a literal approach is taken. Also, there’s nothing I’ve seen in this thread or the Randi-board thread that suggests you’ve been attacked unfairly. You have been subjected to ridicule, to be sure, though if anyone had called you “fuckwit” and “shit for brains” on this message board, there are remedies you can seek. In any case, the pattern is such:[ul][li]Your attacks on Randi have not invalidated his stance.[/li][li]The attacks of others on you have not validated yours.[/ul][/li]
It’s simply not enough to claim martyrdom. Whether you receive adulation or scorn for your ideas has no bearing on the validity of those ideas. And if you’re going to claim being victimized by personal attacks, I should point out that in this thread at least, you started it. Few people care to be called “naive” in the opening paragraph of an argument. I’m surprised that you act as though you’re surprised by the reaction this gets. That is a fraud.
Not the majority, I think. Traditionally, dowsing was used to locate natural underground water or minerals. Its only a small percentage that claim to be able to find a small quantity of metal in a box. The trouble is that this is the type of test that Randi offers. The majority of Dowsers refuse to be tested in that way. A few accept. Randi then presents these few as representative of the majority.
Peter, in all the correspondance you cite, I can only sympathise with Randi - a busy man even at his venerable age - for becoming frustrated with your accusations. He seems to me to have come right out with an entirely reasonable proposal for would-be dowsers: take some ordinary soil after a period without rain and place it in different identical containers. Pour water into one of these containers. Can the dowser find the wet ground?
What on-or-under-Earth do you find so unreasonable about this suggestion?
Well, I don’t exactly consider using geographic formations to make good guesses at water locations to be paranormal, and am not sure why you’d need a forked stick or two coat hangers to read those formations. As for the “energy fields”, I guess it would depend on what sort of fields you’re talking about, as to whether they fit the category.
Either way, the dowsers agreed to the parameters, and all claimed that they would pass the test given these parameters. None of them passed. If they wish to come up with their own test that meets the criteria of separating wheat from chaff, Randi would likely entertain the idea.
Bryan, a few points:
[ul][li] Randi issued me a direct challenge to list some of his errors. He said : " If any of these claims by Mr. Morris are valid, and if I make no effort at addressing them, my authority is of course invalidated. " He may consider that he has “better things to do” but he shouldn’t have promised to answer them, then.[/li][li] Princhester quite definitely fits your definition as an obsessed fanatic. The fact that he produces this ridiculous imaginary situation shows that he is NOT willing to admit Randi could be wrong, even in the situation he describes.[/li][li] I honestly don’t give a damn what sort of language Princhester uses. He can use swear words from now until doomsday for all I care. It doesn’t upset me, I usually ignore it. I’m not claiming martyrdom by any means. His attacks mean nothing to me. But when someone cites his attacks as a clever rebuttal to my arguments, I simply point that all he has is personal attacks, imaginary examples, and silly word games.[/li][li] I’m not trying to refute Randi’s “stance” at all. Not believing in the paranormal is perfectly valid. I have no objection to that. What I object to is Randi’s methods where he uses badly flawed tests to “prove” that it doesn’t work.[/li][/ul]
SentiMeat, I’ll summarize for you:
During his attacks on dowsers, Randi keeps on claiming that there are huge amounts of water under the earth’s surface. Randi says that you dig anywhere and be almost certain of finding ab plentiful supply of water there. Randi says that finding a dry spot in the ground is a better demonstration of paranormal ability than finding water.
I consulted geologists, they told me that dry spots are everywhere, pick any spot at random and its highly likely to be dry - the exact opposite of what Randi thinks.
I contacted Randi and told him about my consultations with geologists. I offered to take his challenge, and find that dry spot. The protocol for the test Randi offered me involved dowsing for earth in a plastic container.
My objections:
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the fact that he twisted my claim. I’m not a dowser, but he decided I was, and tried to test me accordingly.
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The fact that he offered a test, then when I offered to accept he changed it. Even if I were a dowser, I’d object to that.
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His appalling rudeness during my attempt to negotiate a test. His behaviour made it impossible to progress.
Not sure what that has to do with whether his tests are valid or not. I’m not a dowser either, but if I could pass his test, I’d still win the bucks.
Would you give us complete details on what test he offered that you accepted, then turned around and changed, including what changes he made?
For a million bucks, I can put up with tons of rudeness. Hell, if I were you, I’d take his money just for revenge if I could actually pass his test.
Peter, can you not accept his perfectly understandable reluctance to agree to a monumentally difficult test when a simple one would surely do? Is the whole point of the $1M prize not it that it can only be won by dowsers, not non-dowsers who take issue with a particular quote of his?
Yes, he was perhaps not as patient and polite as you may have found skeptics here, say, but you ought to note that Cecil often writes in a confontational style also. I suspect that if I’d spent half a century dealing with crackpots, frauds and irritating pedants I’d want to get straight to the point in a rather brusque manner also. However, I’m sure that, were you to continue picking at this 94% figure he would eventually admit: “OK, OK, I’m not absolutely sure of the 94% figure and I entertain the possibility that it should be raised or lowered.” It certainly struck me as hyperbole, and definitely not the basis for a test since each ‘guess’ would surely involve a multi-million dollar drilling operation down to the very mantle.
Please, please answer this: WHY is the plastic container/pipes test unacceptable. Surely this is the ideal test of whether there is a real effect there at all?
How many of you tried it for yourselves. I did, just now.
Made a pair of divining rods from a couple of wire coathangers, according to the OP’s instructions.
Walked with them as told, throughout my front yard and directly over our well. Nothing.
Hmmm. But that water’s 220 feet down. (I know this because I twice had to replace the pump due to lightning strikes.) Maybe the water has to be closer to the surface.
So, then, I came inside, and holding the rods over the kitchen sink I told my wife in a dramatic voice: Turn it on! (She was laughing pretty hard but nevertheless managed to whap that faucet open and the water flowed.
I held the rods close to my chest, loosely gripped and parallel to each other, directly over the water swirling in the sink. Damn things didn´t even twitch.
You don’t see that treating a non-dowser like a dowser is wrong? You can’t understand that changing someones claim invalidates the test? Lets suppose that I claimed ability as an astrologer, I go to Randi and offer to prove it, he agrees to test my ability at the Tarrot deck. Would you say he’s offering a fair test? Its the same thing.
The challenge he has made on numerous occasions, over the course of a few decades. Here are a few examples :
That is the challenge he issued to the world at large : dig in the ground, find a dry spot, he will regard that as a “better test” than finding water.
So I told him I was considering accepting his challenge, the geologists having informed me that almost everywhere is “dry”.
The test he offered me was as follows, I quote his exact words "Since you seem to have a tough time with fundamentals, I’ll try to simplify it for you: can you differentiate – by dowsing – between a dry/dessicated/waterless patch of soil in a plastic container, and a wet/damp/soaked patch of the same soil, in a plastic container?"
There you are, that’s the challenge he issued, and how he changed it when I showed willing to accept.
I’d be happy to take his test and keep the $1M, but he iappears unwilling to honour his challenge.
Reluctance to a monumentally difficult test? He was the one that suggested it. He makes a big thing of saying that this is a better test than finding water. He scores points against dowsers by saying that they are not willing to take him up on the challenge. Yes, its difficult. If he doesn’t wan’t to do it, he shouldn’t have issued the challenge.
And, yeah, the challenge is for paranormal powers, while finding a dry spot isn’t paranormal. But Randi made the challenge. He said a claimant should find a dry spot. He said that it would be a “better test” of paranormal ability. I’m
Why is it unacceptable? He issued a challenge to perform a particular feat. I answered : I can do that. So he changed the challenge.
If you really can’t see why I object to this, no amount of explaining would make it clear.
OK, now I get it!
You saw a chance of getting your hands on those 1M dollars by not doing anything in particular (i.e. finding a dry spot), but then Randi changed the experiment and you’ll have to do real dowsing to get the money.
Tough luck buddy! There’s no free lunch. 
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 for example:
Bryan Ekers used his psychic powers to detect the selective quoting. There’s zero chance that Randi could actually be wrong here. Maybe you should claim that $1M
Incedentaly, that’s along the lines of what cult members say about their leaders. “He is strange at times, but he’s my spiritual father to me”. 
Joking aside, I don’t see why Randi has the privilege to be rude and abrassive to anyone.
Guys, get over it! Randi doesn’t possess Pope’s infallibility. He was and still is just a showman.
I, for one, hardly think of Randi as infallible. He certainly makes mistakes, but he usually makes corrections when he finds out. His work, however, does not suffer.
In his newsletter, as well as on the JREF forum, you can see the kinds of people he has to put up with. They would make anyone a bit abrasive. Most of Randi’s abrasiveness is that many people email him with theories and other gobbldeygook that he just can’t be bothered with, and I can’t blame him. He runs a test, not a sound board for wacky theories.
Admittedly, Randi did choose the line of work he’s in and knew that he would be dealing with these people. But that doesn’t mean that he has to put up with time-wasting fools who are seeking end-runs around the testing.
So you want to be tested on your “non-dowsing” abilities? Seriously? I’d guess I was a non-dowser before you were, so do I win? Or are you some bizarro world anti-dowser, whose abilities lie in finding dry spots?
As for the rest of it, that’s standard double-blind testing. He does the exact same thing with dowsers. He doesn’t ask them to just identify where water is, they also have to correctly identify when there is no water in the pipes/pails, etc. They find water or, by not finding it they indicate the absence of it. You find the absence of it, and not finding an absence, would find water. Same test works equally well for dowsers and anti-dowsers alike.
What we’re looking for here are paranormal abilities. If you don’t have any, why is this even an issue?
Randi’s reputation precedes him. Some folks have enough confidence in his goals and methods that they will prematurely declare him to be correct in a conflict, believing that their trust will be shown to be well-placed once all the facts are available (as in this case).
Actually Peter, I don’t think he’s really changing the test at all - merely clarifying it so that it is a more accurate and vastly cheaper test for dowsing abitilites (rather than geological know-how).
Sure, such a challenge could consist of finding a particular “dry spot” which comprised, say, an area comprising a fiftieth of a given region. But to arrange that test would require an enormously expensive surveying operation involving (since you would presumably further take issue with the words “if you drilled down far enough”) numerous 40 km bores down through the Earth’s crust to the upper mantle, just to check the dry spot was really dry. And, after all this, a non-dowser could pass the test by examining geological clues at the surface! This is a fatally flawed version of the test (although, as Randi says, it might still very well be marginally “better” than simply finding water in itself - here I think he is explaining why dowsers feel they have this ability rather than seriously proposing it as an objective and accurate test).
A more rigorous version of the same test could involve simply placing the “dry spot” in an identical plastic container to many “wet spots” and asking the dowser to find it by dowsing, which would take less than an hour and cost mere travel expenses.
You are clearly dead set on your crusade to convince the world that these are two fundamentally different tests, rather than flawed and rigorous versions of the same challenge. You must follow the course you believe to be worthy and just, and I wish you well, Peter. But do not be surprised if others consider you a pedant on a high horse, tilting at semantic windmills with an L-shaped rod.
Some bolding added by me for emphasis.
I realise I’m coming late to the party here, but I call BS on your post.
You stated at the end that you made “an honest attempt to discuss the test”. Well that is a lie by your own admission, at the top you said you don’t believe in dowsing, that you are not a dowser, yet to Randi, you initially claimed to be interested in taking the challenge!
You misrepresented yourself from the start. Why should Randi, or any of us believe a single thing you say?