I love Cecil and his posts… and like Rush Limbaugh he’s right most of the time, but on this one there’s a slice of error. As a skeptical educator for the past 41 years I would not have believed it had I not seen it from a credible source. Verizon was installing underground cable to my house and they used a common bent wire to find the location of the underground cable. So while it might not work for water streams alone, there is underground pull for ferrous metals and who knows… maybe some are sensitive enough to feel the pull of water.
You’ve not seen it from a skeptical source, you’ve seen a single instance of something that could be interpreted as successful dowsing for cables. Numerous blind tests however indicate that the most reasonable interpretation is that you, at best, saw an instance of educated guessing mediated through the ideomotor effect.
Welcome to the Straight Dope Message Board, levans999, we’re glad to have you here.
When you start a thread, it’s helpful to others if you provide a link to the column you’re discussing. (I’ve edited your post to add that link at the bottom.) Yes, it’s on the home page now, but in a few days it will disappear into the Archives. So, providing the link saves searching time and keeps us all on the same page. No biggie, you’ll know for next time.
If you do a search (Skeptic’s Dictionary, for one), you’ll see that people claim to be able to use dowsing for all sorts of things, from finding water, metal, and lost objects, to using it for locating and exploring archeological sites, plus probably several other dozen claims.
So the real question isn’t “Does it work?”, the question is: How do you know if something is true or not?
What kind of evidence are you willing to accept?
Please, just run through a few of the alphabetical listings in the Skeptic’s Dictionary and then tell me which of the hundreds of things examined there are real and which are false.
It’s scary when people believe in absurdities.
I think someone once made an important statement about that.
Do you know it?
And why did you start this as a new thread?
Please see the “Water Witching” thread that I started some time ago.
There’s no need to be rude, especially to a new member.
The Skeptic’s Dictionary’s article on dowsing has good information, but it looks like the author was preaching to the choir, not trying to convince someone to change their stance on the subject.
My favorite bit on dowsing is a video of James Randi testing dowsers in Australia (~45 minutes). Its got real people put to a fair test. Randi comes across as reasonable and not condescending (mostly).
In searching for that quote, I found another that fits the conversation:
I would also like to recommend a 45 minute video on the subject, not so much for the discussion of dowsing, but for the bit at the end which shows Randi performing “psychic surgery.” Not only is he a consummate showman, but his commentary brings home the dangers associated with what may seem to be innocuous beliefs.
I think this is an excellent definition of dousing. The thing is, there are a lot of practitioners of dousing who honestly feel that they are incapable of making an educated guess absent the mediation of the idiomotor effect. In this way, while dousing is not paranormal, neither is it charlatanism in every instance. In this way dousing can be said to exist.
I should have done a better job on preview… that’s the same video I linked to. All I can add is that the test is very well arranged and very well executed with the dowsers agreeing to the fairness at every step. There are also several dowsers who seem truly shocked that they failed the test. I can’t read their minds, but I think they truly believe they can do what they say they can do.
That said, I have known some line locators and I have to wonder if the Verizon crew wasn’t maybe playing with the OP… just a little.
levans999 --if dowsing worked, the military would not buy mine detectors, & the oil companies would not spend hundreds of millions of simoleons on creating technologies to probe the Earth for oil.
Sadly, levans999, you are unlikely to return to read these posts, but I wish you well nonetheless.
Thanks Igor, that is a good clip. One of the apparently common claims of dowsers who have failed a double-blind or other test is that the water needs to be flowing for them to find it. You can also see that the female dowser in the Enemies of Reason video believes she failed because she was not allowed to walk over the test bins. (Some part of me wonders if she put her foot on the bins as an out before she even knew her success rate.)
The James Randi test is elaborate and also conforms to rigorous double-blind standards. I’m not able to find a good description of the experiment, but I know there are several out there.
In effect, pipes were laid underground in such a way that the flow of water could be controlled without the testers knowledge and the dowsers could walk over the ground above the pipes and indicate which pipe had water flowing in it. This very closely conforms to what the dowsers claim to be able to do.
In the end, of course, there were still plenty of excuses, but short of digging a well to verify every claim of psychic water witching, I don’t think you’ll find a more comprehensive examination of the subject anywhere.
I think that’s why Randi’s protocol for testing dowsers always gives them a trial run, where they know where the water bottles are, and pretty much without fail, the dowsing powers seem to be working then. After he gets their agreement that the setup is satisfactory, then he does the blinding and their powers magically disappear.
I don’t know whether the dowsers in the Dawkins video were given that chance, but that should be the standard procedure.
Another thing Randi does is to give claimants a sealed envelope before the test, telling them that it’s a prediction of the results and it’s not to be opened until after the test. Afterwards, when the prediction is read, he’s predicted that they will make excuses for why they failed (and that prediction is always right).
Dowsers make all kinds of claims, from finding standing water, to flowing water, empty pipes, electrical lines, buried coins, even antique glass bottles! There are some that, when confronted with a life choice, write potential answers on a sheet of paper, and dangle a pendulum over it, then depending on the way the pendulum swings, think that something is telling them which option to choose. The guy in the Dawkins video explained that he asks God to find something - in the video he wanted the rod to point to the cameraman as he walked.
My point is that you can’t find anything that the dowsers claim to be able to do, because there are as many claims as there are dowsers.
If I recall correctly, the same process is used in the test in Australia.
Of course, Randi is a pretty good showman and mentalist himself, so he could probably have the claimants draw a picture after the test and voilá, the envelope contains the same picture!
I’m sure you would enjoy the Randi in Australia video (assuming you haven’t seen it already). It’s not a focal point of the film, but they do have another test for those who claim to be able to find metallic ore and the like. There isn’t the same documentary coverage of those trials but in the end, those claimants fail as well — almost too spectacularly.
I think your hyperbole does a disservice to your point. There have been numerous tests, experiments and challenges with supposed psychics who agree at every stage that those tests are a fair approximation of their alleged talents. In the case of some challenges, the people who come forward obviously claim to be able to accomplish the challenging task.
I’m sorry for preaching to the choir, but the test in Australia was put together in part to conform to the claims and wishes of the people being tested. If there were no claim to be tested, there could be no valid test. Excuses after the fact do not change that aspect of the testing.
I have spoken to people who claim to be able to locate graves using dowsing techniques so I understand that dowsing does not equal finding flowing water. However, in this case, every attempt was made to find a test that conformed to the specific claims of the specific dowsers.
