The thing is, it doesn’t actually matter whether it’s an ideomotor effect at all. Maybe a dowser has psychic powers that cause him to know subconsciously where the water is, and it’s that subconscious knowledge that guides the ideomotor effect. If that were the case, I’d still be pretty impressed, ideomotor or not. The real question, stripped down to its fundamentals, is whether you can determine the location of water (or pipes, or whatever else you think you can detect) with better than chance accuracy? If you can do that, then we can start arguing about how you’re doing it. But nobody’s demonstrated an ability to do that, yet.
Neither do they find water by dowsing. It’s been tested repeatedly and shown not to work at all. I’ve tried it and putting on a blindfold pretty much proves that it has nothing to do with where water (pipes/etc) are. It’s like a Ouiji board, if you eliminate the possibility of controlling the action the phenomenon disappears.
It’s simply a matter of:
- ideomotor effect
- being familiar with the location or similar locations
- falsification or wishful thinking
Remove any of those and dowsing will fail everytime. I have no doubt the wires dipped near the water line, but it doesn’t show that it was because of the water line. When it’s tested in a controlled environment NO ONE can make it work.
Yes, I have. When I first heard about dowsing, as a young teenager, and not knowing that water was so easy to find everywhere, I went to a location where I knew there was an artesian well. I figured that if I saw it bubbling out of the ground and flowing down a stream, I would be able to detect it using a Y-shaped stick or other device. Near the stream I expected to observe a dramatic action, away from it, not so much.
The minute I picked up the Y-shaped stick and held it in the traditional position, palms up, I found immediately that any squeezing of the hands in a tighter grip made the pointer spring up, exactly as I expected it to do. I was unable to detect any motion other than the one I was so obviously excerting myself.
The spring and stream made no difference. Close to it, far away, facing it or not. It had no effect. And even though I was only a teenager and hadn’t yet had high school physics, I had had many toys that acted in exactly the way physics predicted and this toy was no different.
(The springing upward motion reminded me of some toys I had as a toddler that worked much the same way when you pressed a lever or straightened a crooked dowel.)
I tried with L-shaped rods, and the basic physics seemed so obvious to me that for many years, I simply couldn’t figure out how people could be so ignorant and self-deceived. It wasn’t until I studied how people fool themselves that I understood what was happening. It isn’t a mysterious force, it’s psychology.
Now you may conclude that the reason my experiments failed is I don’t have the talent or “touch”. Could be, but I doubt it.
I don’t see ghosts in the attic, either. Reality is too exciting to get caught up in this fantasy crap.
You will find that different dowsers have different techniques, and they are often at odds with one another. Since none of them can prove their technique works under proper observing conditions, they continue to maintain because it “works” for them, it is the right way.
Henry Gross made the “discovery” that once the underground stream had been located, he could walk forward or backward until the rod dipped (he used a forked stick) again. He thought the distance from dip 1 to dip 2 equalled the depth to the water. (Draw an isosceles triangle to illustrate – one side is depth, the other equal side is horizontal length; they are equal and the angle from the second dip is 45 degrees to water.)
He stopped doing that laborious task when he “found out” that his rod understood English speech and would answer him yes or no. Henry: “How far to the water? Is it 10 feet?” If the rod dips, he tries “20 feet?”, etc. until it doesn’t dip anymore. The last number is the most accurate one.
Amazing! A wooden stick speaks English! Hears sounds! Can see underground! And has intelligence! :rolleyes:
See, if you believe, it doesn’t matter how you interpret your data, and no one can prove you wrong.
Pendulums have been used to predict the sex of an unborn baby. It moves clockwise for a boy, back and forth for a girl. Or is it the other way around? Doesn’t matter, you will always be half right. Remember the hits, discard the misses.
Musicat, I’m glad to hear you’ve at least tried it. I don’t assume that I have a talent that you don’t have. It was just striking to me when it apparently “worked”, because I’m usually skeptical about things. I’ll have to try it again sometime.
I understand all that. I said I didn’t accept the argument. I just didn’t want to go into it because it was a hijack in this context, and as you know there are certain posters who tend to get involved in this sort of discussion and turn the discussion into a trainwreck if the issue is discussed.
Here’s how I was convinced that such “dowsing” works:
During my first summer at a co-op student job with a small city engineering department, the city engineer and his survey crew went to a residential subdivision street without me, perhaps coincidentally on trash collection day, while the street was lined with trash cans. (That’s important later.)
I was brought there a half-hour later with another cow-orker and they gave me two L-shaped brass rods with the long part of the L being about 30 inches long and the short part about 6 inches long. The short ends were inserted into 6-inch-long copper tubes which I was told to hold vertically, with the long parts pointing straight ahead.
I was told to find the water lines running across part of the road’s width from the longititudinal water main into one or more houselots, by walking along the street. As I walked along the street holding the rods straight in front of me, lo and behold, all of a sudden they would rotate to the side, the left one to the left and the right one to the right. I was told to stop there and the guys went to the roadside and moved the trash barrel that they had placed over the water meter/valve. Unknown to me, they had placed barrels over several of the roadside meters/valves to hide their locations from me. I did this several places along the street and found several more of the lateral water lines. That was in
1958.
In the decades since then, I worked for a (small) number of governments and/or have discussed such matters with other utility employees and most of them have owned and used such equipment, though they have been much replaced with more sophisticated electronic detectors capable of locating any type of underground utilities, by their magnetic or electric qualities. The only time the rods failed me was when I was under overhead high tension electric lines. I have my own set of rods but have had no need to use them lately. I have not tried coathangers.
How was it “reproducable”?
After the first time, the statement “I had no idea where it was” is certainly no longer true, right?
Assuming it was even true in the first place. You certainly had an idea where one end of it was, right – at the house?
The location of water lines is a pretty common-sense item, and fairly easy to guess in most cases. Even easier with experience; my brother is a professional locator, and he can frequently determine the probable location of utility lines just from looking at the property, before even starting to use his professional tools to locate them.
Here’s a simpler method of demonstrating the ideometer effect. I read it in a womens magazine 35 years ago, when it was suggested as a test to see if the reader had latent psychic abilities.
Take a short length of string or fishing, line, about 12 inches long, and tie a small weight to one end. I used a hex nut.
Sit at a table, and brace your elbows against it. Clasp your hands together solidly, then hold the other end of the string between your fingers, and let the weighted end hang down. Make sure your hands are braced absolutely solidly, so that you can’t subconsciously move them!
Now, stare at the weight, and try to use your mind to make it move in circles. Once again, make sure you’re holding your hands totally still, so that only your mind can affect the weight. If it starts moving… congratulations, you’re a psychic!
Needless to say, I was quite gratified when I did this and found out I was special. What kid doesn’t want to have mysterious powers? Alas, I could not leave well enough along, and contrived additional tests where I braced my hands against something solid, or wrapped the string around something and just touched it with my fingers, instead of holding it. When I did this, my mysterious powers vanished. 
Still, the test is quite convincing when you first do it. You’re positive your hands are braced, and you’re not moving them at all… but you can make that weight do all sorts of fancy tricks.
That question is extremely easy to answer. It is a wonder that it fools anyone.
Separating the two parts:
- “all participants sign statements agreeing that the test is fair beforehand”
Because it is very possible that there are mistakes that nobody notices until after the test. Merely having two people agree that the test is fair does not mean that the test is fair. Especially if one, or both parties has no scientific training.
Case in point, see the sTARBABY fiasco from the early days of CSICOP. Briefly, the story is that they challenged an astrologer to prove his claims. A test was negotiateed between them. Both parties signed an agreement that the test was valid and fair, and the results would prove or disprove the astologer’s claims. Both parties signed the agreement, remember that fact. So, the astrologer took the test, which both parties had agreed to. He passed. He got a positive result. The result he got proves his claims true, if you accept the agreement signed by both parties before the test.
The test was in fact flawed. A positive result in the test does not in fact prove the claims, it merely highlights the flaws in the test. The fact that both parties agreed to a test does not make it immune to fault.
2) all applicants are able to perform 100% when not blinded
The problem here is that participants are not allowed any freedom here. This would only be meaningful if they volunteer the information of their own free will. But in actual fact their actions are dictated to them.
The dowser is told explicitly that he must declare a 100% positive reaction, or be instantly disqualified. So, the tester places the target object in, for instance, position no 2. Then the tester tells the dowser: You must show a positive reaction from position no 2, and a negative reaction from all other positions. Fail to do this, and you will be immediately disqualified.
Repeat the above 20 times. Tell the dowser that he is required to score 20 out of 20. If he only gets 19, he will be disqualified.
This does not prove that the test is fair. If they declare a 100% result, they do not necessarily believe it. It shows only that they were intimidated by the threat.
Actually it rarely comes to that. Most dowsers refuse to take the test under those conditions. Mostly, they do not declare a 100% success rate, and are unwilling to declare such. Only on extremely rare occasions does someone actually take the test and show a 100% rate in the open test. It hardly ever happens, and the very few that do so are acting under direct threat.
By the way, in regard to the ideomotor effect, I actually went to some dowsers and directly asked them what makes the rod move. You can see their answers here
http://britishdowsers.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=222
“… when the mind contacts an object or substance it is looking for there is a reaction of the nerves in the wrist(s) of the holder that inclines the rods and that makes them
turn one way or another…”
Pretty much every dowser I’ve encountered made a similar claim. Most, or all of them seem perfectly well aware that the rod or pendulum is responding to movements in their own hands.
And yet…wait for it…they still can’t pass a test!
Hard to imagine just how more “fair” it can be.
“Is the test fair?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Are you really, really sure? Have you inspected all conditions? Can you perform as you claim without question?”
“Absolutely. No question. Bring it on. I’m ready to show the world.”
{applicant fails the test}
“Waaaaaaaah! The test wasn’t fair! It was rigged! I was robbed! You are all a bunch of ugly, rotten meanies and you stink!”
:rolleyes:
So, when CSICOP tested the astrologer with a test that both had agreed to, and he passed, was that a valid test? Given that both of them had agreed that it was?
What would a dowsing thread be without Peter Morris? :rolleyes:
I notice that you have dodged the question. Please answer.
I’m not familiar with the test you are referring to, or if I am, it doesn’t ring a bell. Got link?
As far as the ideomotor effect, it makes no difference whether the dowsers know about it or not. Maybe they think it’s conscious, maybe not. Maybe they think it is some kind of interaction between water, brain and hands. No matter. They still can’t find anything – water or anything else – better than guessing or chance, under proper observing conditions, so exactly how or if the rod moves is a moot point. Show that a phenomena exists first, then we can discuss the “how”.
Furthermore, I can make a rod (pendulum, forked stick, whatever) perform exactly as dowsers do just by using subtle muscle contractions or nearly imperceptible hand movements. You have a dowser show me where he thinks water is, and I will make my rod detect it in the same way. I daresay if you videotaped both of us performing and showed that to someone who didn’t know who the “real” or “fake” dowser is, he couldn’t tell the difference. Shades of Geller’s spoon-bending done by a magician, eh? Casts quite a bit of doubt as to what the “force” really is, in both cases.
And while it is not too much of a stretch to postulate that some kind of “ray”, “wave” or “force” emanates from flowing underground water that can be detected in some yet-unknown fashion, there are those who claim that they can find water through “map dowsing”, where distance is not a factor. This changes the playing field significantly – the ideomotor effect isn’t sufficient to explain how you can draw a crude map and your rod will talk to you about where the water is. But wishful thinking and other human delusions are.
It’s pretty well known. You can google for Mars effect, sTARBABY, Gauquelin affair, and find tons of commentary about it.
Here’sa long article about it, written by a founding member of CSICOP.
It’s very long and rather tedious, so I’ll summarize.
-
Gauquelin claimed a statistical correlation between the position of Mars at time of birth, and one’s chosen career.
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The fledgeling CSICOP, then in the process of being formed, challenged him to prove it.
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CSICOP’s leader, Paul Kurtz, and Gauquelin negotiated a test, which both parties declared was fair and reasonable.
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One of CSICOP’s founder members named Dennis Rawlins tried to point out to Kurtz a number of fundamental problems in the test design. Kurtz told him to shut up.
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The test went ahead. The flaws in the test slanted the results in Gauquelin’s favour, and he succeeded in the test as set.
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CSICOP then tried to cover up the result, and claim that Gauquelin had failed.
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Rawlins blew the whistle on them, and was kicked out as a result.
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Later analysis of the test by other statisticians shows that it was fundamentally flawed from the start.
So, there’s your description. Your mission, should you decide to accept it is to reconcile the following paradox. Kurtz agreed that the test was a fair one. The results of the test went against him. Is he entitled to say that the test wasn’t in fact a fair one? Can he point out flaws in the test design, which he agreed to, and say that the results are not right? Or should he stick to his original agreement, and say forever that the test was fir and reasonable after all?
Holy wait a second here!
I’ve been planning to do this test myself to see if it works and what you’re telling me is that it won’t work if I don’t have some psychic talent?
WTF are we talking about here? Something that one does with an actual tool, a magic trick, or a psychic affectation?
I was even going to go to the hardware store to get lengths copper, because I got the idea that copper was better for this.
No, I’m not saying that, I’m commenting on the strawman argument used by certain pseudo-skeptics on this forum.
Sorry if that got pointed at you, I meant it as a more general question.
However, from your link to the British Society…:
Unerlining Mine
…also from that link
Seems pretty clear to me that we are talking about finding water with the mind and that the rods are an affectation. Maybe I should try it with a pair of scantily clad young women instead.
“When I cross the water llne, the sequined brassieres of my assistants will spontaneously peel away!”
Not exactly. The first part is correct, they find water with their mind. When they detect water with their minds it causes their hand to twitch. The purpose of the rod is to magnify that twitch and make it easier to see. Some dowsers dispense with the rod altogether, and just use their hand.
At least that’s what they claim. I’m not a dowser and do not support their claims.