Finding water with coat hangers

Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
61

Ah, yes, the Gauquelin affair – now I remember – your favorite fallback argument!

You won’t be able to pick much of a fight with me here – I have parted company with Kurtz, partly because he didn’t support Randi when the Geller suit came up. Although I fully agree with Kurtz’ philosophy and ideals, I think others (like Shermer, Randi, Plait) make better leaders for skeptics; their tactics and foci are in a better direction.

So My Eyes Have Glazed Over whenever the Gauquelin affair is mentioned. This has been going back and forth for a long time and it’s too time consuming to keep up with the details. So I won’t agree or disagree with you here. I do know that you like to pick out small details, possibly misunderstood, possibly unimportant, never significant, and harp away at them ad nauseum. I don’t have the stomach for that again.

I do think that the Gauquelin premise (that persons born under certain signs share significant characteristics that cannot be explained otherwise) has not been sustained by subsequent studies, and the hoped-for verification of astrology is no closer now than 50 years ago. Dennis Rawlins’ claims are as much BS now as ever, and I don’t see how Rawlins or Gauquelin relate to this thread.

As far “the test was fair because all participants agreed it was”, with regards to the OP, or dowsing, I am referring specifically to the Million Dollar Challenge from JREF. AFAIK, for all tests given under that banner, the participants:[ul][li]First are given a chance to perform without blinding, and they perform adequately,[]Sign a statement that they can perform as promised when blinded and that the test meets their requirements and is fair,[]Fail spectacularly when the test is blinded in a scientific manner.[/ul]No one has been able to prove any claimed dowsing ability of any kind exists under proper controls.[/li]
That’s the bottom line. Dowsing simply doesn’t work. Cecil said it, and I believe it.

Why does it appear to work to some? Wishful thinking and ignorance.

62

Mainly because Randi was clearly in the wrong. Randi made a petty spiteful and libelous attack on Geller, and CSICOP didn’t want to be responsible for it.

Randi’s sole focus is to make money for himself, and his tactics are to cheat and lie. He tells lies to impress people such as yourself. People like you are thus persuaded to fill his pockets.

Most people can see that he’s lying. Some people, such as yourself, simply refuse to see reality. Some other people are perfectly well aware that he’s lying, and are happy to support lies. But most people see that he’s lying and think that he’s a prick, and that he represents the skeptics in general.

Oh, so it’s our old friend special pleading once again, huh? Logic of the JREF test only applies to the JREF test, and to nothing else. Signing an agreement that it’s fair only means something when Randi does it. Signing an agreement that it’s fair means nothing when anyone else does it.

63

Most? Is that hyperbole or can you back it up?

To date, I have seen no credible evidence that Randi is lying about anything paranormal.

Also to date, I have seen no credible evidence whatsoever that believers in dowsing, ESP, telekinesis, astrology, and other junk science are not lying.

People have been claiming dowsing abilities for hundreds of years, and somehow not one single person has been able to demonstrate those abilities under laboratory conditions, in front of credible witnesses.

64

Oh well, I was having a hard time finding willing assistants anyway.

More to the point, upthread was a challenge to try dowsing. In the spirit of the Dope, I was planning to do just that. I had specifications and planned a trip to the hardware store to buy appropriate supplies.

But I don’t have any psychic abilities, so it seems like it would be a waste of time and energy.

65

Did you ever see Randi’s show The Ultimate Psychic Challenge? Randi went up against some alleged psychics and tried to expose their trickery.
At the start the studio audience was polled to find out their opinions on psychic powers.

44% believed.
37% undecided
19% disbelieved.

At the end of the show the audience was polled again.

54% believed
24% undecided
22% disbelieved.

Yeah, look at that. There were more believers at the end than at the start. The audience watched Randi, and his performance made the psychics seem credible by contrast.

As far as I can see, this is the usual reaction to Randi. On that show he did the same things he always does, no better, and no worse than usual. The reaction he got is, I’m sure, the same reaction he always gets. He impresses a few, and alienates the majority. Every time he opens his mouth in public, the cause of rational skepticism is damaged. Every time he attacks a psychic, the credibility of the psychic goes up a notch.

No, he tells lies about himself. He tells stories about how James Randi conducted a test, and how James Randi won, And pointing out that James Randi was the one thad did it, and how clever James Randi is for doing so, and why James Randi deserves your praise, and how James Randi needs to have your money in his pocket in order to continue doing so.

All of the stories he tells are based around making himself appear heroic. That usually requires a lot of embellishment, exaggeration, and generally slanting the tale in his own favour.

And some of the stories he tells are just simply fabrications with no basis in reality at all.

Nor have I ever claimed otherwise. Almost all of them are certainly lying. However, when Randi claims, falsely, that he has exposed the, he makes himself equal to them.

66

For those who aren’t acquainted with Peter Morris, he has a history of bashing James Randi and JREF. Nothing they do pleases him. He often picks a tiny item, sometimes misinterpreted, and tries to blow it out of proportion. It’s a textbook example of “I’ve got a chip on my shoulder and I dare you to knock it off.”

IANAMod, but wouldn’t we all be more interested in the OP? Peter Morris, do you have anything constructive to say regarding finding water with coat hangers that doesn’t have anything to do with James Randi?

67

Yeah, I have a history of exposing James Randi for what he is.

Nothing that the JREF does pleases me. That is correct. The major purpose of the JREF is to make money for Randi at the expense of decent sceptics. Why would I be pleased to see innocent victims duped into giveing him money? What about that should please me, exactly?

I often pick a tiny item? Hardly. I pick gigantic lies that Randi has used over and over. I pick cases of Randi spewing out streams of hate speech, thus discrediting the decent sceptics. I pick cases of decent sceptics repeating Randi’s lies and getting sued, thus ending up hundreds of thousands of dollars poorer as a result. These are not minor objections.

As for the rest, yes lets stick to the OP’s points and not bring Randi into it again. If you don’t mention him again, I won’t either. It is of course usually you who brings Randi into these things.

68

One more time…

Peter Morris, do you have anything constructive to say regarding finding water with coat hangers that doesn’t have anything to do with James Randi?

69

That’ll work.:wink:

70

You are the one going on about him. If you shut up about him I will have no reason to talk about him.

71

Him? Him who? OK, Peter Morris, do you have anything constructive to say regarding finding water with coat hangers?

A “No” would be sufficient.

72

Do you?

73

Yes, I do. And thanks for asking.

This isn’t the first time I’ve referenced these works, but they were quite eye-opening when I first ran across them a few decades ago.

Kenneth Roberts, the late, best-selling historical novelist, became fascinated with dowsing in his later years. He used his writing skills to pen an article and three books on the subject, all available from used book sources. The books are: Henry Gross and His dowsing Rod, The Seventh Sense, and Water Unlimited. The first article was published in a magazine (I think) and is part of the Kenneth Roberts Reader, a collection of Roberts’ short works.

The reason I find these fascinating is they purport to be a chronicle, in non-technical narrative, of a successful dowser who earned his living traveling around the world finding water for paying customers. Successes are documented and celebrated, failures (seemingly not many!) are artfully explained away. Roberts, who set up a corporation for Henry Gross and acted as his promoter and business manager in a very busnesslike manner, is a true believer and a good storyteller.

If Gross, who died years ago, would have known about the MDC, I think he would have applied for it with absolute confidence. No one in these stories is portrayed as a charlatan; science is portrayed as “just not ready” for reality. Scientific tests were performed, but were “inconclusive”, which Roberts took to mean the tests were faulty. No way that Henry could be wrong with all these paying customers!

Map dowsing is used; distance dowsing was common, with up-close visits to pinpoint locations; attempts were made at dowsing for other substances, but Roberts came to the conclusion that the only thing that worked reliably was detecting “flowing underground water”, not gold, uranium or lost dogs. My personal thought is that’s because it’s hard to find gold, but relatively easy to find water if your only tool is random location selection.

This set of books is ripe for a psychological overview. I wish I had the time and credentials to critique them, but I urge skeptics to read them and try to figure out what the psychological force is behind Roberts’ beliefs. Truly a challenge.

74

I didn’t know you could use a coat hanger. I thought you ‘needed’ to use hazel rods.

75

And once again you come back to your obsession.

Do you have anything to say on the subject without citing James Randi?

76

Cite? I have discussed this matter with geologists and have been reliably informed that it’s very difficult to find significant water underground. If you just dig at random. Locating a good source for a well requires a very expert geologist plus a detailed survey. If you just dig at random it’s extremely likely to come up dry.

77

1/ It could certainly be the case that a test design, agreed to by both parties, could turn out to be flawed in some way. Potentially it could be grossly unfair if such a flaw were ignored and the result of the test treated as valid regardless of the flaw. However, this isn’t a serious problem, long term. All you need to do is retest, after eliminating the flaw from the test design. For example, in the case of the Gauquelin affair, the analyses were redone with the flaw removed from the statistical analysis, and all was good, in the end.

In the case of flaws in the design of dowsing (or for that matter other) JREF tests, if a testee did agree a protocol and then failed a test and then had a :smack: moment when he/she realised that they had overlooked a flaw in the protocol that prevented them from achieving proper results, then they would only have to sit out the requisite waiting period (12 mths I think) and then be tested again with the flaw in the protocol removed.

Despite dowsers being (as I understand it) the most commonly tested JREF applicant, they still haven’t passed a test. If there were a Gauquelin style flaw in the testing design against dowsers’ interests, you’d think that one would have applied by now, or re-applied, with the flaw removed.

In other words, while it should be acknowledged that a flaw can *theoretically *exist in a mutually agreed protocol, it is throwing the baby out with the bathwater to suggest that this is an actual problem, or that the theoretical problem invalidates entirely the opportunity represented by the JREF challenge to the OP, who is shortly to be a rich and famous man.

2/ Testing protocols are necessarily rigid because there is significant money at stake. It would certainly be unwise for the OP to agree to a particular protocol element, such as being able to achieve a particular rate of success, if he can’t achieve that.

3/ The ideomotor effect can cause someone to have a physical effect on an object (coat hanger, stick or whatever) without realising it. The significance of this to this debate is that dowsers may think that dowsing must be effective merely because the object moves without them moving it consciously. The significance of the ideomotor effect does not lie in whether or not the hands move the object or the object moves itself, and the fact that dowsers may freely acknowledge that their hands move the object is irrelevant.

4/ The debate about how easy it is to find water tends in my experience to hinge around how much water you have to find before you are acknowledged to have “found water”. IMHO, the only relevant measure, for the purpose of this debate is “enough water that a dowser can claim they have not failed”.

In my view (perhaps I’m overly cynical ) a dowser who finds some water but perhaps not an ideal amount of water is going to claim this shows dowsing works, because they found some water.

According to, for example, the Missouri Department of Natural Resources:

And according to the US Geological Survey:

78

There are as many different techniques and gadgets as there are dowsers. Since they each think theirs is best, but none of them work any differently (that is, at all), we have a broad field of delusions.

I asked a local well driller once what his success rate was as to finding water. He said as long as his client had enough money, it was just a matter of depth. He couldn’t remember drilling a dry hole, since, in my area at least, it’s rare to have to go deeper than about 600 ft unless you have the bad luck to hit solid bedrock with no cracks. And in karst country like mine, there are a LOT of cracks, but a shortage of dry holes.

When I had the well for my home drilled, I picked a spot that was convenient for the driller and well situated for connection to my house, and we drilled there. Water was found as expected, around 50 ft down, about the same as my neighbors (we had to keep drilling past 170 ft to satisfy state legal requirements.)

Obviously, no dowser can ever be wrong in my county, whether he uses coat hangers, pendulums or frisbees. Mumbo-jumbo works, too.

79

Thank you for that.

A couple of points about that.

The first and most important point is that the flaws are visible to most people the first time. They almost always spot problems during the initial negotiation. And Randi always acts like a pig, refuses to compromise, just simply tells them that they will either be tested under his conditions, or not at all. Most of them refuse his test, because it is so obviously flawed. It is very rare for anyone to actually sign that agreement saying that it’s fair. The overwhelming majority can see that

Second pointon at least one occasion a failed applicant has reapplied and tried to negotiate a test that eliminates the flaws. And has found that Randi insists on doing exactly the same test, flaws and all, and will not even discuss any compromise.
Oh, and Musicat’s question still stands. Do you think you can discuss dowsing without citing James Randi? Do you have anything to contribute to the thread without talking about him? Musicat has shown that he can’t. Can you?

80

The point is that “dry” is a relative term. There’s lots of factors to consider such as 1) yield 2) quality 3) ease of access, and these can all vary enormously in a short distance. Drill in one spot and get a thousand gallons per minute. Drill 100 metres away and get 20 GPM. Drill in one spot and the water is of good quality. In a different spot the water is brackish. In one spot you hit solid bedrock, in another spot it’s soft going. In one spot there’s water near the surface. In another spot it’s way, way down

So, yes you’ll find *some *water in most places, but most of them would not make useful wells.