But probably not a useful one, IMHO. Belief in a given paranormal ability persists where that ability is one that is inherently hard to test ie it involves confounding factors, or factors for which it is hard to control, or which are expensive to test, or which play up to some of the less reliable aspects of the human brain mk1.
If you speak to old utility guys you will get a mess of rumour, anecdote, hearsay, confirmation bias, and what I would call memorability bias (the tendency of people to remember amazing hits, but forget boring misses) and so on.
To re-iterate… I do not believe in dowsing. Watch the video again. There is a direct and instant correlation to the wands being above the water. I understand your complicated set up but I don’t the OP or casual dowser will go through that much trouble to disprove something they believe.
My method is simple and easy. Set up the video camera and the (blindfolded) dowser then move water under the wands and then away repeatedly.
Actually, I issue this challenge to the OP. YouTube is easy and free. Come on, I trust you.
I’ve seen that video lots of times, but correlation does not prove causation. Much like magicians can duplicate “psychic” spoon-bending, I can duplicate the same actions anywhere you want (someday maybe I’ll make a video to illustrate, but that’s not a high-priority item on my to-do list right now).
If you “don’t believe in dowsing”, why do you find this video so convincing (of something, I’m not sure what)? Simple physics can explain any and all rod and pendulum movement. Why are you searching for some other, more obscure and doubtful reasons?
I don’t see why the water jug method is so complicated. Hard to find empty jugs in your area? Short of water or sand? Can’t find a coin to toss? A box to cover them?
Keep in mind that an objective result is preferred over a subjective one. If you want to do the moving-hose kind of test, just define first what constitutes a success and failure, not afterwards. How far will you move the hose? Will the dowser be notified that <now> is the time to decide where it is? Will there be water in the hose at all times? How will you decide when to move it and when not (a coin toss on every 10 minute mark might be good)? Can you be sure the hose movement cannot be detected thru normal means (sound, vibration)?
Unlike the jug test, you also have to guard against fake blindfolds. Kuda Bux can drive a car thru an obstacle course while blindfolded and there’s a Russian girl who claims to read a paper that way, too. I suggest you employ the services of a competent magician to avoid being fooled. The water jug test eliminates most of those concerns right off the bat.
As has been pointed out already this is a strawman. Every dowser I’ve ever encountered knows this already. Ask a dowser why the rod or pendulum moves in his hand, he will happily tel you that it’s magnifying twitches in his hand, and he is moving it himself.
Just want to point out that the jug test isn’t necessarily a valid test of dowsing skills. Dowsers will tell you that they can detect water flowing through the ground in thousands of gallons. Very few will tell you that they can detect a jugful. Oh, you’ll get one or two agreeing to take the test, but most will decline.
The jug test is valid if those tested say it is valid, and plenty have so far…and failed miserably. Those that refuse to take this type of test refuse to take any type of test that is doubled-blinded.
So we’ll test the ones who agree. And if they pass the baseline test where it is NOT blinded (and they all seem to do that one pretty well), then, and only then, will they be invited to continue with a propery blinded one.
And if a gallon jug isn’t big enough, just how big does it need to be? How about a 5 gal sparkletts bottle? A 20 gal carboy? My residential well only pumps a few gals/min at max, but I never heard any dowser decline to find residential water because it was too small to detect.
Actually, if dowsing only works on large quantities of water, a dowser should have such a strong pull in my front yard that he would be instantly tossed into Lake Michigan if he didn’t let quickly go of the rod. Now that would be a sight to see.
(See my sig if you don’t understand what my “front yard” is.)
There is a very obvious point which you continually refuse to see about that. I’ve told you this repeatedly but you keep on skipping the point. Please try to answer.
During the baseline test the participants are directly threatened. The threat is that they will be disqualified unless they say EXACTLY what they are told to say. It goes like this:
I am putting the jug of water in box no 2. Wave your stick over box number 2 and tell me you are getting a reaction. Say anything else, anything at all, and you will be immediately disqualified. Immediately, do I make myself clear.
On extremely rare occasions, you’ll get a dowser agree to this. He’ll wave his stick above box number 2, and say that he’s getting a reaction. What that shows is that he is intimidated by the threat. He doesn’t really think that he’s getting a reaction from box no 2. He’s just submitting to the threat made against him.
It is extremely rare that this even happens. Most dowsers refuse to go along with such an obvious fraud.
Any test including a baseline test under those conditions is obviously flawed. It cannot be regarded as a reasonable test of dowsing skill.
Stop me if this question has been asked before, but it is my understanding that underground aquifers are, I dunno, kinda big. Why would a dowsing rod tell me to drill at this point and not a meter or two to the right or left?
It’s not just dowsing rods, real geologists do it too. The water supply can vary a lot in just a short distance. For example, streams can be burried by geological processes over millions of years, and they continue to flow, underground. Dig a well at this spot, and you hit the underground channel, and get lots of water. Dig a well 50 metres away, you miss the underground channel, and you only get a tiny trickle.
Real geologists can locate such features through science. It really does matter where you put your well. Locating a good spot for a well requires great geological expertise and a careful survey.
To what extent is this a transcript of real, verifiable events? This isn’t me making a pissy request for a cite, this is me thinking I may well side with you in this matter if events and dialogues such as you describe above can be reliably verified.
I have never observed a test conducted as Peter Morris describes.
In any case, all tests are voluntary. If you, as a participant, feel pressured to do anything you don’t agree with, it is your right to walk away. No one is holding a gun to your head and telling you what to say or do.
It is precisely for this reason that I think we can believe those who agree, in advance, that a test is fair. I am not calling them liars and I don’t see why they would. It certainly wouldn’t advance their case.
Although my money is on the side of geologists, it is sometimes difficult to tell exactly how things look below the surface, even with sophisticated instruments, which is why drilling for oil is so hit & miss.
Certainly if you end up drilling into a big, solid rock, you will have a hard time extracting water even if you are surrounded by it. Seismological tests can be expensive, but what to do if the subsurface gives you problems?
In my personal experience, when we drilled my residential well, we found ample water around 50 feet from the surface, in sand, but the state law requires a minimum depth of 170 feet, and the shaft must be cased down to that depth to avoid potentially contaminated water seeping in. Unfortunately, when we got to 170 feet, we were in solid bedrock. If we had been lucky, we might have hit a crack, but since we didn’t, it was cheaper to continue down than start a new hole a few feet away. From past experience, well drillers in the area expect to break thru bedrock around the 200-300 ft level, and we did, so my well is 330 ft deep.
If you read the Kenneth Roberts books, you will find that dowser Henry Gross always tried to pinpoint the best spot to drill. His theory of underground water was different from geologists’, and he thought water rose vertically from deep in the earth in “domes”, then not far from the surface, spread out in “veins” where apparently gravity took over. His goal was to find where two veins crossed, perhaps at different depths and even from different domes, and drill there. So, yes, he spent a great deal of time looking for the exact, ideal location.
He felt that veins could be sharply defined in rocky areas, much less so in sandy ones, which makes sense, I guess. Sandy areas would soak up a flow and spread it around, making it hard to extract a large quantity.
In reality, it probably doesn’t make much difference since “underground aquifers are, I dunno, kinda big”, but dowsers wouldn’t be in much demand if everyone thought that, would they?
Certainly if such a pinpointing skill were possible, it would be valuable. Drilling in sand is cheap, but the cost goes up if you must handle rock.
A big but here is that drilling thru solid rock does not require as much casing (pipe), I hit solid rock very close to the surface and my 40 GPM 145 ft well only needed about 35 ft of pipe.
Just for a start it’s right there in Musicat’s description of the test. Read what he said.
And if they pass the baseline test where it is NOT blinded … then, and only then, will they be invited to continue with a propery blinded one.
Right there, you have the clear threat: Declare a success in the baseline test, or be disqualified. And the pass mark is fixed at 100%, whatever the dowser claims as his success rate. It’s an explicit threat.
If a dowser declares a success in the baseline test, that is a statement made under direct threat, and might not reflect their actual beliefs. Most refuse to go along with this.
And, by the way, Just to be clear I’m pointing out a flaw in Musicat’s proposed test. We can stick to a discussion of his proposed protocol. And Musicat’s proposal is badly flawed.
Can we please NOT comment on whether the same flaw exists in tests run by other people.
Most dowsers I’ve seen WANT to show how their powers work. They actively encourage tests which to them, seem to prove it. After all, it’s what they’ve been boasting about, right? If they can pass a test under THEIR conditions, it would build confidence, right? And if they can’t, what the heck are they doing in a test in the first place?
It is a scientific principle that if two tests are performed that differ in only one way, and the tests generate different results, that one difference is the cause. In dowsing tests, all parameters are made as identical as possible except for one, the knowledge or absence thereof about where the water is. Without a baseline, there are too many variables to make a valid test.
And the requirement that all participants sign a statement that they will be able to perform under condition #2 exactly as under condition #1 is just to avoid excuses later. The dowser gets every chance he wants to set up the test in his favor, and has every chance to try out his powers in advance. We don’t want to begin until the dowser says, “I can do it because everything is perfect!” We just want to get that on record. If we don’t, we have wasted everyone’s time and proved nothing.
Why don’t you propose an alternate protocol that we can all agree upon? What do you suggest as a baseline? How would you make sure that a failure isn’t blamed on factors that were made up too late to control for?
OK, but is there any way to verify that the baseline test is presented in anything like the threatening manner you describe? I would just read it as hyperbole, but part of your description was dialogue - implying that the events you describe happened in substantially the way you describe them.
It’s not enough to point at the procedure - I want to know if the procedure is being administered in such an obviously brusque and violent manner as you suggest.
In the baseline test, you dictate the answer that they are requjired to give. And any other answer, save the one you dictate, WILL result in their immediate disqualification.
In the actual test, they are free to choose their own answers without penalty.
That is the the most obvious difference between the two, and the one responsible for the different scores.
I don’t know what tests you are talking about that work that way.
In all the tests I have participated in or observed in any manner – firsthand or remotely or heard or read about, no such adversarial attitude was present. Instead, test organizers usually bend over backwards to accomodate dowsers’ requests, even ridiculous ones.
Let me describe a hypothetical test, which is a composite of many but specific to none.
Assume a large, open field. The dowser is asked to check out the area for places where he can work best. He declares the southwest corner is best, so the test is moved to the southwest corner.
He is asked to map out any underground water in the site that might interfere with a fair test of water in jugs. He says there are no underground streams to confuse the test.
He is asked to dowse 10 jugs in a row, some with sand, some with water, and see if there are any problems. He says, “Number 2 seems to be picking up some interference from that cow over there,” so the cow is moved away. “Did that fix the problem?” “Yes, but that tent spike is metal and it’s confusing my rod.”
So the tent spike is replaced with a wooden one. “How about now?” “Number 4 & 5 jugs have the wrong frequencies, and I’d like to replace them.” So two replacement jugs are brought out and tested until satisfactory.
“Any other problems?” “Yes, that observer with the red shirt is giving off negative vibrations.” So the red-shirted vibrationist is asked to leave.
“Can you detect water in a jug under a cardboard box?” “Sure.” So a cardboard box is placed over a jug of water and, sure enough, the dowser declares that his rod detected it.
This continues until the tester finds all is well, his rod is working perfectly as expected, there is no interference of any kind, and he is 100% confident that he can perform. Now he signs a statement, putting on paper what he had previously said only verbally, as a legal record should anyone question how the test was conducted later. All he is saying is, “I’m happy as a clam and this test will display my awesome powers.”
At no time is he forced to do anything, and at any time, he can walk away (and I’ve seen some who did, declaring that the “vibes” were wrong or the stars misaligned, or whatever). The testers will cater to his every whim, no matter how silly it may seem to be, as long as it doesn’t invalidate the test.
And after all is perfectly set, the test is run one more time with only one variable changed – all jugs are concealed under cardboard boxes.
So there’s simply no reason to say that such a test is not fair. If all the participants think it is, the only person complaining is you. And the one thing that a failure means is that dowsing doesn’t work.