What if someone says they can find water lines, septic tanks, etc. with a coat hanger?
How about designing a protocol for the OP?
Beatcha.
OK, I’m happy enough to leave it for now - my concern was not so much over the procedure, but the violent application of it that you were portraying.
If you do not wish people like me to pick up on things like that, it might serve you better to insert less emotive hypothetical dialogue in your descriptions of the process.
OK, based on these ground rules, what was wrong with the German test described on Musicat’s post #89? (Please don’t say Randi’s involvement - your list allows for advice from a magician.) As far as I can see from the original write up it was set up in an appropriate manner and tested the specific ability the OP claims - "I can locate water lines, septic tanks, etc. " - but unfortunately there was no positive result. Perhaps the OP can do better?
How about " I can find water in plastic jugs when covered by a cardboard box"?
Let’s see your protocol for that, keeping in mind that the golden standard would be results that are objective and do not require subjective judging.
What if the claim is “I can jump 3 feet straight up?” Would it be fair to test whether he can jump 2 feet straight up?
Before I go any further I apologise in advance for mentioning Randi.
Imagine a dowsing test set up the same as those described by Randi and Musicat with a couple of differences.
i) instead of testing one person you tested 100 people split into four groups of 25*.
Group 1 professed dowsers.
Group 2 those who had never dowsed but believed in it
Group 3 those who had no opinion one way or the other about dowsing
Group 4 disbelievers in dowsing
Each victim, I mean participant, takes part in both the non-blind and blind parts of the trials and their scores recorded. Hell you could even randomize which test the take first.
The results are then put through whatever types of statistical analyses are appropriate. You would then have a breakdown by individual, group and combined.
*Or whatever initial pool size is deemed neccessary
I was wondering if Peter Morris and Musicat would agree to the validity of that type of test?
Peter Morris said:
That’s the most preposterous reading of that sentence I can imagine. The whole point is to establish a test that the participant can pass. There is no point in continuing to a test when the participant has not demonstrated that the test method itself is acceptable. There is no statement “If you say anything other than you can detect this, you are disqualified.” What they say is, “Does this work for you? Can you pass this? Is there any reason this will not work for you?”
Musicat’s hypothetical example demostrates the method and the intent. Eliminate all the things that prevent them from succeeding.
No, they are asked how to modify the test conditions so they can pass. If the requested modification does not invalidate the test, then it is accommodated.
Similarly, I will agree with you that the claimant may not claim 100% success rate. Maybe the only claim an 80% successrate, which is still above expected chance. Okay, so the testing protocol needs to be evaluated based upon an 80% rate not a 100% rate. Fine. But when running the preliminary tests to establish that the test conditions are adequate, one should strive to eliminate all identifiable test interferences. It does no good to try to evaluate your performance for 80% when there’s an identified obstacle that will throw your performance off. If that obstacle interferes 20% of the time, then your 80% success rate just became 60%. So of course the test operators want the claimant to succeed 100% in the open pretest trials. The purpose of the trials is not to measure the performance rate, it is to establish that the conditions are valid and eliminate all identifiable interferences. Anything less than 100% success on the trials means there is another variable to the test than just the person’s ability.
The point of the declaration is not to force the person to claim ability they don’t have, the point of the declaration is to acknowledge that all attempts have been made to eliminate interferences and provide the best conditions for the test. It is as much a requirement on the test administrator as the test claimant. It is a contractual bind that the administrator is giving fair conditions, not forcing the claimant to do something he doesn’t think he can.
BunnyTVS said:
I’m not sure what point that would serve. The point of the non-blinded part is to establish that the participant can function under the test conditions given. It doesn’t make sense to determine afterwards that “the guy in the corner with the red shirt is putting out bad vibes throwing my stick off.” I can’t tell the guy in the red shirt to leave for the non-blinded test if it’s already been performed.
No need to for me. 
Your protocol is simple in some ways, and that’s good. Here are the problems I see.
It is imperative that you define what constitutes a success or failure in advance. Since there can be only one right answer per jug (it has water or not), figure out how many must be guessed correctly to constitute success. Since a 50% rate, on the average, would be expected solely by chance, you will need a much greater figure than that if you want to prove guessing isn’t the method used. If the claimant can get it 100% right in the baseline test, and says that cardboard boxes over the jugs make no difference, it is entirely logical to expect a 100% rate when blinded.
Another reason success must be pre-defined is if you perform “data mining” on numbers after the event, you can always find something “anomolous”, which is often used as proof of a paranormal force. Or in a large group, some will have a higher success rate than others (cf. “bell curve”), and if you point to those as proving what is claimed, you have just cherry-picked the data by ignoring those who had a lower rate. To be fair, you must include ALL the results, not just the ones you like.
Sure, if it seems one person is luckier than others, do a re-test. Unless cheating is going on, or there really is some paranormal force at work here, the re-test results will likely converge on the 50% mark the more times you do them.
It seems like one of the things you are looking for is a difference in performance between “experienced” and “amateur” dowsers, or even “disbelievers”. That would be indeed an interesting statistical analysis, but, again, before you run the test, define what level of performance difference you will accept as confirmatory to your theory.
As an example, what if your experienced group got 57% of the guess right, and your disbelievers got 49%. Aha, you exclaim, there must be something to it, as the dowsers were right 8% more of the time! Nonsense, as any statistician will tell you. What you actually proved is there is practically no difference. Is 8% significant or not?
Keep your test simple. 10 jugs, one tester, expect 100% correctness. Anything else is failure. No judging needed, no statistical analysis needed, everything objective.
And for those who feel 100% is too stringent, let’s make a bet for $100. Give me 10 pencils, some red, some blue – and we’ll agree in advance that they are indeed red or blue with no ambiguities – and I’ll bet you that I can tell you, 100% of the time, which ones are which when spread out on the table, in full view, in bright room light. Every time, 100%. Wanna see it again? Put your money on the table and let’s try it one more time. I can do this for as long as your money holds out.
Why shouldn’t a dowser be able to do the same with water?
On preview, I see that Irishman is suggesting loosening the success percentage requirement a bit down from 100%. I’m not insisting on 100%, although I feel it is not an impossible goal, but we would need someone better versed in statistics than I to tell us what number would be good enough to rely upon. I doubt that 60% makes any sense, but 90% sounds good enough to me. I’ll leave the exact number to the numbers experts.
Not only that, but if they can’t find water with a stick when it is out in the open for all to see, then their claim to find water has been proved false even before the test has begun! Why keep going when the conditions only get tougher?
Sure, they could lie and say everything is hunky-dory, but what purpose would that serve? If they can’t perform under ideal conditions, are their skills going to improve under harsher conditions?
Just to avoid confusion, this post is primarily directed to Peter Morris. I’m taking Irishman’s post as a starting point for elaboration.
Then you test their claim. See if they actually can find septic tanks underground.
Go to some property with an underground septic tank, with the owner’s permission, have the dowser mark where he thinks the water lines or septic tank lies, then check the architect’s plans to see if he got it right.
Your link doesn’t work. I don’t know the test you mean. But why would you assume that there’s anything wrong with it? Tests run by persons other than Randi are sometimes valid.
Perhaps you are under the impression that I’m advocating dowsing. I’m not. I never have. I make no claim that dowsers would succeed in a fair test. To make this clear, I have several reasons to object to Randi, specifically, which don’t apply to other people running tests.
Two reasons among many for objecting to him:
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He is frequently seen to cheat. This only makes dowsers seem more plausible to the public, and damages the reputation of decent sceptics.
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People are sometimes persuaded by his lies to give him money. These people are victims of a scam.
No, it’s accurate.
Wrong in every respect.
The baseline test serves precisely one purpose. It is there to give Randi an excuse when his misbehaviour in the test is exposed. If the participant scores 100% on the baseline test, then Randi can dismiss every complaint made against him.
So the rules contain a direct and explicit rule: score 100% or be disqualified. Every single person taking the test is doing so under that threat. And very few agree to do so.
I can’t see any obvious flaw in it. But I don’t understand the point of testing people who don’t believe in it.
On a typical suburban house where I grew up, I can do that without any pretense to using dousing. I know where they are generally laid out, there are easy to see clues based on the way the grass grows and subtle changes in the terrain. Since I can do that without dousing, this test (and this claim) mean nothing. Anyone who installs and pumps septic tanks can do this to at least 90% accuracy.
Unless people are claiming that the only thing they can find is a tank full of shit; but they never claim that. The claims are that they can find water – one example they give is finding septic tanks.
My dad doused his family well when he was a boy. He doused several others over the years. In the 7os my cousin did not believe him so they dug… a salt water well. After a few years of living with that they decided to let him try. Took him about thirty minutes and the well they got was pure and clear.
Yeah maybe just luck, over and over, just luck. He’s still alive if you want him to, I am sure he would oblige, he’s a gentleman. btw he does not charge for it
I sometimes douse my Labrador retriever, but only when she gets really rank.
What Telemark said. What precise controlled test protocol would you use Peter Morris to test the OP’s claims? A couple of sentences isn’t good enough. Nor is coming up with a protocol that is obviously flawed.
I’ve already said that protocol design should be left up to a scientist who is experienced in designing tests.