# How do dowsing rods work? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 3, 2014, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-dowsing-rods-work/682710 "2014-03-03T00:00:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2014, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-dowsing-rods-work/682710/81 "2014-03-04T14:19:23Z")
> [@bardos](#): > > I am not trying to convince, just relay my own experience. If you do not wish to trust this form of underground water searching, don’t use it. Continue with your opinion. It’s not opinion, it’s science. Science happens to be the best tool available for building knowledge. Knowledge is how we fight ignorance. It’s been explained in this thread why your **interpretation** of your experience is scientifically unsound. Ignoring those explanation and relaying your interpretation, not just the simple facts, of your experience, pretty much constitutes promoting ignorance. ---
**Author:** ![AaronX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7bcc69/32.png) [@AaronX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AaronX)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2014, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-dowsing-rods-work/682710/82 "2014-03-04T14:20:09Z")
To inject some science into this - what if dowsing was a way to tap into the subconscious? We might subconsciously be aware of likely places for water to be found, just not enough to be aware of it. In “Incognito” by David Eagleman, he gives 2 examples - chicken sexers and aircraft identifiers - of jobs where people have to distinguish things by gut feeling - they can’t explain why they decide things. They even train other people by just having them guess and correcting them, slowly building intuition. Perhaps dowsing is a measure of the subconscious and the practitioners really believe it works. ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2014, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-dowsing-rods-work/682710/83 "2014-03-04T14:48:50Z")
> [@AaronX](#): > > To inject some science into this - what if dowsing was a way to tap into the subconscious? We might subconsciously be aware of likely places for water to be found, just not enough to be aware of it. In “Incognito” by David Eagleman, he gives 2 examples - chicken sexers and aircraft identifiers - of jobs where people have to distinguish things by gut feeling - they can’t explain why they decide things. They even train other people by just having them guess and correcting them, slowly building intuition. Perhaps dowsing is a measure of the subconscious and the practitioners really believe it works. That was the point in post #52. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2014, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-dowsing-rods-work/682710/84 "2014-03-04T15:07:23Z")
> [@AaronX](#): > > To inject some science into this - what if dowsing was a way to tap into the subconscious? We might subconsciously be aware of likely places for water to be found, just not enough to be aware of it. In “Incognito” by David Eagleman, he gives 2 examples - chicken sexers and aircraft identifiers - of jobs where people have to distinguish things by gut feeling - they can’t explain why they decide things. They even train other people by just having them guess and correcting them, slowly building intuition. Perhaps dowsing is a measure of the subconscious and the practitioners really believe it works. That’s a whole lot of wishful thinking and rationalization from those who are desperate to explain something _they believe works,_ without evidence. That’s putting the cart before the horse and willfully ignoring the obvious. Rays, vibrations, force fields, magnetic emanations, subconscious knowledge…all fail to explain map dowsing, where the dowser is distant from the area being dowsed. Nothing we know of in science has an influence that is independent of distance. But both map dowsing and local dowsing “successes” can be explained by knowing how we humans can be so easily fooled. ---
**Author:** ![AaronX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7bcc69/32.png) [@AaronX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AaronX)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2014, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-dowsing-rods-work/682710/85 "2014-03-04T15:28:21Z")
> [@Munch](#): > > That was the point in post #52. Yes, that’s what inspired my post. But I thought 52 meant using dowsing to convince the customers, since “I think so” doesn’t sound professional. ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2014, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-dowsing-rods-work/682710/86 "2014-03-04T19:05:39Z")
There was an article in the Mercury News a couple of days ago about how, in the current drought situation, many Napa Valley wineries are using dowsers to “find” water. Some famous named ones, too. I was flabbergasted. ---
**Author:** ![SiXSwordS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/49beb7/32.png) [@SiXSwordS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SiXSwordS)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2014, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-dowsing-rods-work/682710/87 "2014-03-04T19:55:59Z")
> [@suranyi](#): > > \*n the current drought situation, many Napa Valley wineries are using dowsers to “find” water. Some famous named ones, too. I was flabbergasted. I guess I’m no more surprised about that than I am at Police using psychics in desperate cases, or the types of cases **Willy Pete** mentioned. Desperate times desperate measures… I sometimes think organizations want to be able to say they tried everything, even if they don’t think it will work. Also, just because people are nuts, doesn’t mean they can’t hold important positions; Reagan consulted an astrologer. ---
**Author:** ![Hagrid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a9a28c/32.png) [@Hagrid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hagrid)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2014, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-dowsing-rods-work/682710/88 "2014-03-04T21:43:04Z")
I work for a Welsh County Council, and their Highways Dept roadworkers turned up on site to begin digging new drains. There were no plans, and we knew there were water pipes, electric cables, and existing drains on the land. The modern equipment to locate them had not yet arrived. The foreman , whilst we waited, fashioned two rods out of wire, and did in fact roughly locate the water main pipe…although it helped enormously that it was in a logical place. What interested me most, however, was that all the workmen…not known for their imagination…thought the whole process entirely unremarkable. They explained to me that many years ago, before electronic testers, the Council even had a printed sheet with instructions on how to make the rods and dowse, handed to the men. Who had great faith in the system…and bear in mind, these guys were digging by hand. If the old boys said it worked, it did…and they had learnt that the hard way. My own theory? That the long muscles are subconciously caused to contract/twitch . That maybe a part of our lower brain, below the concious level, can detect slight changes in magnetic fields. As can so many animals. Water…particularly when moving…can certainly cause `imperceptible`changes in electromagnetic fields. As can electric cables, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2014, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-dowsing-rods-work/682710/89 "2014-03-04T21:59:08Z")
> [@Hagrid](#): > > My own theory? > > That the long muscles are subconciously caused to contract/twitch . That maybe a part of our lower brain, below the concious level, can detect slight changes in magnetic fields. As can so many animals. > > Water…particularly when moving…can certainly cause `imperceptible`changes in electromagnetic fields. As can electric cables, etc. Your theory is not original. On the surface, it may appear logical. But such electromagnetic fields have never been detected by scientific instruments.[sup]\*[/sup] A Nobel Prize awaits one who can; that’s a powerful incentive. What does that tell you? And it utterly fails to explain map dowsing. \*Are you postulating that _imperceptible_ fields can be perceived? ---
**Author:** ![SiXSwordS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/49beb7/32.png) [@SiXSwordS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SiXSwordS)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2014, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-dowsing-rods-work/682710/90 "2014-03-04T22:03:53Z")
> [@Hagrid](#): > > My own theory? [M]aybe a part of our lower brain, below the concious level, can detect slight changes in magnetic fields. As can so many animals. I appreciate your commentary. As for the theory, I would like to see a test of Pigeons, or Sharks or somesuch animal that can be demonstrated to have [Magnetic Sense](http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/magsense/ms.html) to see if _they_ can accomplish the claimed feats. ---
**Author:** ![GusNSpot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gusnspot/32/436_2.png) [@GusNSpot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GusNSpot)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2014, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-dowsing-rods-work/682710/91 "2014-03-04T22:20:48Z")
Sharks, use the **Sharks**. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2014, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-dowsing-rods-work/682710/92 "2014-03-04T23:08:39Z")
> [@SiXSwordS](#): > > I guess I’m no more surprised about that than I am at Police using psychics in desperate cases, or the types of cases **Willy Pete** mentioned. It’s far, far more rare for police to do this than psychics will have you believe. A survey in the UK failed to turn up any examples at all, iirc. There have been some isolated instances in other places. Psychics talk it up but the idea police turn to psychics is largely BS. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2014, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-dowsing-rods-work/682710/93 "2014-03-04T23:12:47Z")
> [@Hagrid](#): > > That the long muscles are subconciously caused to contract/twitch . That maybe a part of our lower brain, below the concious level, can detect slight changes in magnetic fields. As can so many animals. > > Water…particularly when moving…can certainly cause `imperceptible`changes in electromagnetic fields. As can electric cables, etc. And yet any sort of controlled testing of dowsing using moving water fails miserably. Every single time. This is not an area where there is any freedom to talk about whether this sort of thing simply works on pipes with moving water. It just plain does not. Period. End of Story. Any number of tests have shown this. You can theorise about how maybe it works but _only_ in natural surroundings and not in controlled circumstances but once you do so you can’t be theorising about how it works using any feature of the phenomena that is present during the controlled testing. Like water moving. ---
**Author:** ![Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tastes_of_chocolate/32/3232_2.png) [@Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tastes_of_Chocolate)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2014, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-dowsing-rods-work/682710/94 "2014-03-04T23:47:51Z")
Last summer, I needed to have the gas meter to my house moved. A crew from the utility company comes out, installs the new meter, and starts looking for the line running to the old meter, and can’t find it. It seems that would be easy, I mean, you know it has to run into the old meter, right? Apparently whatever tracer wire they use, so they can find track of the line without digging had rotted away in the last 40 years. They hand dig a 2’ wide x 4’ deep x 6’ long trench, and still no pipe. I was very startled when one of the two men pulled out a pair of L shaped metal rods and started drowsing in my front yard. Really? The gas company? Long story short, the drowsing didn’t find a darn thing, but the backhoe and a much bigger trench did. Since these guys weren’t being paid to drowse, just to get the job done, I can only think that, at least to them, there is enough of a success rate with drowsing, to justify their time to try it, before unloading the backhoe and digging trenches. (On a funny side note, they did agree that the best way to find your gas line is to call a realtor and have them put a For Sale sign in your front yard. They have an uncanny ability to drive it right into the gas line.) ---
**Author:** ![SiXSwordS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/49beb7/32.png) [@SiXSwordS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SiXSwordS)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2014, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-dowsing-rods-work/682710/95 "2014-03-05T00:29:36Z")
> [@Princhester](#): > > It’s far, far more rare for police to do this than psychics will have you believe. And [Californians turning to dowsing](http://bigstory.ap.org/article/california-farmers-hire-dowsers-find-water-0) doesn’t happen either. ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2014, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-dowsing-rods-work/682710/96 "2014-03-05T02:38:16Z")
> [@SiXSwordS](#): > > And [Californians turning to dowsing](http://bigstory.ap.org/article/california-farmers-hire-dowsers-find-water-0) doesn’t happen either. Yeah, that’s the story I read. In a respected newspaper. My mouth was agape the whole time. ---
**Author:** ![Kansas\_Beekeeper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c37758/32.png) [@Kansas\_Beekeeper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kansas_Beekeeper)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2014, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-dowsing-rods-work/682710/97 "2014-03-05T03:33:50Z")
> **[HUVr ‘ BELIEF](http://huvrtech.com/)** > > They’re here. ---
**Author:** ![Battle\_Pope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@Battle\_Pope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Battle_Pope)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2014, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-dowsing-rods-work/682710/98 "2014-03-05T04:05:51Z")
There’s an extensive write-up of the Randi/Smith tests carried out in Australia in 1980 [here](http://www.skeptics.com.au/publications/articles/australian-skeptics-divining-test/). > [@](#): > > The rules were precise and simple. All contestants had to agree to them in advance, and to sign certain documents. Dick Smith had arranged for a plot of land to be used, which was dug up and leveled. A grid of ten plastic pipes, four inches in diameter, was buried a few inches below the soil, witnessed by a panel of independent judges. A system was arranged whereby valves could be opened to allow water to flow through one pipe at a time, the pipe being chosen by the selection of a numbered counter from a bag by one of the judges. > [@](#): > > When the results were tabulated, 111 tries had been made, with an expected 10% success rate by chance alone, There were 15 successes, 13.5%, a figure well within expectation. > > But what had the dowsers declared as their expected success rate? It averaged out to better than 92%! Surely a poor performance, and one in which every rule , precaution and Procedure had been carefully and fully approved and agreed to in advance by all parties concerned. > > Looking at the tests on specific substances, the water tests showed 50 tests total with 11 correct or 22%. The dowsers claimed they would have 86% success. As for the brass tests, they claimed 87% — and got zero. Gold seemed more attractive, and they expected 99%, but obtained 11%. My father has often advised friends as to where they should dig wells on their farms, just by looking at an air-photo (withcraft I tells ya!). Of course he’s a retired geologist specialising in remote sensing and groundwater :o ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2014, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-dowsing-rods-work/682710/99 "2014-03-05T04:50:13Z")
> [@Kansas\_Beekeeper](#): > > [http://huvrtech.com/](http://huvrtech.com/) Reported. Weird. 2004 join date? ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2014, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-dowsing-rods-work/682710/100 "2014-03-05T05:00:22Z")
> [@Princhester](#): > > Reported. Weird. 2004 join date? It’s a fake web site selling the hoverboards from Back to the Future II. Either he meant to post it in Cafe Society or some other thread, or it’s a commentary about how fake dowsing rods are and how you can’t believe things you see in videos on the internet. That’s my guess, anyway. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-dowsing-rods-work/682710.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-dowsing-rods-work/682710.md?page=6)