Missed the edit window. I wanted to amend to: The same is true for dowsing … with sticks or rods.
Dowsing is dowsing regardless of the tool used.
So apparently the answer to why it sometimes appears to work is luck, combined with subtle clues in the environment. I guess I can buy that. I’m not sure why all you people assumed that I was trying to defend dowsing or claim it worked, even though I said repeatedly that I was not. I just wanted some actual, you know, answers, not just “it’s a fraud” repeated ad infinitum. I know it’s not real, I just wonder why it is that dowsing sometimes does find water. It’s been around a long, long time and a lot of people have seen it appear to work so there must be something going on besides total dumb luck.
If you want to fight ignorance you need a better answer to “how does it work” than “it doesn’t.”
There is no single answer to your question.
If you see a magic show, and want an explanation of how the magician did a specific trick, you can ask another magician. Assuming he doesn’t refuse to tell you, it’s not always a sure thing that he knows exactly how it was done. More likely, he can suggest several ways that it might have been done. And if he wasn’t there, your description of the event might have omitted critical information necessary to make a determination.
Likewise, we have reports of dowsing and dowsers. If you don’t know what to look for, you might not observe or remember critical parts of the demonstration and come away with an inaccurate or distorted view of it.
Here are a few of the ways that dowsing appears to work.[ul][]If water is everywhere, as the US Geological Survey says it is, then anywhere the dowser says to dig, you will find water. All that proves is you are gullible. []People remember the hits and forget the misses. It’s human nature. Will your dowser tell you all about his failures?[]Unless you are running a fair test of dowsing, with all conditions controlled, the dowser may be (consciously or not) picking up on environmental clues that point to a good spot to find water – a wet spot on the ground, a nearby creek, vegetation. Pipes? Usually follow logical paths, and plumbers know this.[]Dowsers, like many paranormal claimants, often have an exaggerated opinion of their powers. Even after total failures in controlled tests, they typically rationalize their performance to explain it away rather than recognizing their mental fault in believing the unlikely.[]Confirmation bias[]Pure luck[*]Wishful thinking[/ul]
Mine got my nose… and yet it’s still on my face. Whose nose was it??!!
When it doesn’t work, though…
I don’t defend dowsing, but the odds of finding a relatively small pipe in a much wider area are definitely smaller than 50-50. It there were 20’ between the well and the buildings, finding a 4" pipe on the first dig would be incredibly lucky.
You’re assuming that there are no other clues and that a plumber or well driller chooses spots by random chance. They don’t. The odds are not 4"/240".
Ever heard of hot reading? That’s when a psychic learns about the subject in advance through research, then pretends to divine it from reading a palm. It might be incredibly accurate, but does it prove palm reading is a valid science?
Likewise, in the absence of more detail, for all we know a dowser could look up architectural plans showing the location of a pipe, then “find” it by using a stick. All that proves is the cleverness of the dowser and the gullibility of the recipient.
Not if you dig a 4 foot wide trench perpendicular to the expected orientation of the pipe. I can guarantee that I’ll find the pipe on the first try if you let met dig any sized hole.
Odds are some guys are going to get a “hit” some of the time. But there’s no point in asking how it’s done if it was just dumb luck.
If you asked 100 people to guess a number between 1 and 10 you’d get 10% of them who guessed correctly. Would you conclude that 10% got lucky and chose the right number, or would you conclude that those 10% must have some special mysterious skill?
I used to use metal rods to find underground pipes all the time. Got paid for it, too.
It wasn’t a dowsing rod, but one of these. 
My experience with dowsers:
I was selling a house in PA and the real estate guys hired a dowser to approve my septic fields. He reported that I didn’t have any and to wait until I had them put in. Nothing I could do would convince them he was dead wrong, so I hired a guy to put in some real work with a shovel. He found them filled out the forms and I sold the house just fine.
Not only are dowsers wrong, I think they are willfully stupid.
As to the OP, NO ONE can tell you “how” it works if it doesn’t work, you are wrong.
I used to get paid to locate water pipes and some other utilities. I was working in VT where dowsing is quite popular and was one of the techniques I was taught.
If you had a customer, in my case rural utilities or their customers, who had a plastic line or a lack of continuity in their line, and traditional radio frequency devices or pressure sounding devices wouldn’t work you had to use your best judgement to figure out where the hell the line is. There is some pressure to help the customer out, I got paid salary so finding the pipe wasn’t a financial pressure so much as a desire to help people out, and to maintain a good reputation. Also, you really don’t want to waste a contractor’s time having them dig holes all over the damn place.
So, wanting badly to help folks out and having some lack of confidence as to where the line really was, dowsing gave the locator some degree of certainty by transferring their subconscious knowledge (where would I have put it, where aren’t there trees, where does the pipe leave the house, are there depressions in the ground, road, whatever) unto an inanimate object, the dowsing rods. The fewer the clues, the less effective the dowser.
Not everyone can do this! It is common knowledge that if you lie to your wife dowsing won’t work. Also, brass braising rods seem to work better.
Excellent common-sense explanation of both the how and why. Thanks.
I think you mean “brazing” rods, unless cooking a pot roast is part of the magic. And, really, you already said that it took real brass to pull this off…
I could make some good money selling myself as a dowser.
I am a contractor specializing in wells and water pumps. It’s fairly common for a customer to call with no idea where their waterline or well is. I’m very good at locating these things. Frequently I can walk onto a property and tell with some certainty where a line or well is. It isn’t because I have some magical ability. It’s because I have experience.
In some cases I know because I have records no one else has. My grandfather was involved in many of the early drilled wells in the area so I have associated records. I know what types of rigs where used when and what type of construction equipment was used by various landscapers and builders when many people’s homes where built or modified. So before I even go to a property I often have a lot of information to make a determination. With my knowledge I can piece together the likely placement and routing when the original work was done.
If I showed up with a dowsing rod I’m sure I could convince people I had mystic ability. Some people are already convinced of such based on my previous success in showing them where to find lines lost to history. I can find water for a new well 100% of the time! Again not mystic, fact is anywhere you drill you will find water.
I’m sure there are probably guys with similar experience who instead of crediting themselves for their experience attribute it to their dowsing ability. If holding a stick helps them better focus on using the knowledge they already have I guess that’s what they need to do. I’ll stick to the facts.
You have done everything that I politely asked posters making replies not to do.
Plus with all the ‘you’s’ you used, you obviously did not read the post because I did not say I was going to do or believed anything. I posted a hypothetical & you got all snarky, nasty, full of negative attitude without any reason IMO. :rolleyes:
It wasn’t a very helpful hypothetical and if you think we didn’t see the well-poisoning at the end of it, you’re wrong.
People like to believe in things, even when there’s no evidence.
I contacted the British Dowsing Society once and was referred to their ‘best dowser’.
I asked if he could teach me to dowse and he said certainly (mentioning his fee.)
Then I asked him if he could pass a test to prove he could dowse and mentioned the Randi Foundation’s $1,000,000.
This ‘top dowser’ said his power wouldn’t work ‘if money was involved’.
I asked him how come his power worked if I was paying him to teach me … and he said he didn’t want to talk any more. :smack:
I remember there was some sort of Randi test where the testee did so much worse than chance that some skeptics actually wondered if he did have some sort of ability. :eek:
I like to think that if we had someone here at the SDMB who sincerely believed they could make dowsing work, and wanted to take a shot at the JREF challenge, that we would be supportive and helpful, so long as goodwill and good manners could be maintained on both sides.
You’d think that with all the dowsing societies out there and there being this whole dowsing community that they’d hold annual contests or events so some of the best could have bragging rights. Have a dozen or so fenced off areas where water barrels and pipes are burried beforehand. A commitee of judges, etc.
Something tells me if they ever tried it it would be a PR disaster for them when they found out nobody could live up to their claims.