I never could but My mom was fairly good at it and my Dad only fair.
On the ranch Mom found the location to dig to get water. Dad was looking for a water line once looking for a leak. But he came up with a electrical line thaat was buried.
My brother could some times. But no matter how many times Mom tried to show me I could not get it.
She she did not use a wire but a willow switch.
I never said that they had. AFAIK, there have never been any double blind studies comparing the effectiveness of geophysics to that of dowsing.
I am not a proponent of dowsing by any means, but dowsers would be right to neglect this kind of study, as it fails to reproduce ANY of the conditions that they claim success in.
One of the only scientific studies that I can find on dowsing, is available at:
http://www.jse.com/betz_toc.html (search for Dowsing),
(summary available at http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/research/1281661.html). According to them, dowsing was wildly successful during the course of their research, much more so than would be expected. They also tried experiments similar to those carried out by JREF and found that dowsing under those conditions resulted in poor results. Could there be something else at play here? I do not know, but I do know that there is quite simply a ** tremendous ** lack of knowledge on the subject.
I would like to note that I am not sure what, if any, scientific legitimacy the above mentioned organization has. They are basically the only ones who have done any work in the field with dowsing and published it.
I agree that dowsers are most likely using substantial knowledge regarding the geology and/or other markers that indicate the presence of objects (surprisingly these are very common). However, anecdotal evidence is very strongly in the favor of dowsing. See the link below (trained geophysicists using dowsing?!):
http://www.virginiagroundwater.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=22&Itemid=55
While it makes perfect sense to disregard dowsing at face value, the simple answer is that there is not enough scientific evidence to make a judgment either way. However, I suspect that we will find that dowsing has no legitimate basis in the near future.
Except that they do claim success in the way he tests them. His M.O. is usually to ask someone what they say they can do, then work with them to design a test around that. Of course, on occasions where there have been mass tests, this isn’t possible. But he always does the test first with their knowing where the target is, and they always agree that the setup is working for them. Then he blinds it, and they can’t find the target anymore.
This brings up the usual points about extraordinary claims, the burden of proof, and null hypotheses. The scientific way is to recognize that dowsing is an extraordinary claim, and unless sufficient evidence is presented to make a convincing case, the null hypothesis (that dowsing is bullshit) must be provisionally accepted, unless/until such evidence is manifested. That’s the scientific way to make a judgment.
Magnetometers are used by Archeologists to map the subsurface. Flowing water will certainly deposit minerals over time which should produce a weak magnetic field. Since birds are capable of detecting magnetic variations it is not out bounds to consider it is possible for other mammals be capable of this.
Anecdotal story. A “dowser” was asked to search for water on a historical site in my area. He was not told why. He marked out the most likely locations and it formed a line on the property. They were looking for a water race once used to power equipment. I’m not going to empty my bank account betting on his ability but I thought it interesting. And no, there is no way of knowing if he plotted out the correct location of the race.
I’m not promoting dowsing as fact but I am putting forth the idea that the test should not be for water but for geo-recognizable changes in the sub-strata that could be detectable in the same way other mammals perceive it.
I took a class on dowsing once. I don’t care if it works or not. It is still an impressive trick even for the person that is doing it. A ‘Y’ shaped branch will practically break off in your hand if you think you sense something.
Yeah, despite the fact I was hoping to steer this back towards the empirical evidence side of things, it’s unfortunately kept pretty steady with decidedly pronounced un-scientific anecdotes.
>Since birds are capable of detecting magnetic variations it is not out bounds to consider it is possible for other mammals be capable of this.
Other mammals? A bird is not a mammal.
Well, that’s true but since they have the brain capacity of a politician I lump them together with other warm-blooded animals.
Look, there is zero proof that humans have any organ that let them sense magentic fields. If you are making that claim then you are making an extraordinary claim and should provide extraordinary proof. For instance, please provide me with evidence that humans have some organ that can sense magnetic fields in the manner you propose.
So far you have zero proof and the few studies that show double-blind (important!) dowsing experiments end up predictably showing chance. Nothing more.
So you can speculate all you want, but youre talking sci-fi, not reality. Anecdotes are not proof. Stories are not evidence. Dowsing is not real.
Yeah, but so what? Anecdotal evidence is talk. Talk is cheap.
Wow :eek:
What organ are birds using to navigate?
Cells containing magnetic particles have been identified in the brains of migratory birds.
I don’t know if similar things exist in the brains of humans (although I expect not, as humans don’t generally migrate by flying).
It’s also a bit of a leap from navigation by magnetoreception to the location of buried objects via a magnetic sense evolved for above-ground navigation. Why would that even work?
There’s also the Tully Mars method of finding water mains:
I’m not going to defend dowsing. Just throwing out that it’s possible for an animal to perceive more than the standard 5 senses. The brain is an amazing organ that we know little about.
The best way of using copper wire to find buried pipes/lines is to sell the copper for scrap, and use the proceeds to make a phone call to DigSafe or the equivalent.
There are certainly more than five senses, e.g. sense of balance, sensitivity to heat, and others.
Dowsing only works during a full moon. On a friday the 13th, And you must be a Scorpio. :rolleyes: Enough with the nonsense! We’re fighting ignorance here people.
The only way to find anything underground with your copper wires is to insert said wires into the ground till you hit something hard. The object will more than likely be a rock so this method is pretty much ineffective. Admit defeat and call the utility company.
Fair enough - but at the end of it all, the problem with dowsing isn’t a shortage of interesting and perhaps plausible explanations, it’s a distinct lack of properly measurable results. At this stage in the game, there still isn’t really anything that demands an explanation.