(above should replace original posting, unable to edit at present.)
Now, look at this, we’ve got Lucianarchy over here. Lucy’s from the Randi boards, and there’s a very simple way to refute his claims… because they’ve done it a thousand times.
I am, however, hesitant to go dig up his cites, because it may lead to the net.kook version of a board war. Plus I don’t go there much. Anyone wish to? I know I’ve seen the Jaytee debunking, but I can’t recall where.
Bloody heck, it’s a form rant.
And again.
Can’t find the original of it.
I have found Randi’s reply, from in that thread.
I hope he doesn’t mind me copying it.
Well, we’ve got the Straight Dope’s own Ianzin (who is actually a famous mentalist/magician, but I cannot say his name here due to the message board rules, who pretty muchdebunks the dog story.
In case it hasn’t been settled here yet, I started a thread in GQ about the underground river phenomenon. If there is still a question as to whether or not they exist, and if so in what form and in which locations, perhaps people should refer to that thread (and contribute if necessary):
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=178664
Doc:
No. But you might like to consider Randi’s words <<There are large deposits of water that may seep through sandstone and move at the rate of 200 feet per year. There is no naturally flowing water underground except in caves>>
I wouldn’t consider your example to be a river, just proof that Randi is wrong.
Randi claims it “seeps” at 200 feet per year.
Your example proves it is at least double the rate he claims. Also, it proves that he is wrong to say that it “seeps”
Randi says water does not flow underground.
Your example proves that it does.
Your example proves that Randi is wrong twice in one sentence.
Thank you.
Princhester:
And you have ignored 90% of what they wrote. The rest you twisted to suit your fundamentalism.
Look, Princhester, please try to understand.
In Karst country, there are underground rivers. These are very, very common.
In other types of ground you get things that are VERY SIMILAR to underground rivers, but are not quite the same. These are burried riverbeds. Large quantities of water flows along the path of these burried riverbeds, at rates far greater than the surrounding rock.
You can draw a line on a map, and say water flows along that line. Either side of the line, no water flows underground, but on the line, water flows in great quantities.
Some dowsers think that these are underground rivers. But they are using an incorrect term. That is the ONLY mistake they are making.
And Randi has made the same error. In the Australia test, he told the dowsers to check for ‘underground rivers’, when he should have said ‘buried riverbeds’. His mistake.
Lets see what geologists have to say about it.
<<There is more pore space, thus more water available, in sands and gravels than there is in silty fine-grained sediments. Since there is more open pore space to hold water, there is also less resistance to flow and the water will travel faster through these materials. You tend to find sands and gravels in old stream beds that have been buried, so you do find water flowing faster and in greater quantities through old buried rivers than through the surrounding materials, but it still doesn’t count as an “underground river”…Picture this: You have a narrow streambed, full of sand and gravel because the water in it flows pretty fast. It flows across a plain that consists of clays and very fine silts deposited by a lake that used be on the same spot. Now fast-forward 30,000 years. You have the lake and the streambed covered by 40 to 80 meters of silts, loess, glacial tills, and assorted “stuff” deposited over the centuries. You drill two wells. One hits a small aquifer in the old lalke deposits, and you get 10 gpm (yeah I know, I’m mixing English and Metric units, so sue me 
about it). Then you drop another well 20 meters away, but this one hits those old streambed deposits, and you wind up getting 800 gpm. >>
So there we have it, apart from using the wrong words, the notion that dowsers have is RIGHT, confirmed as such by geologists.
Randi has said :
<<There are no streams of water flowing underground," he said. “There are large deposits of water that may seep through sandstone and move at the rate of 200 feet per year. There is no naturally flowing water underground except in caves. These people have delusions about underground rivers.” >>
The geologists who responded to my questions disprove that completely. There is water flowing in underground rivers in karst country, that isn’t in caves, and water flowing in ancient burried riverbeds in other terrains, not in caves.
What this does is show that NOBODY save for a tiny number ofdesperate Randi fanatics interpret the sentence the same way you do. And even the Randi fanatics originally thought he was denying ALL underground rivers.
Why on Earth would Randi write a sentence that only an expert on dowsers would understand? It beggars belief that you still interpret it this way.
YOU, Princhester, previously cited dowser talking about water flowing through fractured rock, and claimed that it is what Randi meant by “the notion of underground rivers”. Now you desperately try to claim you didn’t mean it.
It totally trashes Randi.
Randi made the comment <<A better test would be to ask the dowser whether he can find a DRY spot within 100 metres of a well he has dowsed.>>
The geologist said : <<You drill two wells. One hits a small aquifer in the old lalke deposits, and you get 10 gpm (yeah I know, I’m mixing English and Metric units, so sue me about it). Then you drop another well 20 meters away, but this one hits those old streambed deposits, and you wind up getting 800 gpm.>>
There you are Princhester, a complete and utter rebuttal of Randis absurd claim.
No, it is the truth.
It is worth reporting all they had to say
Randi said <<more than 90% of the world’s land mass above reachable supplies of water >>
J.F. Cornwall said <<Who knows? True, you can find some water most anywhere, if you drill deep enough and don’t need much water. Does a gallon per minute count? We have wells supplying farms around here with 10-15 gpm flow rates. We have other wells supplying irrigation water with 2000 gpm rates, from different depths and tapping different geological units. >>
So, the first said <<Who knows>> Nobody is able to put a figure on this, not professional hydrogeologists, and certainly not Randi.
Micea said <<I think the author meant that from a probabilistic viewpoint, dowsers are sometimes successful in finding groundwater not because they have special powers but because the odds are in their favor: more than 90 percent of the worlds’s land mass (i.e land that one can walk on) lies above reachable supplies of water. In my opinion, the author had no interest in being accurate; he was more concerned making sure his sarcasm
does not pass unnoticed.>>
So Micea confirms that Randi has no interest in being accurate. Big surprise there, folks.
So there we are, Randi proved wrong on all counts.
His statement that water does not flow underground except in caves - wrong.
His statement that there are no underground rivers - wrong
His statement that 90% of the earth lies above reachable water - wrong
his statement that anywhere within 100 metres of a well is another good spot for a well - wrong.
I have no doubt you will refuse to see the truth of the professional geologists.
“Well, whatever happens Randi’s massively wrong,” he said, flailing wildly in the dark water and clutching his waterlogged straw.
-Ah, I see. So this whole argument, from Post One, is because you assume that, when Randi says “no flowing water” that he in fact means to say that "no water underground moves at all, ever, at any speed. It’s entirely, fully, completely static."
Your replies make a little more sense now. They’re still not right, but I can now at least understand your point of view.
-He is? Now wait a second… Randi noted that water moves at about 200’ a year, I have a claim it does double that. 0.000004 mph isn’t a good definition of “seepage” for you? Are you even reading what you write? What’s a “gusher” then, five one-thousandths of a mile per hour? Presumably half a mile per hour would be a “torrent”.
Let me ask you this, then- at what rate would water have to flow do be defined as a “river” and not a “seepage” or a “trickle”?
-Actually, I believe you are the only one here that thinks Randi is of the mind that no groundwater, in any way shape or form, moves at all, ever. You did, after all, just quote, above, that Randi mentioned that groundwater can move at 200’ per year, as well as “presumably” faster in caves. You can’t have it both ways, Pete.
It is quite simply an argument of semantics and definitions: I read Randi’s quote, which was, after all, a somewhat flip and offhand, almost parenthetical remark, as decrying the typical dowser’s concept of raging torrents of underground rivers as largely incorrect. You, on the other hand, interpret that same offhand remark as being a carefully considered, ironclad declaration by Randi, stating unequivocably that groundwater does not seep, ooze, flow, gush or move under the surface in any way, shape or form.
You also seem to assume that, if water flows at all, it is then by definition a “river”, even if such flow is 0.0000043 mph- but that same flow cannot be defined as a “seepage”, since Randi did say that water does seep.
Further, since you note that my example, in Alaska, disqualifies Randi’s claim, presumably noting either Australia or Randi’s home of Florida, it seems you’re of the impression that if water moves at all underground, it all seems to flow at the same speed- somewhere between a seep and a river, apparently.
IE, if Randi says water can flow at 200’/year, and somebody comes up with an example of 400’/year, well, by golly, that Randi must therefore be an intemperate liar and by extension all his fifty-plus years of works are worthless and fraudulent.
Perhaps you should check on some definitions: At what flow rate, in either gallons per minute or miles per hour, does a subterranean waterflow become, by definition, a “river”? Is there an underground equivalent to a creek? How about a pond?
My home water well is artesian- forty years ago the pressure on the well was enough to push water to the second floor without the need of a pump. It’s tapered off some over the years, but even without the aid of a pump, it’ll flow well enough to wash a car. If one understands the concept of a water well, one must understand that water has to be able to flow underground. However, there’s a tremendous difference between a mass of waterbearing gravel (the substrate for most of the level areas of the Peninsula around here) and a series of open passages and holes in the rock through which a “river” travels.
-You seem to have a pretty suspect concept of “proof”. The fact of the matter is, you seem to have something personal against the man, and ego-driven against this discussion thread. You take a single, parenthetical and generalized, unclarified remark and insist that he in fact intended that as unequivocable, boilerplate truth, and a minor discrepancy in some mathematical equations, and lodly declare to all that therefore Randi is a liar, a fraud and probably a wifebeater.
You’ve said several times that you’ve shown “many” examples of Randi’s lies and fraudulent actions, yet save for the above mentioned two, which can more accurately be defined as misinterpretations at best, you have yet to detail any others.
You’ve spent a great deal of time and energy trying to “prove” that an offhand remark was in fact a massive, calculated lie, which makes me think you simply have something against the man personally. He turn down your application to prove that you can communicate telepathically with your dead goldfish or what?
peter you are sidetracking something chronic. The issue here is that Randi said that dowsers notions of underground rivers were fictional. I have provided links that show the type of notions that dowsers have about underground rivers, veins and fissures. Nothing that you have found shows any support for what dowsers believe about underground rivers.
I have provided links that show that others (including the wild, fraudulent lying geologists at the Missouri DNR Geological survey) also are of the opinion that dowsers have weird fictional ideas about underground rivers.
Yet you persist in extraordinary nitpicking, filibustering, pettifogging tangents about precise definitions of underground rivers, as if by doing so you are proving anything other than your own close minded obsession with finding something anything that you can describe as a lie or inaccuracy on Randi’s part.
You’ve now got down to the ad hominem level where you are dismissing anyone who supports Randi as some sort of evangelist, just as a paranoid would dismiss anyone who tried to point out their paranoia as part of the conspiracy.
I have reached the point where I seriously wonder if, like Bosda said earlier, my debate with you is like getting sick thrills from poking the village idiot. You have now said several times that I have said that when Randi talked about underground rivers he meant fractured rock. Not only have I not said anything of the sort, I have now done a search and found that with the exception of my last few posts in which I have been quoting you, the word “fractured” does not appear in any of my posts. At all. Nor does it appear in any of the dowsers sites I linked to. At all.
What is one supposed to conclude from this?
Why should we go on listening to you in your crusade against Randi, your interminable accusations of his lies and his inaccuracy, when you are unable to get basic searchable on line facts from these very threads correct?
Unless you are able to provide a good answer to that question, peter, this is my last post in response to you.
It looks to me like the conclusions were[ul]
[li]about 1/100 chance of apparent success as described[/li][li]which isn’t really significant testing a large no. of dowsers[/li][li]The test was not designed to detect 20% success rate[/li][li]which they suspiciously achieved in the warm up (when they knew where the water was)[/li][li]Would randi allow somone who claimed a 20% success rate a fair test, ie. a larger no. of trials?[/li][li]Randi said he would only ask someone to do what they said they could, (can’t positively say if he meant he would or wouldn’t test a 20% dowser, just that he wouldn’t with the same test as for 80% dowsers)[/li][li]PS. And interesting theory is that dowsers detect something other than water (either naturally or supernaturally), so it would be interesting to see more tests on whether a dowser can find a spot found by another dowser, regardless of what’s there.[/li][li]PSS.Peter Morris has been spamming the SDMB with this shit as well[/li][/ul]
Possibly I missed something - Peter might want to post a link to the thread where sci.stat.math agree with him.
You summation was more succinct (and better written) than mine. But it also note the point that Peter is undeniably reading more into the posts on sci.math that he actually got. He has done the same at the geologists website too.
He hears only what he wants to hear, it seems.
peter morris said:
Actually, he told them to dowse the area to see if there was anything that would interfere with their ability to read the water in the pipes. Randi wouldn’t care if it were “underground rivers” or “buried riverbeds” or “flying monkeys”, the only thing he cared about was them verifying before the test that there was nothing they felt would interfere with their ability to get an accurate reading on the test setup. Two of the eight water dowsers claimed to find natural underground water and marked approximately the layout on maps. It is unclear whether the dowsers called them rivers or not, but that is how Randi referred to them.