I think you’re misunderstanding what the USGS means by ‘voids’. What they mean is a network of little tiny spaces between rocks, gravel, grains of sand, and silt. Easiest way to picture it is a big pile of gravel: there’s plenty of space (“voids”) for water to move through, but there’s no channel or stream that the water is concentrated in. Now real dirt has a mix of gravel and bigger and smaller pieces, maybe with more solid bedrock underneath, but the idea is the same. Groundwater is more like a flat surface than a concentrated stream.
A while back, a water leak happened under my front yard. The surface of the yard actually swelled up a foot or two. I called the city. They came out, called in the locator, and left for a coffee break. When they came back, with a backhoe and a dump truck, the crew chief got out his pair of brass rods. WTF, I thought. The main was marked with a painted line, and the meter was eight feet away. He slowly walked around, and he pointed at a spot on the soggy ground. He got into the cab of the backhoe, and he dug a hole about 6 feet by 7 feet. He sent a guy in a rain suit down with a shovel to find the leak, which turned out to be at the very edge of the big hole. He climbed out of the hole, and the crew chief made the hole a few feet bigger.
In short, the dowser, in a can’t miss situation, had missed by about 4 feet. :smack:
telemark,
Did you read my last sentence?
Yes. And I simply don’t believe that it is an accurate representation of what happened. It’s impossible to disprove your recollection, but anyone who’s ever tried to prove that they could find something via dowsing has been shown to be wrong.
I see that I wrote silver dollar instead of half dollar, but it doesn’t matter. There’s really no reason to believe that the stick and dime was doing anything to help locate the coin.
I’m feeling jovial tonight, so it’s time for me to throw my personal bit of gasoline on this bonfire of a thread: more non-scientific-method anecdotes about dowsing that I have personally experienced.
I grew up on a farm in central Illinois. It is a fact that the area is as flat as a billiard table*, which resulted in wet soil issues, and farming there would not exist without an extensive network of drainage ditches and drainage tiles feeding said ditches or whatever creek or river might be within reach.
It is also a fact that these tiles become broken and plugged, resulting in wet spots, requiring that these broken tiles be located and repaired.
It would be stupid to spend the money to have a backhoe dig a lengthy trench to locate the tiles, so we used dowsing. One specific instance that I recall: We knew that a tile that started near the house had become plugged somewhere downstream. Since the “somewhere downstream” included a feedlot for cattle and pigs, we had absolutely no visual clues where the tile actually was. My father witched it out and was off by about two feet. Close enough, I think.
On several other occasions, we used witching to locate tiles out in the fields so a new tile would not damage them. AFAIK, it always worked - we didn’t hit an existing tile by staying away from where the witching said they were.
Fast forward fifteen or so years. I was working at a smallish outpost of a huge international company. I told my stories to a group of maybe a dozen ME’s, EE’s, and various other engineering or computer science types.
They scoffed, as you might expect.
So I told them to lay out some pieces of newspaper, and to put a coin under one of them while I went to bend some pieces of wire to make dowsing rods.
I’ll admit it wasn’t dramatic, and it took me about three passes to make my choice, but when I flipped over the newspaper indicated by the rods, there was a quarter. And I flipped over the others to make sure they weren’t screwing with me. They weren’t.
Could I could do it today? I have no idea. That was more than a few years ago.
Am I interested in Randi’s challenge? Nope. I have read enough to see that it is overly complicated, and I couldn’t afford it anyway, so don’t even challenge me on it.
*If you are in the Champaign area, you know what I am talking about; if not, fly into Willard and start driving west.
That says it all right there. You won’t repeat what you just did under proper observing conditions just to earn a cooool million dollars? No confidence?
What are you asking us to do? There’s no way to prove or disprove an anecdote. All we can point to is the fact that every time someone has brought dowsing to be scientifically tested, it has been shown to be no better than chance. And in all likelyhood, it will continue to happen that way. Everyone who went into the testing had a story like yours and they all were shown to be unable to perform as billed. Why should we but any stock in your story?
Here’s a chap trying out for the million dollars:
All he had to do was use his dowsing powers to find one thing of his choice (he chose gold) out of 10 possible hidden places.
That sounds exactly the same as what you claim.
Here are the 16 simple statements for taking the Million Dollar challenge.
They consist of clear stuff like ‘the applicant must clearly say what they can do’ , ‘no anecdotes will be accepted’ and ‘copies of the application form are available to download here’.
There is no fee to apply.
Your only expenses are:
- to provide the materials for the test (but you only need one of your dowsing rods, right?)
- to meet up with the Randi Foundation at a mutuallly convenient location
Would you like to explain why you’re not picking up the million dollars?
I would add that people regularly claim here (and elsewhere on the Internet) that they have psychic powers.
When the Randi Challenge is mentioned, they come up with the same excuses why they don’t apply:
- it’s too complicated to apply
- I haven’t got the time
- I don’t believe he has the money
- I know he has the money, but he won’t hand it over
- I don’t need the money
- my powers don’t work if I get paid
- my powers don’t work if anyone is watching
- my powers don’t work when they are tested
Thank you, Mr. Telemark for setting me straight. I must have imagined the whole thing.
I’m going to be extra careful in the future because of what I learned from you. To think I might have gone all through life believing that really happened to me!!
Now I know where to go to find the most analytical, clear thinking fellow around. And you were willing to help–isn’t this a great site!
All the best…
To gonetoworkbackin5min:
And once again we’re back to square 1.
There is no way to verify your account of what happened. It’s not at all that you’re lying, it’s just that an outside observer, especially one trained in scientific observation, might see it very differently and be able to give a natural, normal explanation to what you clearly believe to be a paranormal event.
If you believe that paranormal events can occur, then you are prone to self-delusion. Believe me, I know. There have been incidences in my past where I was convinced I had psychic abilities. Once I discarded this fallacy, I was able to go back and analyze what happened and give a rational explanation for what happened.
The Committee for Scientific Investigation has numerous books and articles dealing with the psychology of this belief system. You can find numerous articles in their magazine “The Skeptical Inquirer,” available at your local library.
How do you know whether something is true or not?
I think most people would agree (especially if you’ve ever observed a court trial) if someone says “I saw it with my own eyes!”, that this is probably the least reliable of evidence.
Before you label an event as being “paranormal,” as a rational person you have an obligation to explore all possible normal explanations. Otherwise, you are in the pit of fantasy and delusion. And a quick look around would show you just how many other people have fallen into that trap along with you.
Pontius Pilate said that first.
It’s not like I’m unfamiliar with message board pseudo-intellectuals. I posted my experience with the subject knowing full well the probable reaction from those with no experience. I always amuses me when the Proverbs 12:15 guys come out to impress me with their wisdom.
All the best…
To “back in 5 min”:
So if someone tries to point out you may be harboring a fallacy, they’re a pseudo-intellectual.
Interesting.
Please tell me what part of my response is incorrect.
You’ve given a personal anecdote, one of the least dependable types of evidence, and I’ve suggested you might want to try to explain what happened using normal, natural explanations instead of leaping to a paranormal conclusion.
How is this unreasonable? How is this “pseudo-intellectual”?
Ad hominim attacks are used when a person has a weak argument and can’t intelligently defend their position. They say a lot more about the attacker than they do about the target.
And you’re right, Pilate was the one who said, “What is truth?” (Although I doubt said it first.)
And what did Jesus say in reply?
I’m sorry if you feel you’re being attacked.
You must remember that these dowsing claims have been made for centuries and yet the ability to dowse has failed to appear **every single time **it is scientifically tested.
It can get frustrating asking people for scientific evidence of their claims.
My ‘experience’ is based on:
-
contacting the English Society of Dowsers and being told that they refused to run scientific tests on their powers, since the powers always failed under such conditions.
They explained that this was because their powers came from God and that He was upset if anyone doubted Him. -
discussing learning to dowse with a local expert. He explained that it always worked, unless there was money at stake (which is why he refused to try the Randi Challenge). When I asked him how come he could charge money to teach me, he said that was ‘different’.
-
hearing regularly from posters here that they could definitely dowse, but that they were offended that I didn’t believe them based purely on their posts.
-
agreeing an SDMB online test with a psychic who claimed he could ‘remote view’. The thread ran for a year, after which he stated he was mistaken.
By the way, “backin5” I’m an agnostic (as any rational person should be), hardly a Bible scholar. I had to look up that Proverbs 12:15 quote.
Seems to fit you to a “T.”
The reason I used the Pilate quote is I happened to know it, and it seems relevant to the discussion.
How do you know if something is true or not?
You would think, if Jesus is indeed God, that he would know the answer.
So if it’s not too pseudo-intellectual of a request, answer the question.
Here’s the problem I have with dowsing: It’s used not just for finding water, but for almost anything that the person wishes to find. Coins, tiles, gas leaks, etc.
I might be inclined to accept dowsing if someone could come up with an overall theory which as far as I am concerned could include the stick listening to the singing of water fairies. But, how does that explain dowsing for gas leaks, coal seams, coins, and now out of aligned drainage tiles?
Does the dowsing rod read my mind, and then has to figure out the exact method of finding the object of desire?
That’s not what I said. What has been shown again and again is that people have a very difficult time remembering things accurately. They miss important details, they recall things that never happened, and they conflate different occasions and incidents. It doesn’t mean you are lying, or that you are stupid; it’s just a fact of human memory. There’s also the fact that an untrained observer misses a lot of important details that someone who’s seen a lot of these cases will pick up on.
Which is why anecdotes don’t mean much. They don’t represent an accurate scientific observation. It’s not a value judgment, it’s just not the way to examine the idea of dowsing.
Nope. “Could I could do it today? I have no idea. That was more than a few years ago.”
Y’know, if I had an ability at one time that could make me a cool million, I’d try to find out if I still had that ability.
Oslo really does have special powers: he turned me into a newt.
I got better.
And the claims of some dowsers to be able to find something by dowsing over a crude map of the area really throws it into the realm of fantasy or the paranormal. Even if there are “rays” emanating from underground water or coins, it wouldn’t explain map dowsing.
But wishful thinking explains it all.
Neat.