Dowsing by a Skeptic

[SaskMick]

I will be back !

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

No. I addressed it. You hand-waved it away, still claiming that your liberal interpretation of the English language is applicable.

I didn't hand-wave anything away. I made a counter-argument. You then declared that because I disagreed with you - both that your interpretation of the language was the only possible interpretation, and with your conclusions - that I was being dishonest.

If you have no interest in discussing the subject at hand, then I have no idea why you inserted yourself into the discussion. But don't blame me for your own lack of engagement.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Then we can also attribute the claimed observing of the "fighting with the stick which would the hit him in the chest with real force" to the current perspective from a believer's point of view.

Not necessarily.

In this way, both anecdotes can be massaged into anything you want.
Which is what people with irrational mindsets generally like to do with their anecdotes.

When one claims in a post in one location to have considered dowsing to be complete and utter BS until recently, and then in another post in another location claims to have gotten a dowser to find a well for him and then claims to have observed this dowsing to work really well and states to have discovered dowsing in this way, which is claimed to have happened years ago .... yes, then both posts are clearly contradictory.

It's a text book example of something being self explanatory.

So you're back to just declaring them to be contradictory without providing any evidence or cogent arguments as to why, then.

I'm not averse to being convinced. It's just going to take more than a "because I said so" to do it.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

I would like to be able to prove dowsing works by using your protocol, and double blinded tests etc etc. But therein lies the problem, and that's why it's impossible.
I have not been dowsing for long, and am still learning what works and what does not. I have learned however that to be able to dowse successfully it is necessary to be in the right frame of mind,a frame of mind which is completely neutral. It's impossible to be completely neutral when you want to prove a point.

You've claimed that it works when you're trying to find a bucket the inside of which is painted. Why is it different if you're trying to find a bucket under which an object is hidden? Seems like the only real difference is that one is a test that it's easy to cheat on (whether consciously or not), and the other isn't.

 

[SaskMick]

You've claimed that it works when you're trying to find a bucket the inside of which is painted. Why is it different if you're trying to find a bucket under which an object is hidden? Seems like the only real difference is that one is a test that it's easy to cheat on (whether consciously or not), and the other isn't.

There was no cheating by myself or my wife. The test was for my benefit, there was nothing at stake. There is no difference finding a bucket under which something is hidden, apart from that it would be impossible for my wife not to know which bucket she put it under. LOL

 

[Daylightstar]

... What ever it's called it works fantastic

Not that you can demonstrate that in any way, of course

 

[SaskMick]

The movement of the dowsing rods are just a measure of your confirmation bias at a particular point in time.

Is there a name for that?

Yes ! It's called dowsing !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[SaskMick]

Not that you can demonstrate that in any way, of course

Sure I can, I demonstrate it all the time

 

[Pixel42]

Aha ! the rational explanation.

In that case I should stop calling myself a dowser, how about Ideomotorist ? What ever it's called it works fantastic

It works in the sense that almost anybody can get a reaction from the dowsing rods, and fool themselves into thinking it's telling them something they didn't already know more often than would be expected by chance.

It does not work in the sense of actually finding things more often than would be expected by chance.

My primary interest at the moment is the reaction of people dowsing for the first time. If they can do it,( and some can do it much better than others) I get them to dowse me. I say stay where you are, and come for a walk in my shoes. I then walk over something that they have just dowsed while they are standing still. The usual response it WTF !!! They often asked how I did it, I tell them I did nothing, YOU DID IT

Do you explain to them about the ideomotor effect, confirmation bias etc? If not you are deliberately misleading them.

 

[Tolls]

Was James McCormick's claim true. Yes

Does his ADE651 work. Yes

Oh dear.
Did your regular trolling get boring so you felt you had to up the ante and defend the (let's be honest) indefensible?

 

[pakeha]

It's impossible to do a double blinded test of my dowsing abilities. I could try, but I would not be dowsing.

Are you saying it's impossible for you to dowse if you don't already know the answer to the question you're dowsing?

 

[Recovering Agnostic]

There was no cheating by myself or my wife.

You noticed the "consciously or not" bit, right?

The test was for my benefit, there was nothing at stake. There is no difference finding a bucket under which something is hidden, apart from that it would be impossible for my wife not to know which bucket she put it under. LOL

There is the world of difference, because any distinguishing marks or features in the buckets would be no use at all in determining what's hidden under them. And of course your wife would know which one she put the object under. That's why it should be done at random, and she should then leave the scene to avoid any possibility of giving you subconscious cues. How can a self-identified skeptic not understand these basic principles of blinding?

If the test was purely for your benefit, why are you hawking it round here as evidence for your beliefs? Did you stop to wonder why your powers work just up to the point where a test is properly conducted to eliminate alternative explanations? Don't you think it would be interesting to examine ways of testing it without upsetting your delicate neutral frame of mind?

 

[Daylightstar]

Not necessarily.



So you're back to just declaring them to be contradictory without providing any evidence or cogent arguments as to why, then.

I'm not averse to being convinced. It's just going to take more than a "because I said so" to do it.

Read my post this time. Read it again and again and again. Read it till your gray beard is 3 meters long.
If you don't understand it by then, no problem, it won't matter to you anymore by that time ....

 

[SaskMick]

It works in the sense that almost anybody can get a reaction from the dowsing rods, and fool themselves into thinking it's telling them something they didn't already know more often than would be expected by chance.

It does not work in the sense of actually finding things more often than would be expected by chance.

That is a typical believers response.

Do you explain to them about the ideomotor effect, confirmation bias etc? If not you are deliberately misleading them.

How does the ideomotor effect work when a dowser can not see or know when something is about to happen ?

 

[Daylightstar]

Sure I can, I demonstrate it all the time

How can we tell?

 

[SaskMick]

How can we tell?

You can't. This is the internet.

 

[SaskMick]

That's it for today, but rest assured that I will be back

 

[Kid Eager]

You can't. This is the internet.

I've just received a PM from an angry lolrus. He wants his bukkit back.

There's no doubt you'll be back. You got too much front not to be back.

There's a lot of back in this post. Oooh, there's another....

And who's assured, and why does he need resting?

 

[Daylightstar]

That's it for today, but rest assured that I will be back

They always come back ....

 

[Pixel42]

That is a typical believers response.

Yours is a typical believer response - desperately looking for excuses why something doesn't work under controlled conditions in order to maintain a cherished belief, rather than accept that they have been inadvertently fooling themselves.

Mine is a typical sceptic response - accepting overwhelming objective evidence that something doesn't exist, even though it would be cool if it did.

How does the ideomotor effect work when a dowser can not see or know when something is about to happen ?

Your unconscious mind makes the best guess it can, based on all the information available to it (some of which you may not be consciously aware of). The only way to determine whether it guesses correctly more often than would be expected by chance to is know in advance what that chance success rate is, and measure the actual success rate to compare with it.