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Changes To The Challenge

Jeff Wagg said:
Hello,

There are rumors floating about, so I will make this pre-announcement:
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Jeff- I find myself wondering where these "rumours" would start.
If JREF consists of a mere handful of people, who is the "Mole"?:eek:

I suspect the guy with the waggly beard. Guys with waggly beards are troublemakers.
 
steenkh said:
This is great news! I hope you will get your act in before they close the challenge to non-celebrities.
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Who knows? Maybe the new improved challenge will allow entrants to shout "RANDI TOLD SOMEBODY TO PROVE HIM WRONG", while they cover their ears with their hands, and stamp their feet.
 
robinson said:
While we await the announced changes to the challenge, why not discuss the obvious here? I don't know if the above is a true statement. If it is, then it seems obvious there is some trickery going on, and since Randi is known as a master of such, that does not look good.
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The statement is almost true. Technically, a test will almost never be exactly what an applicant first claims. It almost never can be since they invariabley claim somthing too vague and untestable or simply fail to make sense. Take the most recent case. The applicant claimed to speak to dead people by handling their possesions, and wanted to prove this by talking about a dead person to a relative and seeing if they recognised them. Clearly, this could never be tested objectively and is exactly the technique used by cold readers everywhere.

Instead, a test was proposed where she would tell the sex of a dead person after handling their diary. This was not the original claim, so technically Peter is correct that the original claim was not tested. However, according to the orginal claim, the final test must have been possible for the applicant, since if they can talk to a dead person they can ask them their gender. The applicant agreed this was the case and eventually took the test.

Peter claims this is a poor test in which Randi "switched" the claim, and which the applicant was stupid to agree to it. Everyone else sees that this was a perfectly fair test that tested exactly what the applicant claimed, but in a different way from that originally proposed, in order that the test would be clearer and able to prevent any fraud. Apparently Peter has such an issue with Randi that he is unable to tell the difference between deliberate misdirection and scientific clarity. (I should add that there is an unrelated issue in this case where the Swedish group testing may have violated the protocol, and a retest seems likely. This was nothing to do with the JREF and does not affect the point at hand.)

I have yet to find much in the way of published material about the working out of protocol. There is scant material that shows how the challenge works. In the sense of getting to the preliminary test. But I hope there actually is such material. I would like to read it. And it would prove there is no such trickery involved, as some would claim.
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If you check here you will find an awful lot of material that shows how the challenge works. Most of the threads do not contain much simply because the applicant disappeared or refused to negotiate. Most of the longer threads show exactly how discussions of protocol progress, and how the changes suggested by the JREF are only to provide a sensible test, not to somehow cheat the applicant into agreeing to something they don't want to.
 
robinson said:
For somebody that claims there is an underground source of water, and that it flows from miles away, and that they can tell you where to drill, and how deep to find that water, that is far beyond the ability of the MDC to test.

(drift, but worth reading, tmot)

To test an outrageous claim like that, you would have to have the dowsers identify two locations where they thought underground streams were.

Then drill test boreholes at the precise coordinates specified.

You would have to drill to a depth just short of the predicted streams and then completely seal off the borehole with a cement plug and grouting to exclude shallower groundwater from entering the borehole.

Then drill to the final depth at which the streams were believed to exist.

All this would have to be observed throughout by interested parties and properly supervised.

Effective seals against shallower groundwater would have to be achieved.

The water chemistry, geology and the flow rates of groundwater throughout the borehole would have to be documented.

In addition special water samples to determine the number of heavy and light isotopes (the isotopic signature) would have to be taken throughout the borehole.

Only then would it be possible for scientists to conclude whether the water sampled at the depth fell as rain or whether it derived from a source far away.

This would have to be done at specialist laboratories.

THIS ALL COST A LOT OF MONEY.
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Not really, robinson. You get on the phone to a local geologist in some location and ask him for maps of any existing boreholes where he found known underground springs, and boreholes that came up dry. Then you take the applicant to this area and get them to dowse each borehole site.

So all that expensive work has already been done for you.
 
Big Al said:
Not really, robinson. You get on the phone to a local geologist in some location and ask him for maps of any existing boreholes where he found known underground springs, and boreholes that came up dry. Then you take the applicant to this area and get them to dowse each borehole site.

So all that expensive work has already been done for you.
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Who's going to stop the applicant from calling the geologist and asking the same questions and just memorize the spots?
 
Rasmus said:
Who's going to stop the applicant from calling the geologist and asking the same questions and just memorize the spots?
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Because you don't tell him in advance which area you're going to cover.
 
More speculation, thoughts, ideas, that kind of stuff

IMO, you are ignoring a critical fact of the MDC. (maybe it will change?). I'm not saying the idea isn't worht looking at, but... according to the rules...

I can't do anything to prove anyone has dowsing abilities. According to the MDC only one person can apply, that person has to claim some power, and that person is responsible for all expenses and effort to prove it.

So while its nice to speculate how one can prove a certain dowser can't find underground water with accuracy, and for a small amount of effort, that has little to do with meeting the challenge requirements to prove they can.

For somebody that claims there is an underground source of water, and that it flows from miles away, and that they can tell you where to drill, and how deep to find that water, that is far beyond the ability of the MDC to test. And unless the dowser is wealthy, and maybe insane, beyond their ability as well.

It would take a lot of people, a lot of time, and a lot of money to actually know, one way or another, if some outrageous claim about a vast underground source of water is really there or not, and where it is coming from.

In a way, it is the same for many scientific issues. Outrageous scientific claims often take vast resources and extreme amounts of funding to test.

And even then, there is fighting over results, and the issue of doing it all over again. Or something unseen in the protocol making an appearance.
 
I really, really can't believe how dowsers and their woo friends rally round when they fail.

"Du-uh! Hello! Does this look like open countryside? Does it? No, it's a garden hose! So how am I supposed to be able to tell if it's got water in it? Did I say I could do garden hoses?
 
Big Al said:
I really, really can't believe how dowsers and their woo friends rally round when they fail.

"Du-uh! Hello! Does this look like open countryside? Does it? No, it's a garden hose! So how am I supposed to be able to tell if it's got water in it? Did I say I could do garden hoses?
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Yes - you did. 'Your' claim was that you could detect flowing water, underground. When devising a workable test you were asked if you could detect running water in a pvc pipe under 1' of xyz soil. You said that you would be able to do that and agreed that this would be an acceptable test of your powers. the base line test showed that you could dowse the water when you were told in advance which pipe it was running through... and so forth...

The excuses are more likely to be stuff like:

Bob was wearing a Rolex watch / someone had a cellphone switched on / walkie talkies interfered - ad finitum...

Interesting sidebar:

I find it interesting that JR specifically denies the dowsers claim that the water is running in streams, and then sets up his test to test exactly that. Maybe he should be testing with stationary pools...
 
This thread seems strangely derailed. What does this applicant have to do with the changes to the challenge? What happened to the changes?
 
nok said:
This thread seems strangely derailed. What does this applicant have to do with the changes to the challenge? What happened to the changes?
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It's like this; first off they were going to be a week, then they got delayed for a week, then another, then they got delayed indefinitely. That'll save you reading 200 posts!

Thanks for bumping the thread, I was going to do it myself. Kind of like the clock for Sylvia Browne in reverse, this thread.
 
vIQleS said:
Yes - you did. 'Your' claim was that you could detect flowing water, underground. When devising a workable test you were asked if you could detect running water in a pvc pipe under 1' of xyz soil. You said that you would be able to do that and agreed that this would be an acceptable test of your powers. the base line test showed that you could dowse the water when you were told in advance which pipe it was running through... and so forth...
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I seem to recall a well-publicized test exactly like the one you describe. Ten years ago? There were two parallel pipes connected to a Y-valve that allowed water to flow down only one pipe at a time. The dowsers were first told which pipe the water was flowing in and performed at 100%. They agreed to the protocol and then when the position of the valve was hidden from view the dowsers scored at chance levels. A very simple, inexpensive, and thorough test.
 
Randi tested dowsers in Australia during the 1980s doing exactly that kind of test, but with three pipes and three valves. As expected, when the dowsers knew beforehand which pipe had the flowing water, they scored 100%, and then when they didn't know, their scores dropped back to chance levels. The excuses for the failures were absolutely mind-boggling; one dowser even blamed planetary alignments!
Plus ca change...
 
So.. Is there any news/rumors/whatever about the original topic of this thread? Any chance of an announcement within the next week? ;)
 
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