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Dowsing by a Skeptic

Limbo said:
... and this could well be related to variations in a psi-conducive state of consciousness, resulting in ostensible psychic occurrences. ...
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Hilite by Daylightstar
Pity psi has not actually been demonstrated to exist or actual psychic occurrences been demonstrated to actually take place.

Claims aplenty of course, but nothing more meaningful.
 
Sasmick as I suspected did not like being told he was incorrect and took the cowards way out.

But for fun and frivolity there's always B.S.O.D
 
Blue Screen Of Dowsing.
Rods have encountered an IDEOMOTOR error.
Human intervention unnecessary, please remove the human and leave the rest to the rods. When all humans have been eradicated, the item being sought will no longer encounter negative vibes.

..
 
It's interesting to see Mick's interaction with the BSOD forum, I suspect it might also end in tears as his "skeptical" side is questioning many things, he also called out the UFO poster on his fantasies. Although I found Micks attacks pretty horrible I also wished he had stayed here as there is a chance he could have eventually realised that dowsing was down to the ideomotor effect.
 
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robin75 said:
... Although I found Micks attacks pretty horrible I also wished he had stayed here as there is a chance he could have eventually realised that dowsing was down to the ideomotor effect.
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To unpick that a bit, I don't think he doubted that it was involuntary movements of the dowser's hands that made the rods move. The question was why the hands moved; was it a subconscious reaction to expectation or was it magic?

The evidence pretty clearly says it's not magic, but there are endless ways to argue that it might be an extra-special kind of magic which magically gives results which look exactly like it's not magic.
 
I pity his neighbours having to live with the worry that he'll visit them again. I did not get the impression of a likeable chappie, I found him to be quite repulsive.
 
SaskMick aka Mick is back at it on BSoD. His thread on questioning assumptions seems to have attracted some attention. I find it interesting that he seems to be raising some of the same objections to their claims that he was hit with at JREF. The link below is to his thread, the most popular on the forum, with 2 or 3 posts a day!

http://forum.britishdowsers.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=3779

Mick: I have a friend who is a Jehovas witness, he has no telly or computer, the reason being that the JW's don't want their subjects to come under outside influences, they own his mind ! , but he has "found the lord" and the poor old plonker is happy.

We dowsers should be careful not to fall into the same trap. It pays to QUESTION EVERYTHING, even our own "beliefs",otherwise we will end up believing in purple fairies from the planet Zircon.

PS, I think it would be good to try and figure out what works, and what does not work, and the reasons for it, that way we at least stand a chance of getting to the bottom of it. Otherwise we will all be classified as being in the blind faith brigade, and rightly so.
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Another possible clue that we may have got him thinking.

Mick: If you want to believe something it will affect your dowsing, and you are unlikely to get results other than what you want. If the results are anything other than tangible, you will never know for sure whether they are real or just wishful thinking.
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Not a hint, by the way, that he was banned at JREF, so his motive was likely not suicide by mod for the purpose of gaining credibility at BSoD. It's a shame that he had to burn his bridges here, because I still think he will see through the lack of critical thinking of those at BSoD, and eventually wish he could hang out with the "pseudo skeptiks" again.

I wonder how long it will take for Mick to lose patience with BSoD's magical thinking or for Ian or Grahame to begin censoring him à la Past Life Forum.
 
I think SaskMick has proven his dowsing ability to be genuine.

Oh wait. I misread the title of the thread to be "Dowsing for a Skeptic"...

Nevermind. :o
 
zooterkin said:
Cesar the Dog Kicker, you mean?
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This is an excellent post because it shows the difference between casual observation and detailed analysis. For example, it is not unusual at all for someone to examine photos or video and proclaim that it contains proof of aliens, bigfoot, ghosts, supersonic tube creatures, etc. However, a more careful analysis then shows that such evidence does not exist.

To carefully review Cesar's actions, I downloaded a high resolution HD video of the attack directly from the Nat Geo Wild channel on YouTube. I'll admit that when you just look at it casually, it does indeed appear that Cesar viciously kicks the dog. Unfortunately, your eyes are wrong. I ran through the video frame by frame and nothing like that actually happens. For example, when you seriously kick, your foot will move three to four times as fast as your knee. This is because if the leg were locked then the foot would move in an arc roughly twice the length of the knee arc in the same time. However, with the knee bent, the foot actually covers a longer arc as well. This is a normal kick like if you were kicking a football. However, Cesar's knee comes up first. That isn't what you do when you kick; in a real kick, the knee moves at the same time as the foot. Since Cesar's knee comes up first before the foot moves, there is little power behind the foot. Secondly, you can calculate the speed of the foot based on the time and distance it moves. It's the same speed that your hand would be moving if you tossed a ball 3.3 ft into the air. Conversely, you could say that it is the same speed a ball would be traveling if you dropped it from a height of 3.3 ft.

The dog is nevertheless surprised by the contact and jumps backwards without letting go of Cesar's hand. Cesar then moves forward until the dog let's go. If the kick had any real force to it then we would expect the dog to let go immediately but that didn't happen. Nor was the dog actually moved by the force of the kick. So, it was more of a tap than a forceful kick. But, again, I agree that it does look that way when viewed casually.
 
I'm afraid you're missing the point. It's not about whether he's kicking the dog 'viciously' (not a term I or the page linked to used), but whether he's kicking the dog at all. He's punishing the dog for unwanted behaviour, not rewarding good behaviour; most animal trainers these days advocate positive reinforcement, which this is not. As for whether he is causing pain, remember the only video you've got to analyse is the footage they chose to broadcast, so you can't be sure he's always so accurate.
 
If all bans are going to be lifted when the new forum begins, will Mick come back I wonder...
 
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