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Dowsing by a Skeptic

AdMan said:
Sweet dreams. And go back to your supposed "skeptic" roots to find some grounding for your claims. Otherwise you won't find much support here.
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His skeptic roots have borne bitter fruit.
 
Slowvehicle said:
TY.

I throw myself upon the mercy of the spelling tribunal.
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We gotcher back over here at The Grammar Resistance. The Fruiterers and Green Grocers committee of the SAA (Spelling Anarchy Auxiliary) will send you fresh fruit in the spelling nazi detainment center and the Resistance has our attorney, Fast Eddie from Bensonhurst, working on a writ of happiness corpsiness as I write.

Spellczechs? We don' knead no steenking spellczechs.
 
Ranb said:
I think dowsing can be dangerous. Several years ago I called the local water utility about a low water pressure problem. They said the reducer off of the main line was working properly and I needed to dig up and replace the water line between the reducer and the house. One of the men proceeded to whip out a collapsible rod with a handle (his dowsing rod), wave it around, then painted a line between the reducer and what he claimed was the water inlet to the house. It also traced a straight line between the electrical meter and the junction box to my garage.

I pointed this out and let him know I wasn't going to kill myself digging where there was probably a wire with 220 volts. I called the utility company and the next day I had properly positioned lines painted identifying water, cable and power. The water line painted on the ground lead directly from the reducer to the shutoff valve under the house. The power line to the garage was right next to the "water line" the dowser painted.

Had I dug where the dower indicated, I might have been injured or killed. I wrote to the utility asking if they allowed their employees to endanger their customers by identifying power lines by dubious methods such as dowsing. I never did get a suitable reply. No one should just dowsing to keep them alive.

Ranb
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That's a frightening story.
Where's the harm, indeed.
 
Being a skeptic isn't about belief or disbelief, it's about adopting a method. In a world where there are lies, mistakes, false beliefs and so on, we've come up with a methodology to test truth claims. That's pretty much it.

You may be an actual dowser. I have no way of knowing before any well-controlled examination. It is certainly possible that one in a million (or a billion) human beings possess some currently unrevealed ability. But, as a skeptic, I have to fall back on methods I trust to determine such things. Which is why the reaction, "cool story bro" is the appropriate one.
 
Rat said:
I am absolutely certain that it was a joke, and I have trouble interpreting it otherwise.
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Many years ago, I experimented with dowsing by walking over buried telephone cables and was surprised to find the rods swivelled exactly over the cable.
However when I conducted what I now know to be blind tests, I found nothing. The rods swivelled because I knew the answer.

I suggest SaskMick knows where his targets are.
 
Mister Earl said:
And what is the proposed mechanism for this "dowsing"? Do aerosolized water particles interact with the dowsing field generated by the handheld rod emitters? How does the dowsing field discern between airborne water vapor readily available and water under the ground that is not? Where's the toggle switch hidden that switches the dowsing field generators from water to gold to power line to bunyips? Where's the power source? I can't see anywhere to plug in the AAA batteries. Is there an adapter for European metric batteries?
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I've done a little research and the earliest I can source dowsing is to 1400's Germany where it was supposedly used to find metals. I can scarcely believe that anyone could still give it much credulence, considering it's been debunked for several centuries by now. Here is the only attempt to actually explain it to the best of my knowledge:

William Pryce said:
The corpuscles ... that rise from the Minerals, entering the rod, determine it to bow down, in order to render it parallel to the vertical lines which the effluvia describe in their rise. In effect the Mineral particles seem to be emitted from the earth; now the Virgula [rod], being of a light porous wood, gives an easy passage to these particles, which are also very fine and subtle; the effluvia then driven forwards by those that follow them, and pressed at the same time by the atmosphere incumbent on them, are forced to enter the little interstices between the fibres of the wood, and by that effort they oblige it to incline, or dip down perpendicularly, to become parallel with the little columns which those vapours form in their rise.
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Seems+Legit.+It+always+happens+too+me_54d530_3339868.jpg

Orphia Nay said:
Special metal? Or is it now the dowser is special?
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It's the dowser, obviously. Just not special in a good way.
 
Ranb said:
I think dowsing can be dangerous.
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It can indeed. Dowsing might seem amusing when it's just someone playing in their back garden pretending to find pipes, but a lot less so when it involves scamming governments out of millions and selling fake bomb detectors to soldiers in an active war.
 
marplots said:
You may be an actual dowser. I have no way of knowing before any well-controlled examination. It is certainly possible that one in a million (or a billion) human beings possess some currently unrevealed ability.
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Actually, it's not. It's precluded by confirmed results from quantum field theory.

Dowsing is not real. It's worth discussing only as an object lesson in skeptical methods.
 
Back in the 1980s, I was about half-convinced that pendula could answer questions. Then I held one between my thumb and a shelf and quickly convinced myself they didn't.

So yeah, dowsing's a very easy illusion to buy into.
 
PixyMisa said:
Actually, it's not. It's precluded by confirmed results from quantum field theory.

Dowsing is not real. It's worth discussing only as an object lesson in skeptical methods.
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Innocuous said:
Does the theory actually reference dowsing? If not, can you show us how you came to your conclusion?
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Indeed, I had the same question. Especially considering it's one of those, "proving a negative" things.

I can see how QFT could disallow some explanations as impossible, but not the phenomenon itself. After all, phenomena always trump theory, don't they?

I suspect the answer may depend on some particular, narrow framing of dowsing, in a "defined this way" restricts things to a dismissible format.
 
marplots said:
I can see how QFT could disallow some explanations as impossible, but not the phenomenon itself. After all, phenomena always trump theory, don't they?
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Exactly! My concern is just that. Just as we skeptics get annoyed when people wave "quantum" around to explain mysterious things, we shouldn't be too quick to use it to broadly dismiss things, either. I think you nailed it - the theory can dismiss SPECIFIC explanations. But who is smart enough to imagine all possible explanations that DO fit the theory? Not I, for sure.
 
Innocuous said:
Exactly! My concern is just that. Just as we skeptics get annoyed when people wave "quantum" around to explain mysterious things, we shouldn't be too quick to use it to broadly dismiss things, either. I think you nailed it - the theory can dismiss SPECIFIC explanations. But who is smart enough to imagine all possible explanations that DO fit the theory? Not I, for sure.
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Yep. In the battle between bumble bees and aerodynamics, the bumble bee isn't the one who has to yield.
 
Akhenaten said:
I have divined the same feeling.
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I used a pendulum, but got the same result. I shall check on the Tarot next.

And I could, since I keep three decks stored wrapped in silk and in wooden boxes for historical interest, and I have sufficient material to attempt an interpretation, though most of it went in a skip years ago.
 
abaddon said:
I used a pendulum, but got the same result. I shall check on the Tarot next.

And I could, since I keep three decks stored wrapped in silk and in wooden boxes for historical interest, and I have sufficient material to attempt an interpretation, though most of it went in a skip years ago.
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Use the pendulum to track down the tarot cards.
 
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