Dowsing by a Skeptic

[SaskMick]

Um, you found a spot that you claimed was a good place to dig for a well. The woman then walked over the same spot and agreed with you.

Did anyone ever think to find out if it actually was a decent place for a well?

Finding gas and water lines near a house where there are any number of clues as to their location is trivial. Try one of the more stringent tests, and if those results are equally positive, I will agree that there may be something to it.

I don't know whats happening about the well neither of them will speak to me now.

 

[AdMan]

Great.




I think you are getting warmer, I'm sure the subconscious mind has much to do with it.

I have demonstrated it to a few people including the telephone guy who was locating the underground lines at my new place. I had already marked the line where I thought it ran. He put his marker flags almost directly on the marks I made previously.

I have noticed that some people go quiet, as did the telephone engineer, so to break the ice so to speak I have found a bit of humor often helps. I ask who is the best looking guy here, and the rods will swing round and point to me. I then say show me the ugly git and they will point to ever I have decided the victim will be.

If there are women present I will say who is the hot chick that wants me too much

The point I'm making is that the rods will point to what ever I'm thinking of, whether it's hidden or not

Yes, you've got it. The ideomotor effect.

 

[Pixel42]

You're talking as if all this is not already well known and well understood. You said you knew about the ideomotor effect, but that's exactly what you're describing as if it's something you'd just been the first person to discover.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Digging just about anywhere will find water.

 

[Andy_Ross]

(We might be getting into derail territory - maybe we need a new thread "Does Quantum Field Theory disprove all woo?")

Even limiting ourselves to just the forces we already know, no one can predict all the interesting ways that they can be combined into complex mechanical, biological, or chemical systems (for example). As the QFT lecturer said, we aren't done. Maybe a mind-reader reads your mind by sending out microscopic flying worms that burrow into your head and transmit the results back using radio waves. Or they just fly back with sampled results. It is an extraordinary ability and only happens every billion or so births. Nothing there violates QFT. QFT can't prove that it won't work, because the mechanism is consistent with QFT. Once we get our hands on a psychic, we can test it and rule out the flying worms, or maybe verify them. But QFT does not preclude it.

This is all I am saying: QFT doesn't rule out flying worms! Also, I do not believe in flying worms.

This is the same kind of wooly thinking that Dowsers use.

 

[Pixel42]

I don't know whats happening about the well neither of them will speak to me now.

If you already knew about the ideomotor effect why didn't you simply explain to them that was all it was at the time, instead of frightening them by pretending to have a paranormal ability?

 

[Tolls]

Mick, Mike, Spike. They are all nicknames derived from Michael.

Minor correction, and nowt to do with dowsing, but Spike is simply a nickname. It's not related to Michael at all.

Milligan was a Terrance, Jones was a Lindley(?), Lee is a Shelton. Just some examples that some people might recognise.

 

[PixyMisa]

(We might be getting into derail territory - maybe we need a new thread "Does Quantum Field Theory disprove all woo?")

Even limiting ourselves to just the forces we already know, no one can predict all the interesting ways that they can be combined into complex mechanical, biological, or chemical systems (for example).

We don't need to. We just need to show that one particular effect cannot possibly be present.

That's much easier. We can show, for example, that your refrigerator has more gravitational influence on you than the stars, so astrology is necessarily false.

Same goes for dowsing. It doesn't matter how you might imagine it works, it has to be a field interaction, and any field interaction would be detected by our instruments long before it affected us directly.

We know that dark matter exists, even if we don't know what it is, because it changes the behaviour of the matter we can see. If dowsing were real, there would necessarily be something similar in play. There isn't. And it is simply not possible that we've missed it; we've blanketed the world with electromagnetic sensors of every description, and QFT tells us that the effect cannot possibly be anything other than electromagnetic in nature.

As the QFT lecturer said, we aren't done.

As Dr Carroll said, for the physics of everyday life, we are done.

Maybe a mind-reader reads your mind by sending out microscopic flying worms that burrow into your head and transmit the results back using radio waves.

Impossible. We'd know instantly.

Or they just fly back with sampled results.

No.

It is an extraordinary ability and only happens every billion or so births.

Which is of course special pleading, a logical fallacy. I know you're not seriously arguing that this is true, but your hypothetical argument is of no value even as a hypothetical.

Nothing there violates QFT.

It does violate neurobiology and neurochemistry and physics, though. For example, microscopic flying worms would have no directional control due to the Brownian motion of the molecules in the air.

QFT can't prove that it won't work, because the mechanism is consistent with QFT. Once we get our hands on a psychic, we can test it and rule out the flying worms, or maybe verify them. But QFT does not preclude it.

If psychic powers were real and worked via flying worms, we would already know. Within the laws of physics as we know them, it is not possible for psychic powers to work this way and not leave evidence.

If psychic powers were real, we'd detect the effect. We don't.

If they worked via microscopic flying worms and radio waves, we'd detect the worms and the radio waves. We don't.

What QFT says is that the argument stops there. When a particular woo belief has been stomped on by some other field of science, whether it be biology or geology or chemistry or physics or any of their branches, there is no escape clause by proposing new laws of physics. At the scales and energy levels of everyday life, we know that there can be no undiscovered laws operating.

 

[PixyMisa]

And that's the power of the result. Not that it answers all the questions by itself, but that it draws a line where new hypotheses must stop.

So, homeopathy, for example. Completely ruled out by the known laws of chemistry and physics. But maybe there's previously unknown laws of physics involved? No.

 

[Donn]

This QFT and flying worm thing is so interesting that I hope a new thread spawns. I'm still not used to the notion that all the unknowns (within our human range) are now known.
The ways this will impact all manner of woo, as well as us sceptics who may want, paradoxically, to hang-onto the woo are going to be fascinating.

 

[PixyMisa]

New thread here for QFT vs. the flying worms.

 

[Donn]

To Arrakis, fly!

 

[marplots]

And that's the power of the result. Not that it answers all the questions by itself, but that it draws a line where new hypotheses must stop.

But again, all this means is that my hypothesis must not propose undiscovered forces. That still leaves plenty of room for creativity.

There's a hidden assumption here. It's the assumption that to count, dowsing has to operate through some undiscovered law, aka "magic." Here's where we diverge. In fact, we've already agreed that the ideomotor effect provides a good explanation and is a hypothesis that doesn't violate known laws.

I don't see why dowsing would have to necessarily be woo. In fact, if the phenomena were actually demonstrated (beyond the ideomotor effect), I would not abandon my understanding of physics, I'd try to reconcile the phenomenon with physics instead.

I fail to see why actual dowsing would require us to throw out our understanding of the world. In practice, we don't do it at all. When someone bends a spoon, we assume (rightly) there are normal forces involved and the mental powers of the bender are less significant than the properties of the spoon and things like torque. Still, the spoon gets bent.

Dowsing and spoon bending only seem amazing in the first place if we think they are demonstrating unknown properties of the universe, which, as you point out, is not a good place to start.

 

[Donn]

But again, all this means is that my hypothesis must not propose undiscovered forces. That still leaves plenty of room for creativity.

I think Pixy is saying we can literally use an EM detector, hold it between the dowsing rods and show there is no EM activity happening - and by the physics of QFT conclude that there is no phenomenon happening outside the persons' head.

There's a hidden assumption here. It's the assumption that to count, dowsing has to operate through some undiscovered law, aka "magic." Here's where we diverge. In fact, we've already agreed that the ideomotor effect provides a good explanation and is a hypothesis that doesn't violate known laws.

Sure, that's the mundane explanation. It takes dowsing out of a real-world effect and puts it into a bias/illusion category: There is no connection between the matter being sought (water, gas, metal) and the dowsing rods or the dowser's brain. The connection is 100% the other way.

True dowsing, the way the OP is talking, has to be woo. I think Pixy is saying that there are no new fields/molecules/waves/particles that could be called "dowsicles."

QFT excludes these forever. Done. Dusted.

My shaky take, is all.

 

[Reno]

That's not at all true. There was that one who was definitely genuine, and whose test only failed because he was misled by the gold leaf lettering on the spine of a nearby book. How can you explain that?

The explanation is quite simple:

Randi is a wizard and obviously imbued the gold-coloured lettering with an anti-dowsing spell so he could keep his million dollars for himself. Randi did a similar thing with Uri Gellar which blocked Uri's power to find water inside cannisters and bend cutlery. He even turned Uri Gellar into black and white for a short period of time. That's wizardry at work.

Everyone knows this, but the skeptics have a conspiracy of silence going on. That's why no-one will ever win the Randi million dollar challenge.

 

[PixyMisa]

But again, all this means is that my hypothesis must not propose undiscovered forces. That still leaves plenty of room for creativity.

Nope. Because we know how the discovered forces work (because we've discovered them), and they don't allow for dowsing either.

In fact, we've already agreed that the ideomotor effect provides a good explanation and is a hypothesis that doesn't violate known laws.

The ideomotor effect is a good explanation for why people believe in dowsing.

If the ideomotor effect is the explanation, that means that dowsing is not real.

I don't see why dowsing would have to necessarily be woo.

Strike one: It doesn't work. Strike two: It's not possible.

I fail to see why actual dowsing would require us to throw out our understanding of the world.

Because there is no possible mechanism by which it can work, even hypothetically. The only force by which it could operate is the electromagnetic force, and there is no mechanism to produce the effect, no mechanism to detect it, and no effect.

If something is possible, but not observed, we may simply have missed it.

If something is impossible, but is observed to happen, we have made a mistake.

If something is impossible and is not observed, then belief in it is woo. Dowsing falls into this category.

 

[Old man]

2. Your dowsing rod can detect many substances.
How many and which ones? What is the success rate? Why aren't you getting the rods studied? Why aren't you rich and famous? Why don't you have any proof other than anecdotes?

Water, empty plastic pipes ( never had water in them ) underground telephone lines, purposely hidden cell phones etc etc etc I have only been doing it for a little while and I am still learning.

Finding hidden cellphones would be trivially easy to test, SaskMick. You could do dozens of reps in a couple of hours. Why don't you just test yourself?

...I asked the rods out loud to show me the water line and they pointed in the opposite direction to what he had indicated. I found the water line. It then occurred to me that I was being tested, and asked him if that was the case. He begrudgingly admitted it was.

I have since tried to speak with both of them but they do not want anything more to do with me. I think the woman is fine, but her husband is scared...

No.

I won't voluntarily have anything to do with people who try to push dowsing an me either, and it's NOT because I'm 'scared'.

 

[tsig]

You can believe whatever you like.


FFS AdMan, I am only just beginning to experiment with dowsing, I am far from the stage of scientifically trying to prove anything. Gimme a bleedin chance for christs sake.

True but reality doesn't have to conform to your beliefs.

 

[marplots]

I think Pixy is saying we can literally use an EM detector, hold it between the dowsing rods and show there is no EM activity happening - and by the physics of QFT conclude that there is no phenomenon happening outside the persons' head.

Well, I agree in principle, but in practice it's much tougher. For example, the rods do move, so there's some force involved, somewhere. The arguments revolve around just what is triggering this force - we all accept that the rods move.

Sure, that's the mundane explanation. It takes dowsing out of a real-world effect and puts it into a bias/illusion category: There is no connection between the matter being sought (water, gas, metal) and the dowsing rods or the dowser's brain. The connection is 100% the other way.

Two things. First, bias/illusion is a real world effect, it's just being misattributed. Second, we haven't ruled out the possibility of a connection (which could be mundane) since in some cases, we suspect a dowser may be unconciously recognizing the surface signs of underground water. This would be "known physics" in the sense they are seeing clues, would be happening in the brain (so that the rods aren't acting independently), and still wouldn't appear as a particular measurement of EM fields.

We seem to be falling into different camps on what should count as "real" dowsing. I'm starting from a phenomenological perspective in that, do they find what they claim to find is the only real rule and from there we get to try to figure out what's going on. If I say the only "real" dowsing is unknown forces between dowsing rods, the dowser is removed from the equation (which is nicely simplifying), but then we don't have a good model for the practice "in the wild."

True dowsing, the way the OP is talking, has to be woo. I think Pixy is saying that there are no new fields/molecules/waves/particles that could be called "dowsicles."

QFT excludes these forever. Done. Dusted.

My shaky take, is all.

True enough. I wouldn't be looking for dowsicles either. However, the OP is relating a story about something that actually happened to him (I assume there isn't an outright lie here). That experience can't be understood by saying "There are no dowsicles, so it didn't happen." It did happen, it's just that what happened has a rather mundane explanation.

The positive explanation is much more powerful and informative than the negative "can't happen" because of QFT. The participant already had the experience, they know something happened. So too, if someone demonstrates dowsing where the ideomotor effect is eliminated (they produce hits in a truly blind experiment), we wouldn't say merely "That didn't happen because of QFT" - rather, we'd look for another explanation that fit within QFT.

Again, I'll mention that dowsing for a strong magnet with ferrous metal rods would both work without the ideomotor effect, and be acceptable to QFT. Certainly, it wouldn't be an extraordinary claim, but a statement like this: "I can detect a strong magnet hidden under a piece of paper by noting when these two metal rods come together" certainly has the form of dowsing and for the dowser, might mimic the experience quite well. "The rods seem to move on their own..."

 

[Slowvehicle]

I ended up here as I could not find the answers I was looking for elsewhere, and I have not yet found them here either Still, I feel far more at home here than the Hippie type forums I have visited

I am English by birth, and now proudly Canadian.

There is a big difference between an English accent and an Irish one. Can you really not tell the difference ?

Given that the answer you seem to be looking for is, "Why, yes, of course you are a water witch", I am not surprised you have not found it here.

Do consider reading the other thread, with its presentation of a rigorous protocol, then conducting such a test under controlled conditions.