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Dowsing by a Skeptic

Giordano said:
Negative energy! Would you be willing to explain what this is and how you have done it?
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Well, it has to be real. The Dowsing Doctor (who we're betting is a chiropractor or aroma therapist) pays someone to do it.

Voila! Scientific proof by a sciencey guy.

So? How about it, SaskMick? We don't want to know the guy's name, but would like to know what sort of "doctor" the Dowsing Doc is. As mentioned, in parts of Canada he just might lose his license if he's an M.D. and using this nonsense to diagnose patients.
 
Giordano said:
And the doctor douses too to confirms your friend's diagnosis if I remember your posts correctly? Is this an MD type of doctor?
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The 'doctor's' contracted dowser dowses to verify the 'doctor's' diagnosis.
What the 'doctor' dowses for is not indicated if I'm not mistaken.
Perhaps the 'doctor' dowses for suckers.

SaskMick said:
Not really, I don't know enough dowsers to know what they think in general. The only dowser I know with any length of experience does have a specialty, he specializes in medical dowsing. He works for a doctor who is also a dowser by verifying his diagnosis. He has been particularly helpful to me.
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Foolmewunz said:
Well, it has to be real. The Dowsing Doctor (who we're betting is a chiropractor or aroma therapist) pays someone to do it.
...
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Or perhaps the dowsing doctor and his dowsing friend are a figment of SaskMick's imagination in an attempt to create a double appeal to authority (doctor dowses plus approves of and uses another dowser).
 
Loss Leader said:
<Sigh> This sounds like it could be a good test, but I'd like to know a whole lot more about what these buckets look like, how "identical" they really are and what the painted one looks like in the light. I'd like to know how your wife chooses where to put each bucket and how she makes sure it's random. It would further help to know where your wife is and what you can see and hear of her during your tests.
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All important points.

SaskMick: you are moving in the right direction, but you've still got a bit of work to do before you can be sure you're not inadvertantly fooling yourself and are ready to repeat your test in front of a neutral third party.

Remember that every previous dowser who has taken a properly blinded test, no matter how experienced and confident, has done no better than chance. So at the moment there are two possibilities:

1. You are the first dowser in history who can do better than chance (let alone achieve 100% accuracy) in a properly blinded test

2. You have not yet learnt enough about setting up such a test to blind it carefully enough.

Where would your money be at this point, if you were us?

Also remember that the point of these dry runs is that you don't end up publicly humiliating yourself when demonstrating dowsing in front of people who do know how to properly blind a test.
 
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Why is one bucket spray painted? I'm fairly sure I didn't miss that suggestion in earlier pages. It seems weird.
Surely the buckets must all be opaque? (I take spray-painted to mean the others are transparent.)
After that it doesn't matter what they look-like, but sameness would be best.
 
Donn said:
Why is one bucket spray painted? I'm fairly sure I didn't miss that suggestion in earlier pages. It seems weird.
Surely the buckets must all be opaque? (I take spray-painted to mean the others are transparent.)
After that it doesn't matter what they look-like, but sameness would be best.
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My understanding is that the buckets are all opaque, and SaskMick spray painted the inside of one. He appears to be claiming that he can detect the paint by dowsing. Why he chose to do this rather than have an object placed under one of them I have no idea, but it's obviously problematic in that there are several ways a clue as to which is the painted bucket could inadvertently be given that he could pick up, consciously or unconsciously. Also he doesn't spell out the protocol clearly enough to rule out other possibilities (e.g. he hasn't said where his wife is whilst he's dowsing; if she's present that obviously makes the test invalid).
 
The spray paint is inside to make one bucket unique, in a way that is (presumably) not visible when the buckets are upside-down. This test isn't based around water; as I understand it, he's dowsing directly for the spray-painted bucket. Potentially, not all that bad a test.
 
SaskMick said:
Evening all !:)

Sorry to have been absent for so long, but I have been busy.


The test so far.

I have got hold of five identical plastic buckets and spray painted the inside of one at the base. I gave them to my wife to place upside down and 30 feet apart. The score is four out of four correct so far. I will give it another three attempts before calling it quits.
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AdMan said:
So how did you double-blind this test, exactly?

You should read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clever_hans
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I don't think Mick has understood what double-blinding is and why it's the keystone to testing reported dowsing abilities.
 
Roger on the spray paint.

Maybe Mick could send us a photo of a bucket and the sprayed bucket.

Then again, the whole thing is being done unblinded, entirely on his personal integrity and curiosity as to whether dowsing is real or not; moot is moot.
 
bellonax said:
Is spray paint a good idea? Doesn't it have a particularly pungent smell?
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That's one of the several ways in which a clue as to which is the painted bucket could inadvertently be given that I was thinking of. An accidental small splash on the outside of the bucket, a change in the way the painted one reflects light are others. Altogether not a good choice as the thing to dowse for, if you want a reliable result.
 
Pixel42 said:
That's one of the several ways in which a clue as to which is the painted bucket could inadvertently be given that I was thinking of. An accidental small splash on the outside of the bucket, a change in the way the painted one reflects light are others. Altogether not a good choice as the thing to dowse for, if you want a reliable result.
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Or that bucket could simply have some visible difference from the others that was not caused by the painting itself. It could be something subtle, that is only being picked up subconsciously, so SaskMick may not be aware he's doing it.
 
uvar said:
The spray paint is inside to make one bucket unique, in a way that is (presumably) not visible when the buckets are upside-down. This test isn't based around water; as I understand it, he's dowsing directly for the spray-painted bucket. Potentially, not all that bad a test.
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Actually, it's an incredibly bad test. Let me explain why with an anecdote:

When my daughter was 3 years old, I bought about half a dozen blank VHS tapes. I recorded many episodes of a TV cartoon show called Superted on one of them, and a few movies (Care Bears, Ewoks, etc.) on the others

All tapes looked identical to me but before I had a chance to label any of the tapes, my young daughter could instantly pick out any tape at random and say correctly what was on it. She was 100% accurate every time. After watching her closely, I noticed she would quickly examine certain sides of the plastic tape before shouting out "Care Bears!", or "Superted!" or "Ewoks!"

My daughter does not have paranormal powers. Each tape had tiny little differences - a 1mm scratch on one part of the case, or a little nick on another part. One tape had an almost unnoticeable grainy effect that the others did not, one had a corner of the clear plastic section that was slightly raised. Because my daughter hadn't learned yet to identify things by written lbels, she was using a natural ability to differentiate similar objects.

Is SaskMick's painted bucket different in some way from the other 'identical' buckets? You betcha! So...not all that good a test after all.
 
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SaskMick said:
"It is the challenge of the unknown that draws the greatest minds; others are well comforted and appeased by certainty"

Not sure who wrote that, but I like it anyway. :)
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Some who think they are blazing new trails are actually hopelessly lost in the forest.
 
zooterkin said:
Or that bucket could simply have some visible difference from the others that was not caused by the painting itself. It could be something subtle, that is only being picked up subconsciously, so SaskMick may not be aware he's doing it.
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Exactly. Any slight variation in colour, a scratch, even a fingerprint might be enough to subliminally recognise the target bucket. Although the buckets are supposed to be identical it's obviously not a foolproof test. The point of the buckets was to conceal whatever object Mick's trying to dowse for, not to be the objects he's trying to tell apart.

Instead of spray painting one of the buckets and switching them around, Mick's wife should have rolled a die to choose which bucket to put the can of spray paint underneath.
 
SaskMick said:
June 20th ish Mick discovers he can dowse for negative energy:jaw-dropp
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How can you tell what you find is negative energy?

Are you aware that, according to Hawking and other physicists, negative energy is necessary to keep spacetime wormholes open so as to permit almost instantaneous travel? You could make a fortune if you can do what you claim!
 
SaskMick said:
"It is the challenge of the unknown that draws the greatest minds; others are well comforted and appeased by certainty"

Not sure who wrote that, but I like it anyway. :)
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So, are you certain you can dowse?
 
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