Dowsing by a Skeptic

[Nay_Sayer]

If all bans are going to be lifted when the new forum begins, will Mick come back I wonder...

If the bans get lifted I'd imagine the Mod would take up drinking...Scratch that they'd pool their resources and just buy a brewery for the ensuing headaches.

 

[barehl]

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

No, you aren't even close to the mark. Cesar routinely distracts dogs by tapping them, sometimes with his foot, sometimes with his hand. It's just a distraction; it doesn't hurt them or cause them to have emotional trauma. Other trainers try to distract with clicks, sharp commands, vibrating collars, flipping the leash, etc. This is a common technique and in no way unique for Cesar.

most animal trainers these days advocate positive reinforcement, which this is not.

Again, you are way off the mark. Positive reinforcement is for training. Cesar doesn't typically train. However, on the occasions when he does train, he also uses positive reinforcement. The two examples that come to mind were a dog that was being trained as a cadaver dog and another one that was trained to detect explosives. Having the dog not bite is normal behavior so it doesn't require this type of reinforcement. If he were teaching the dog to roll over or sit up and beg then that would require positive reinforcement.

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.

The video I've seen clearly shows what happened; why would you need another video? I've seen Cesar get bitten numerous times, much like I've seen Jackson get scratched and bitten by cats numerous times. However, this is not taking place in some secret hangar in Area 12. If these men were injuring animals, we would certainly hear about it. Other than paranoia, do you have any reason to think something else is going on?

 

[Olowkow]

Some recent posting by "mick" aka "Saskmick" in the "ideomotor effect thread" over at the BSD. It provides some insight into how we "pseudo-sceptics" are viewed by some serious dowsers as well as mick's seemingly generous esteem of "some" posters at JREF.

http://forum.britishdowsers.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=3729

Ian Pegler wrote:If you don't care then why do you bother with them? [pseudo-skeptics at JREF]​

Mick: Because some of them are at least prepared to discuss dowsing. I think a few of them are OK,while some of them ( maybe the majority ) have their religion to protect.

Ian Pegler wrote:I for one don't care what they think, but I do care how they act, and the one thing leads naturally to the other.
​

Mick: That's life. You can either hide away, or meet the challenge head on. I prefer the head on approach.

It's a shame actually, that Saskmick was not able to stick around here and discuss his new theory of dowsing as a type of hypnosis, and the subconscious mind as a computer devoid of logic. I don't think it's going to have much traction over at the British Society of Dowsers.

Mick: I think we should not be afraid of being vilified.
As has been pointed out, this is a discussion forum, so let's discuss dowsing, there is much to discuss ! I find the hard part is getting dowsers to discuss it.

 

[Donn]

It's very telling that among true bleevers, a critical conversation is taboo.

 

[Olowkow]

It's very telling that among true bleevers, a critical conversation is taboo.

It is telling of something, not sure what; almost like the heresy of theists questioning miracles. While he sees our attempts to explain dowsing through known science and logic as "protecting our religion", he never seems to bother trying a proper blind test. It's possible that some dowsers have in fact done double blind tests, but they might attribute the subsequent failures to other causes. What an oddly compelling and complicated mix of confirmation bias and human psychology this dowsing phenomenon is for some.

Ian: I see that within 24 hours my words are being echoed in the other place, so talking to you is a bit like talking to them, but if I wanted to talk to them I'd go over there.

Well, that's too bad. I would hope that some day, Ian might join our new forum, International Skeptics' Forum (soon to replace "the other place") to present his evidence for dowsing. Why not?

 

[Reno]

Because he knows, as do most other dowsers, that when their evidence is examined, it becomes ethereal wisps of no substance and they can't have their life-hobby taken away from them.

 

[Olowkow]

Because he knows, as do most other dowsers, that when their evidence is examined, it becomes ethereal wisps of no substance and they can't have their life-hobby taken away from them.

I don't think it's quite that simple, but it might involve the basic desire not to be proven wrong. I can't imagine that any of the hard core dowsers secretly believe that their evidence is not substantial and real. They just view scientific demands on their anecdotal evidence to be unreasonable nitpicks and outside the purview of their quasi-supernatural abilities. They are the experts. Skeptics don't get it. From what I have read, the believer sees the skeptic as possessed by an irrational and malicious need to use what the former are convinced are mere pseudo-scientific means to destroy what to them are facts. The mendacious motives of the skeptics are never made clear.

The negativity is born out of frustration on both sides of the dispute. Dowsing is analogous to homeopathy, astrology, intelligent design and religion generally in that respect.

 

[barehl]

That's because they all had conditioned brains.

Young children take to dowsing like a duck to water, it's because their minds have not been conditioned by society. They have no preconceptions of what they can not do so they just do it.

I've already talked about dowsing. As I recall, I wasn't in High School yet. And, I've already explained that it couldn't be repeated without external cues. And, as I said, my father believed he could dowse so my mind was not against it. You keep asserting things that don't stand up to scrutiny.

 

[Donn]

It is telling of something, not sure what; almost like the heresy of theists questioning miracles.

Yes, that's good. It's telling of their gap between their special skill and reality.

This gap is likely not needed at first; it's all amazing and dowsing opens new doors into magical possibilities. After a while, I cannot help but think, little moments of "oh, dear" must sneak in. A missed target, a wrong result for a strong feeling.

A bit more time spent dowsing must lead to time-spent tending the gap. The more you want to pursue your free-floating wonder, the more you must make sure that no noise will intrude.

Widen that gap, build a wall there so you don't glance across by chance. On the other side of the gap are all the reasons why your dowsing is silly.

Just like when you were a kid and you dressed in those Spiderman pyjamas which flipped a switch in your mind and you immediately started climbing all over the room. You. Were. Bang! There. Man. Spiderman.

Then, you tried to stick to a wall. A little crack formed.
Maybe you even went and got some glue, maybe some flour and water in a bowl, thinking a little bit of stick should get the magic flowing.
Hands on the wall. They slip down. There's no traction there.

And that's where you start to clear the gap. You still want that magic. You still want to feel that superhero energy, and you don't want to be pulled-up short by meddling reality.

While he sees our attempts to explain dowsing through known science and logic as "protecting our religion", he never seems to bother trying a proper blind test. It's possible that some dowsers have in fact done double blind tests, but they might attribute the subsequent failures to other causes. What an oddly compelling and complicated mix of confirmation bias and human psychology this dowsing phenomenon is for some.

It sure is. Have you seen their persecution complex about Wikipedia? They are adding to their internal stories, to their worth, their side, by creating powerful enemies to feel oppressed by.

Even Spiderkid can forget that he can't climb walls when Sister Octopus is chasing him up a tree!

Well, that's too bad. I would hope that some day, Ian might join our new forum, International Skeptics' Forum (soon to replace "the other place") to present his evidence for dowsing. Why not?

Yep, Ian is clearly watching this thread. Come on over Ian, the water's underfoot!

 

[zooterkin]

I've already talked about dowsing. As I recall, I wasn't in High School yet. And, I've already explained that it couldn't be repeated without external cues. And, as I said, my father believed he could dowse so my mind was not against it. You keep asserting things that don't stand up to scrutiny.

You're arguing with someone who was banned a couple of months ago, so don't hold your breath for an answer.

 

[barehl]

I will explain the results if anyone is interested. But I wonder if anyone can guess or intuit what might have happened? What was the noticeable difference between the two runs of 100: human simulated random, vs. real random events. Hint, the principles involved are actually used by law enforcement and have resulted in convictions, or so I'm told.

This one is easy. People don't intuitively understand that a sequence of 8 heads in a row is just as likely as a sequence of alternating heads and tails 4x. In a real sequence of random numbers you do get seemingly unusual sequences like three heads three tails three heads. However, since people are hardwired to see patterns they tend to believe that random numbers shouldn't contain any patterns.

I'm not sure of the specific law enforcement test you are talking about. I do know that there is a test for feigning being crazy. What is funny about the test is that if you actually are crazy, you score in the middle because your answers are similar to random. However, someone trying to fake being crazy to avoid prosecution will tend to pick anything that sounds crazy and they end up with a high score. I know that the test has questions like:
A.) I never hear voices. B.) I only hear God's voice on Tuesday.

A.) Basset hounds are secretly spying on me. B.) All dogs are good pets.

A.) Television commercials are just a form of advertizing. B.) Commercials for Dial soap contain secret messages.

A.) I am sometimes followed by ice cream trucks playing "In A Gadda Da Vida". B.) I am never followed.

 

[Olowkow]

This one is easy. People don't intuitively understand that a sequence of 8 heads in a row is just as likely as a sequence of alternating heads and tails 4x. In a real sequence of random numbers you do get seemingly unusual sequences like three heads three tails three heads. However, since people are hardwired to see patterns they tend to believe that random numbers shouldn't contain any patterns.

I'm not sure of the specific law enforcement test you are talking about. I do know that there is a test for feigning being crazy. What is funny about the test is that if you actually are crazy, you score in the middle because your answers are similar to random. However, someone trying to fake being crazy to avoid prosecution will tend to pick anything that sounds crazy and they end up with a high score. I know that the test has questions like:
A.) I never hear voices. B.) I only hear God's voice on Tuesday.

A.) Basset hounds are secretly spying on me. B.) All dogs are good pets.

A.) Television commercials are just a form of advertizing. B.) Commercials for Dial soap contain secret messages.

A.) I am sometimes followed by ice cream trucks playing "In A Gadda Da Vida". B.) I am never followed.

I have a vague memory of a story in which a mathematician was called to testify that some sequence was likely not truly random but rather human generated, but I can't find it. Wiki makes a mention of this phenomenon as a general matter.

Random number generation may also be done by humans directly. However, most studies find that human subjects have some degree of nonrandomness when generating a random sequence of, e.g., digits or letters. They may alternate too much between choices compared to a good random generator.

 

[bonzombiekitty]

This one is easy. People don't intuitively understand that a sequence of 8 heads in a row is just as likely as a sequence of alternating heads and tails 4x. In a real sequence of random numbers you do get seemingly unusual sequences like three heads three tails three heads. However, since people are hardwired to see patterns they tend to believe that random numbers shouldn't contain any patterns.

IIRC, Apple had to change the "random" function on their music players/applications because the function was producing results that were actually random. Since it was actually random, it would play several songs by the same artist in a row. So it had to create the "smart random" which would take out the randomness in the random function.

 

[bonzombiekitty]

I have a vague memory of a story in which a mathematician was called to testify that some sequence was likely not truly random but rather human generated, but I can't find it. Wiki makes a mention of this phenomenon as a general matter.

I was told it as a story of a math teacher who would leave the room and and have the students generate two sets of numbers - one a set of numbers made by rolling a fair dice X number of times, another set he'd ask the students to come up with their own random set (IIRC the students were divided into two groups so not as to influence the human created list).

When he came back in the room, they'd ask which set was produced by humans, and which was actually a random roll of the dice, and how certain he was. The vast majority of the time, he'd know which was which with high certainty because the dice generated one would invariably form some sections that seemed like a pattern (i.e. 10 sixes in a row). While the human generated one avoided patterns and seemed "random".

 

[Olowkow]

I was told it as a story of a math teacher who would leave the room and and have the students generate two sets of numbers - one a set of numbers made by rolling a fair dice X number of times, another set he'd ask the students to come up with their own random set.

When he came back in the room, they'd which set was produced by humans, and which was actually a random roll of the dice, and how certain he was. The vast majority of the time, he'd know which was which with high certainty because the dice generated one would invariably form some sections that seemed like a pattern (i.e. 10 sixes in a row). While the human generated one avoided patterns and seemed "random".

I actually took a class where we did just that experiment. I described it in a previous post in this thread.

What was interesting at the time I took the class in pseudo-science was that I had read or heard about this phenomenon somewhere previously. The story was that a guy was convicted of something because his claim that some random sequence was not of his own making was shown to be likely a lie by a mathematician who testified in court.

I would have sworn I heard it on the NPR Radio Lab podcast, but in my search through the archives I found nothing.

 

[Mojo]

What was interesting at the time I took the class in pseudo-science was that I had read or heard about this phenomenon somewhere previously. The story was that a guy was convicted of something because his claim that some random sequence was not of his own making was shown to be likely a lie by a mathematician who testified in court.

I would have sworn I heard it on the NPR Radio Lab podcast, but in my search through the archives I found nothing.

Could it have been something to do with Benford's law?

 

[Olowkow]

Could it have been something to do with Benford's law?

Thanks, that was driving me nuts. It's very likely what I was trying to think of. I am almost certain it would have been Mark Nigrini who was interviewed on NPR, and who was probably the expert witness. Here's an article about his ideas:

http://bkdforensics.com/2012/10/17/benfords-law-theres-something-to-the-numbers/

Also, Mark Nigrini mentioned in the Wiki entry about Benford's Law:

In 1972, Hal Varian suggested that the law could be used to detect possible fraud in lists of socio-economic data submitted in support of public planning decisions. Based on the plausible assumption that people who make up figures tend to distribute their digits fairly uniformly, a simple comparison of first-digit frequency distribution from the data with the expected distribution according to Benford's Law ought to show up any anomalous results.[14] Following this idea, Mark Nigrini showed that Benford's Law could be used in forensic accounting and auditing as an indicator of accounting and expenses fraud.[15] In practice, applications of Benford's Law for fraud detection routinely use more than the first digit.[15]

 

[Olowkow]

http://forum.britishdowsers.org/vie...4&sid=7639f9de12da6520bcc5b2c656140974#p17814

If I were a betting man, I'd bet on SaskMick's (AKA Mick) eventual return to JREF. I don't think he yet quite understands the level of crazy at BSoD. He has that questioning spirit that will not easily be silenced. They'll boot him if he gets too inquisitive.

I appreciate your feedback.

I spent considerable time reading in the[URL="http://forum.britishdowsers.org/"] BSoD forum

since JREF has been all but unusable due to delays. As I said before, there is a wide variety of woo bandied about at BSoD, none of which is ever seriously challenged. The comments from posters are very often so ambiguous that it is impossible for one to determine what they actually believe. I have been following Mick's vain attempts at starting a dialogue with these folks which are thwarted by either snark or confusing replies. He, the main mod and forum owner are almost the only posters these days. Then, of course, there is the poor guy who keeps seeing nearly daily UFOs and posting about them in his own personal thread. Wow. What you don't see over there, curiously, is religion. Well, it is the UK after all.

Dowsing seems to permit viewing it as analogous to a type of religion with many different sects, complete with supernatural type experiences, ritualized behaviors, tenets albeit loosely held, and special knowledge which is just too arcane for the non believers. Like a religion, at the end of the day, it really doesn't matter much what specific beliefs are held or espoused, as long as someone self identifies as a Judeo-Christian (or dowser) he is accepted and nurtured, up to a point, by other Judeo-Christians (dowsers).

Furthermore, questioning anyone's personal experiences with God/dowsing, can invoke the wrath (i.e. name calling) of the entire community of believers.

What has always struck me as surprising is the utterly blind confidence (faith) which seems to characterize the dowser. Often they seem to think that their detractors have never really tried dowsing (heard the Word), don't understand what dowsers are doing or claiming because of lack of experience or intelligence, or the skeptics merely disbelieve out of some misplaced motives which are seldom ever made clear (mad at God).

I think what stirred such interest in SaskMick's claims was his desire to self identify in a roundabout way as a "former skeptic" and that he was so unwilling to learn from such obviously willing, experienced and knowledgeable teachers here at JREF, yet somehow instantly found credibility in the dowsers' teachings at BSoD.

I, for one, found it unusual in the extreme that a self-styled skeptic could realistically ever be so quickly and completely taken in by his first experience with the ideomotor effect. I mean, his enthusiasm was bordering on that of a born again fundamentalist theist discovering the burning in the belly, or hearing the voice of God.

It may take him a while, but SaskMick could just wind up coming back to JREF, and it will be a most interesting thread if he does.

ETA: Specifically to your question, I can't say I see a lot of difference in "stubborn and quick with the excuses" type tenacity among the various woo peddlers. Although Cuddles, in the post below, does have an interesting point, homeopathy, astrology, AGW denial, conspiracy theorists, etc. all have their elements of digging in their heels and complex pre- and post- apologetics.

It was only a matter of time until Mick [SaskMick] was suspended/banned from the British Society of Dowsers.

Re: Interesting experience

by Grahame Gardner » Thu Sep 25, 2014 6:23 pm
Moderator Posting - Despite repeated warnings, Mick has chosen to continue his boorish behaviour towards other forum users so his account has been suspended.
Normal service may now be resumed
Grahame

Here's what I think.

SaskMick [Mick] discovered dowsing on his own, was infatuated with the phenomenon, and set out to understand what he was dealing with. He asked JREF, even though he had a deep distrust of "skeptics", and we were honest with him. We told him dowsing was bunkum. He disagreed, and called us names, got warned, and got banned. He tried the BSD, and they didn't like his trying to figure out how dowsing works. See Mick's threads at BSD for this conversation. Mick finally seems to understand that JREF was right after all, and is pretty pissed at BSD and tells them as much and gets himself tossed for being uncivil.

 

[HighRiser]

It'd all be a good thing if he got his misconceptions worked out.

 

[Reno]

We'll never know as the policy is not to allow banned accounts back here. Shame.