princhester said:
Now, as to the rest of your post, it seems to me you have two complaints regarding Randi's testing of dowsers. I'll deal with the shorter point first.
If you'll excuse me, I think it would be better to deal with your points the other way around., so I've reversed the order.
you say that you consulted some geologists and they said:
You can find some water anywhere you dig, but in the vast majority of places it's only a tiny trickle.
and you provide a link. You say that Randi says that water can be found under 90 or 94% of land. Randi's method of testing dowsers is to say "find me a dry spot". You say this would be impossible, because "you can find some anywhere you dig".
OK, that makes sense. Now find me a link to a cite for the proposition that "you can find some anywhere you dig". Try to be precise, and please don't say you've already provided one.
Here's the link:
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=...9Qsa.12706%243n5.9208%40news2.central.cox.net
The key part, WRT your question above
I asked :
[Randi says] "more than 90% of the world's land mass above reachable supplies of water "[/i] Is this figure correct?
Answer, given by Geologist
" Who knows? True, you can find *some* water most anywhere, if you drill deep enough and don't need much water. Does a gallon per minute count?
We have wells supplying farms around here with 10-15 gpm flow rates. We have other wells supplying irrigation water with 2000 gpm rates, from different depths and tapping different geological units"
you say
Apart from anything else, the challenge set by Randi is radically different from the claim being made. Dowsers claim the ability to find water, not the ability to find dry spots.
Are you saying that a dowser can't tell the difference between a wet spot and a dry spot? If not, how do they know when they are on a wet spot?
A fair question, reasonably asked.
The point is, "wetness" is a matter of degree; every spot is "wet" - to a certain extent.
Some spots yield 1 gallons per minute of water.
Some spots yield 10 gpm.
some spots yield 30 gpm.
Some yield 2000 gpm.
All may be found within a very small area of ground, with the 1-10 gpm spots being very common, and the 2000 gpm spots being very rare.
So, along comes a dowser, he makes the claim that his stick twitches when he passes over one of those 2000 gpm spots.
But what of every other spot, any given place where his stick
fails to twitch. Should we assume that place is "dry?" No, you might dig at that spot and find 1 gpm there, or you might find 20 gpm there, or you might find 60 gpm there. All the dowser claims is that there is
not a huge quantity of water there.
Claiming the ability to locate a high yield spot does not of itself indicate an ability to find a spot where there is no water at all.
See also my reply to the next poster, which is relevent.
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