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Why Mythbusters never debunked dowsing

Puppycow

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Puppycow
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This is a YouTube video from Adam Savage.


I won't spoil it if you would like to watch the video yourself to see why. Otherwise, I'll give a brief summary and my comments in spoiler tags:

It seems to come down to that he didn't want to be a meanie because so many people believe in dowsing and he didn't want to bring a sincere dowsing believer on the show and embarrass him/her. Weird, huh? Is there no way to do this without being a jerk about it? And I understand that they would steer clear of controversial topics like religious beliefs, but giving a pass to dowsing because you don't want to be a meanie? It's something that can actually be tested too. Some things are not easy to test, but dowsing is. Randi did it.
 
Chris French also did some tests of dowsers which, unsurprisingly, showed that it didn't work. The dowsers were downcast, for a short while, but then found ways to rationlise their failure and left with their belief in dowsing apparently undimmed. (Dawkins is mentioned as he was presenting the programme, Chris French did the experiments.)

 
By coincidence I just watched that last night. I missed the livestream that featured the question.

I think he was right, they weren't about public shaming of people.
 
Part of his rationalising was interesting - in that maybe dowsing *does* work in a "natural" environment where people are subconsciously picking up environmental clues.

Extremely difficult to test that in some sort of controlled environment, vs the buried bottle of water type of thing. Anyone know of any attempts?
 
icerat said:
Part of his rationalising was interesting - in that maybe dowsing *does* work in a "natural" environment where people are subconsciously picking up environmental clues.

Extremely difficult to test that in some sort of controlled environment, vs the buried bottle of water type of thing. Anyone know of any attempts?
Click to expand...
Part of the problem is that in 'natural' settings, where people are looking for sources of water, if you dig down far enough, you're pretty much guaranteed to find water eventually, at least in countries like the UK.

The trouble comes when dowsers attribute this to magically detecting water, and make a more specific claim about hazel twigs and bent coathangers, which can then be tested and shown to be false.

When they are confronted with this, they have the choice between admitting they were deluding themselves, or with continuing to believe they have special powers, which were somehow interfered with by the experimental conditions.
 
icerat said:
Part of his rationalising was interesting - in that maybe dowsing *does* work in a "natural" environment where people are subconsciously picking up environmental clues.

Extremely difficult to test that in some sort of controlled environment, vs the buried bottle of water type of thing. Anyone know of any attempts?
Click to expand...
You’d need to demonstrate that the subconscious works in such a way before you start to use it as an explanation for anything. That aside, the JREF challenge was always careful to only test the claim the dowsers made, if the dowsers themselves believe they can do X then testing for X is done. And the actual test was mutually agreed prior to the testing, if both sides couldn’t agree then no test went ahead. None of the dowsers who wanted to be tested could do what they claimed they could when doing a test they had agreed to.

ETA: With the dowsing challenges usually the first test run was done with the dowsers knowing where whatever they were dowsing for was, the dowsers would agree that their dowsing was working under such test conditions, then the samples would be moved about and (as an example) the top of the box was closed. Subsequent test runs resulted in what one would expect by chance alone.
 
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I recall Randi saying that it would be impossible to fail to find water in the ground. Even in Australia, a very large percentage of the continent, including desert regions, has artesian water beneath it. Dowsers, like all people who think they have some "gift" like this, have convinced themselves first. So they will be the last and hardest to unconvince.
 
icerat said:
Part of his rationalising was interesting - in that maybe dowsing *does* work in a "natural" environment where people are subconsciously picking up environmental clues.

Extremely difficult to test that in some sort of controlled environment, vs the buried bottle of water type of thing. Anyone know of any attempts?
Click to expand...
 
When we set up the Beehive Skeptics booth at festivals, we offer dowsing as a demo. Totally unscientific, of course, but we have a series of covered containers, only one of which has water in it. Visitors can use our dowsing rods (or bring their own) and try to tell which container has the water.

I see what Adam is on about, though. Mythbusters tried to stay focused on the ideas, not the people embracing them.
 
Puppycow said:
This is a YouTube video from Adam Savage.


I won't spoil it if you would like to watch the video yourself to see why. Otherwise, I'll give a brief summary and my comments in spoiler tags:

It seems to come down to that he didn't want to be a meanie because so many people believe in dowsing and he didn't want to bring a sincere dowsing believer on the show and embarrass him/her. Weird, huh? Is there no way to do this without being a jerk about it? And I understand that they would steer clear of controversial topics like religious beliefs, but giving a pass to dowsing because you don't want to be a meanie? It's something that can actually be tested too. Some things are not easy to test, but dowsing is. Randi did it.
Click to expand...

Adam Savage should check his premises showing dowsing is bunk is not being a jerk. It is showing dowsing is bunk.
 
Why'd he even answer the question, who cares? The show was always more entertainment than some sort of documentary, what would explode if they did a bit on dowsing. Would have been out of character if for the show if you ask me.
 
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Yeah, it's a weird take. Randi was calling out famous charlatans, with lackluster results. He wasn't trying to disabuse people of their folk traditions and petty superstitions. And neither was Mythbusters.
 
"Adam, Jamie, for the hundredth time, the channel's not going to send you on a round the world cruise to 'test' the 'myth' that the Earth is flat!"
 
I understand that Adam has gotten a little snippy for being called Jamie at times. I still think of him as "Jamie" because he looks like a Jamie. I had one student that looked a lot like him, name = Jamie. Even on Mythbusters Jr. I'm still a little surprised when the kids call him Adam.
 
icerat said:
Part of his rationalising was interesting - in that maybe dowsing *does* work in a "natural" environment where people are subconsciously picking up environmental clues.

Extremely difficult to test that in some sort of controlled environment, vs the buried bottle of water type of thing. Anyone know of any attempts?
Click to expand...
That is why Randi always gave the dossiers a “dry” run where they could prove to themselves that they were in surroundings where their dowsing still worked, despite the unnatural surroundings (and negative vibes from the skeptics).

Once that is established, the real testing began where the dowsing invariably failed,
 
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