Guest lampooning by David Middleton
Hopefully, this post won’t have as many typos as my last post.
I just love ridiculing The Grauniad…
The news that many water companies use dowsing to locate underground water has prompted outraged demands from scientists that they desist at once from wasting time and money on “medieval witchcraft”. They are right to call this practice deluded. But it reveals how complicated the relationship is between scientific evidence and public belief.
When the science blogger Sally Le Page highlighted the issue after her parents spotted an engineer dowsing for Severn Trent Water, the company responded to her query by claiming that “we’ve found some of the older methods are just as effective than [sic] the new ones” (such as the use of drones and satellite imaging). The engineer concerned told her parents that dowsing works for him eight times in 10.
Further inquiry elicited the comment from Yorkshire Water that “although few and far between, some of our techs still use them!”, while Anglian Water said: “There have been occasions where we’ve used dowsing rods.” Le Page says that 10 out of 12 British water companies she approached have admitted to the practice. But “admitted” isn’t quite the right word; what is striking is the jaunty tone of these responses, as if to say: “Yes, isn’t it extraordinary that these old methods work?”
Let’s be clear: dowsing doesn’t work. Le Page’s blog links to detailed experiments conducted in Germany in the 1980s which showed that the dowsers tested weren’t locating water at levels better than random chance.
[…]
The resistance to basic scientific reasoning and evidence displayed by large businesses that also deploy cutting-edge space technology may seem lamentable, but it shouldn’t surprise us. It has never been more apparent that an inability to make scientifically informed choices is no obstacle to flourishing in modern society.
[…]
Given that company executives and engineers seem no more immune to pseudoscience than the rest of the population, it’s not obvious that better public education about science is going to dispel the modern-day survival of concepts rooted in Renaissance natural magic. (Whether the public should be expected to bear any costs incurred is quite another matter.) Rather, these beliefs need to be understood – and if necessary confronted – in the way that all magical thinking should be: as an expression of desire and the need for consolation.
•Philip Ball is a science writer
This bit is worth repeating…
The resistance to basic scientific reasoning and evidence displayed by large businesses that also deploy cutting-edge space technology may seem lamentable, but it shouldn’t surprise us. It has never been more apparent that an inability to make scientifically informed choices is no obstacle to flourishing in modern society.
Given that company executives and engineers seem no more immune to pseudoscience than the rest of the population…
It always amuses me when academic pinheads and “science writers” lament about private sector scientists and engineers resisting the “basic scientific reasoning and evidence” which they reject.
While, there are lots of reasons to doubt that dowsing can directly detect water, minerals, lost jewelry or anything else. Dowsing can detect subtle variations in the Earth’s magnetic field… And the presence of groundwater can cause magnetic anomalies.
ABSTRACT
Perturbations on the earth’s magnetic field may coincide with the existence of groundwater. Theoretical calculations are made showing how and to what extent this effect may exist. The suggestion is also made that water dowsers may get a dowsing reaction as a result of entering a change in magnetic gradient. Tests were conducted to determine the statistical significance of dowsing reactions obtained by separate individuals dowsing in a common test area. Approximately 150 people participated in the experiment over a period of one year. Chi·square tests showed considerable statistical significance. Virtually all people tested experienced dowsing reactions though most of them had never dowsed before. There is some evidence of correlation between magnetic gradient changes and dowsing reactions.
Chadwick, Duane G. and Jensen, Larry, “The Detection of Magnetic Fields Caused by Groundwater” (1971). Reports. Paper 568. http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/water_rep/568
There are reasons why scientists and engineers, with decades of experience in their fields and successful track records, might just choose to ignore the lamentations of academic pinheads and “science writers” and continue to employ practical methodologies despite the “outraged demands from scientists” to cease and desist.
Disclaimer: As a professional geologist, I am not endorsing dowsing as a method of finding anything. I’m just pointing out that the real world operates in a totally different universe than government, academia and journalism do.
Featured image from Wikipedia.
All this proves is that Graun writers know what a stick is, but are totally ignorant of what a computer model is.
I don’t know about finding water but 2 steel rods used as shown above can find buried sewer lines and other pipes. There does not need to be water in them. My best guess is that they detect the void in the ground.
I forgot to mention that the pipes can be made of plastic or metal.
Haha!
Plastic too.
Of course, and no need for water.
One guy up above gets all sciency with explanations of how one finds pipes and ore and groundwater and even the depth to the meter, while others just seem to accept that a water pipe is more of less like a deep aquifer.
This is becoming clownishly silly.
Have you no shame?
David, I was waiting for you to comment on the very unscientific methods and beliefs used by many climate scientists that enjoy Guardian support. It’s okay for them to dowse for more hurricanes, tornadoes and worse droughts, floods, accelerating sealevel and drowning deltas and coral islands, – lack of empirical evidence be damned. Every geologist knows that in the latter two plaints, both deltas and coral islands have grown, keeping pace with sealevel rise of 120m since the glacial maximum. What is the psychological term when the pot calls the kettle black.
Gary… I was just writing a satirical blog post… not a comprehensive text book… 😉
I learned how to detect underground pipes from a relative who worked for a municipal water company. Take 2 thin gauge steel welding rods with 90 degree bends for handles. Hold them balanced between your finger and heal pad in each hand. They must be able swing VERY freely. Tilt you hands just a little so the the 2 rods are parallel to your body and pointing outwards. Practice on a known buried pipe. Walk perpendicular to the pipe and as you cross over the pipe the rods will swing 180 degrees and point towards each other and then as you continue to walk over the pipe they will again point away from each other.
Oh, I get it now…you guys are all just clowning around.
My bad…I am so obtuse sometimes.
I thought I had entered the twilight zone for drunk retards.
I like your replies but I think you can’t win.
It works better (from experience) than I would have thought. One of my fellow operating engrs for SIUE was very proficient at locating not only water lines, but clogged sewers as well. Took us right to the collapsed tiles.
Witching water works. It is a craft with science as it’s basis.
Please understand that the water lines and sewer lines this man located were plastic and did not have any tracing wire for conventional locating. We almost always dug at the leak or just downstream of it in the resulting muck. Waiting for the leak to show at the surface usually involves a sink hole. Witching water leaks saved us (literally) tons of soil.
Dowsing is no better than guessing. In fact dowsing is really a means of guessing, like flipping a coin only more fun. Sometimes we have no real evidence and have to guess. You’ve got to drill somewhere. If people want to use dowsing to do their guessing I don’t see a problem. The only concern would be if more meaningful factors were being ignored in favour of dowsing.
I see a problem when people appear to be cranks and destroy their own credibility and anyone who as standing near them by association.
Dowsing is widely practiced and widely successful, yet hard to prove experimentally. It’s one of those paradigms that mainstream science hasn’t caught up to yet, and fundamentalists thus want to crucify anyone who states the obvious truth. Sound familiar?
A German study in the late 1990s found that dowsing worked rather predictably when working with real life sites.
“In hundreds of cases the dowsers were able to predict the depth of the water source and the yield of the well to within 10 percent or 20 percent,” says Hans-Dieter Betz, a physicist at the University of Munich, who headed the research group. Via http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a3199/1281661/
How is “widely successful” quantified? Who has had quantifiable success with it that would differentiate results from chance?
As far as I can see, every time ‘divining’ is subjected to double blind scientific testing it fails. Where’s this so-called ‘success’ occurring?
> Where’s this so-called ‘success’ occurring?
Follow the link I posted. The study I quoted is described in some depth there.
And here are links to the study itself.
https://www.scientificexploration.org/docs/9/jse_09_1_betz.pdf
https://www.scientificexploration.org/docs/9/jse_09_2_betz.pdf
All i can say is that i have successfully done this three times to find water lines. it seems to be successful for me. Joanne Ballard.
I am seeking some help in finding studies that I have seen in past, but I cannot find them now. And Google searching is not helping me. (I will post this on a couple of threads to see if anyone can direct me to the studies.) My daughter has been assigned to write a biology paper on global warming.
1. In England, the demise a certain moth (I think) was blamed on humans. Despite set-aside of areas to protect the moth, the moth numbers continued to plummet. Of course, the skin-deep analysis was to blame increases in CO2 concentration. However, painstaking analysis showed something different. The moth required certain ground temperatures for reproduction. In the set-aside areas, the grass was not cut and trees were not pruned — which made the ground too cool for the moth reproduction. It turned out the moth flourished when humans devoted land use for sheep grazing. The short grass enabled the moth to enjoy warmer ground temperatures. When humans phased out sheep grazing the ground temperature sank, leading to the demise of the month.
2. In California, a researcher noticed that the territory of a butterfly (I believe) was expanding northward. Since the north had cooler temperatures, it was presumed that global warming caused the shift in territory. However, more rigorous study showed the that butterfly was also expanding south; yet the expansion south was not as noticeable because of land development to the south of the butterflies historic range.
3. The disappearance of golden frogs in Costa Rica was blamed on global warming. However, closer study revealed that the frog species that suffered were frogs that hung out in wet environments, spending more time in water. Frogs that spent more time on dry land did just fine. It turned out the golden frogs died because humans introduced a bacteria to the frogs, leading to epidemic deaths of the golden species. It was not climate change.
Can anyone direct me to these studies?
Hicks with sticks – 28 minutes
(skip the first 3 minutes of content-free into)
I wonder why the approximately 60% water content of diviners doesn’t interfere with readings? 🙂
A skin-full of IPA in the Red Lion beforehand neutralizes pretty much anything. Last time I stopped off for a walk around the stones, it was World Dragon Day apparently. A pair of divining rods might have been useful to clear a path to the bar 🙂
Interesting comment by Dawkins:
No names, no pack drill.
Old ideomotor saw. Million dollar prize still up for grabs …
Cognitive dissonance on full display.
Or else just convincing liars.
Impossible to tell.
You’re not a professional anything.
If you can’t grasp that the science is definitive that it doesnt work, you’re the “pinhead”.
You’re not a geologist, you’re a geoquack.
It kinda seems a bit like acupuncture: Empirical evidence of a genuine effect that is not well explained.
But without a detailed mechanistic explanation and a whole bunch of ‘clinical trials’, there doesn’t seem much to connect it with the mainstream. If the practitioners don’t make the effort to do so, it will probably remain where it is. Where are the people who are trying to advance the science, rather than just charging for it?
The mechanism for acupuncture may be as simple as the grounding of a triggering nerve impulse that is involved in a feedback loop from nerve to muscle and back to nerve. Shooting the sensitive area with a local anesthetic has accomplished the same thing.
OK, apologies, I’m quoting myself.
I zoned-out for a few seconds before I suddenly remembered that this is what the global warming community does all the time. They charge society a dollar-amount to tell us all about the effects of global warming. But for a long time now, they haven’t been charging us for any advancements in the science, just charging us for them to say the same things with a louder megaphone.
The ones who I have seen do it are not scientists. They probably couldn’t explain it if they knew how it worked. They are just well diggers or ditch diggers. They claim that some people are better at it than others, there were a few people who were well known “water witches” where I grew up. People would call them when they needed a well drilled. I have no clue how this would provide a better than random chance of finding water but it does seem to work more often than not for some people.
You are aware why anecdotal evidence is not evidence at all, are you not?
When I was about 12, we found I could pick any card my sister named from a face-down deck, with 100% accuracy after the first (and only) miss, the 🃛 instead of the 🂫. (I got the 🂫 on the second try.)
This upset my mother. She consulted our maid, who assured her that “Lots of little kids can do that. They forget how when they’re older.”
The maid was right. I can no longer do this. It’s perfectly safe to play poker with me, now, Horatio. Really.
My degrees are also in chemical engineering.
Oh Jorge!
Et tu!?
Since no one has a clue as to how water divining works, or what it is that is being divined,., why on earth should it?
You are second guessing the mechanism for an effect you seem not to believe in
Because people are 60% water, Leo.
Divining rods allegedly point to water, similar to the way the planchette on a Ouija board points to letters and numbers to spell out messages from “spririts” …cough. (Do you believe that too?)
Looking forward to the evidence that must be at your disposal demonstrating the amazing power of divining. I haven’t seen any presented here yet.
I have to say, I have never seen so many in such a hurry to destroy their own credibility and cast themselves among the cranks of the world.
Well, this has been a terrific thread, Now I can tell people I get much of my information on climate science from a site where vast number of posters believe in divining and abiotic oil. Great bunch of scientists here.
Doug, 90% or more of your posts to this site attack the reality of abiotic oil with insults alone, supplying no evidence to support your favorite profitable fable.
Life comes from petroleum – not vice-versa:
http://living-petrol.blogspot.com/ncr
Sorry!
I do no such thing Khwarizmi and I agree with him 100%.
menicholas,
When the topic of oil origins is in the spotlight again, be prepared to
a) furnish evidence in support of the fossil fable that you “agree with 100%”, and
b) explain where the free GIbbs energy comes from required to convert lowly dead things into high grade petroleum, and
c) how to prevent dead stuff being eaten by bottom feeders while it gets slowly buried in sediments, while
d) specifying the reducing conditions that convert dead stuff into petroleum so that we can reproduce the phenomena in a laboratory (just like abiotic petroleum can be reproduced in a laboratory.)
I recall your brief fling with the preposterous and unscientific plasma universe fantasy, btw – and I forgive you for it.
The fossil theory of oil origin violates the 2nd law of thermodynamics, as I’ve pointed out hundreds of times to people like Doug over the years, with links to peer-reviewed chemical equations that are always fastidiously ignored by fossil fanatics.
You would have found a reference to those equations on my Living Petrol webpage if you had bothered to look.
Keep in mind that Comet Haley is 1/3 kerogen, a.k.a. oil shale.
One day you might be able to explain why that is so. But I won’t be holding my breath.
No, I do not argue for abiotic oil (actually I am agnostic on the issue, publically anyway, because although I have some vague objections to the conventional wisdom, I have nowhere near enough information to take a public position on it), but I agree with him that it is embarrassing to be finding out that so many people here accept divining for water to be a real thing.
I think we agree on that, so you must have misunderstood. My apology for not being clear.
You two apparently have a disagreement extending back in time that I have nothing to say about.
“I recall your brief fling with the preposterous and unscientific plasma universe fantasy, btw – and I forgive you for it.”
Hold on a second…I am not even sure I know what that is.
Do you mean electric universe stuff?
You have a good memory, better than mine.
I do not think it was a fling, not even a one night stand…although we might have had a quicky when I first met the gal…oops.
But as I recall…I mostly asked questions…did not offer opinions or make assertions.
maybe your memory is better than mine.
I gather information by asking questions.
Anyway, if you recall back several years ago when there were a few discussions on lightning and I was noting that there are types of lightning that were only discovered recently, and how faskinatin’ that was, or perhaps when I saw a video of apparently odd structures on the moon that some think look like electric discharges (but I do not recall bringing it up here), then you maybe oughta recall that in several more recent discussions of gulf oil it was ME who mentioned several times that there are oil and or gas wells that seem to be recharging faster than they can be pumped. I am not a professional petroleum geologist, but I am aware that the solar system is awash in hydrocarbons.
And that many bodies in the solar system are composed of carbonaceous chondrites, and that these are believed to represent the composition of the source cloud of the solar system, and so it surprised me not in the least that comets are similarly composed.
I think you are giving me a bum rap.
Still…I am not taking a position on abiotic oil in general…although I am of the opinion that there is more…A LOT MORE…oil than is currently being recognized.
One way I arrive at this conclusion is by a calculation I did one day…took me ten minutes…of the volume of all the oil even pumped out of the ground. One decent sized mountains worth…not even a pimple on the ass of a buffalo gnat compared to the earth…not even a pimple compared to the amount of sedimentary rock on the Earth.
The earth is big…really big.
The ground goes deep…really deep.
My guess is we will continue to be able to find fossil fuels faster than they are used for hundreds of years…just like we have for the past 150…despite assurances all along the way we were about to run out.
This was first predicted back in the 188os IIRC…when they used to dump some useless stuff called gasoline as a waste product of kerosene manufacturing.
Not guilty yer honor!
TTYTT I did not even notice the part he wrote about abiotic oil.
So I take back the 100%…sorry Doug.
I only argue about things I have some reason to be sure of.
Otherwise, I ask questions.
I am not even saying dowsing is impossible…just that there is zero evidence for it.
Zero evidence plus no credible reason to believe it equals no reason at all to buy it for a second.
Now, there are a lot of things for which little evidence exists…but most of them are things that are hard to investigate.
Not so with dowsing, according to proponents. They say anyone can dowse and they do it all the time…and yet no one can demonstrate it?
That is the definition of preposterous garbage, IMO.
Bending branches twisting themselves out of people hands, breaking the wood from the force of an underground water source?
Oh Lordy, please.
Make it stop.
Oh, and it works with tent stakes, copper wire, coat hangers, wooden sticks…detects pipes, all materials, ores, a crack in rock 85 meters down with some water in it (not 80 meters, not 90…85!)…and it works on TV cameras.
Oh, and even though the water is way under ground (or even a wood pipe with no water in it!) it bends one wire left and the other right, even though they are a foot apart!
Hey, K…not sure I understand the 8 second you tube clip.
Got a longer version…I love that sort of thing.
Living in Northern Ireland, as I do, I find that dowsing works every single time. Every time the rods cross I dig down and water appears. It’s a sort of miracle. (Or maybe it’s just wet everywhere.)
It is shatterngly ignorant for any person writing here to admit that dowsing might work, let alone does work.
There is essentially zero scientific evidence that it works. Abundant, overwhelming evidence that it does not.
I spent some decades in the difficult science used to find mineral deposits, with success, specialising in geochemistry in an integrated team strong in geophysics. Those who carelessly claim that dowsing works with some undefined aspect of magnetism might ask themselves why so much care has been taken to invent and design magnetometer instruments that are usefully sensitive and proved reliable. There is a lot known about how magnetism interacts with materials and fields ant it does not accept bent sticks. It takes skill to use good instrumental data to estimate the depth below surface of the causative magnetic anomaly. You cannot work it out in your head.
The craft of the dowster swivel needs to be understood by scientists, not because it is positively useful, but because it provides learning material for ways to recognise and correct utter, rampant bullshit that is a threat to the proper progress of science. Geoff
Well said Geoff. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdjYGaINLwo
Tks DWR54,
There have been many controlled tests. Mid 1980s Australian Sceptics Journal has another series of tests with money reward. Nobody got the reward. Geoff
Amazing that dowsing “rods” also point to video cameras, but only the one in your right hand!
It is shatteringly ignorant for any person who does not have firsthand personal experience with the results of dowsing, to claim that it doesn’t work. And there is not abundant, overwhelming evidence that it does not, in the real world.
I’ve had abundant experience with choosing locations and drilling water wells, in a small area where commercial drillers also worked. You can convince yourself to your heart’s content that there is nothing to dowsing, but it won’t make any difference to me.
Glenn
Then provide evidence that it works. Simple. That’s all we ask. Provide evidence that it even ‘might’ work, like every other science has to do to obtain funding.
Anecdotes don’t count, by the way; nor does opinion.
It’s dead simple: if ‘dowsing’ or ‘divining’ works, then it should be easy for you to provide evidence supporting that claim.
Waiting.
Wait all you like, DWR. Won’t change what I said.
I imagine you know next to nothing about the subject, anyway.
Glenn
Then I guess we just have to take your word for it. Dowsing works, according to Glenn. Glen has spoken. Evidence counts for nought. Glenn’s opinion is final.
I know a lot about geology, and well drilling, and also bullshit.
Bullshitters assert things.
Scientists get evidence.
One tidbit of geological significance…aquifers extend over wide areas.
They have to…or how would the water move laterally to recharge the well?
For something that never fails, their being no prof or even evidence is a little odd, no?
If you do not find it so, your opinions means nothing.
Actually, as DWR says, opinions mean nothing irregardless.
(And yes I know it is not a word, but it has oomph)
Glenn,
And still, pigs do not fly.
Geoff.
Geoff, DWR,
Articles like this are incredibly valuable for those of us who comment here.
I mean that.
Because in this, and a few other such cases in the past, it reveals who are serious people and who are people who may say or believe anything for who knows what random reason.
Great comment Geoff.
I am particularly appalled by comments such as “dig here, 85 meters. We dug and there was water, therefore dowsing works”, or “We always use scientific methods and then always back it up with dowsing. We have never not found water”…after asserting water is hard to find in that area.
I am glad I am not the only one will and in fact unable to prevent my self from calling out a very loud BULLSHIT and not letting anyone propagating this nonsense off the hook.
Silence is as bad as agreeing with it, just like it is regarding real scientists and alarmist bedwetting warmista rent seekers.
Thanks again to both of you, I was starting to think I was daft or the page had been hacked.
(actually I am kidding…I know I am not crazy…it is the rest of yuz I have grave doubts about)
Back in the 1960’s a “water witch” found our main sewer line the first time. Apparently the roots of an old weeping willow tree continued growing after the tree was cut and got into our sewer line. A friend of mine with property near Loma Prieta just off Summit Road above San Jose got a good well on first try using a driller that used dowsing method to locate the water. Another friend of mine did NOT use dowsing on her property up in Mendocino county and got 3 dry holes this summer. A lot of expensive drilling but no water even though there ARE springs on the property so she knows there is water there.
I can’t explain it but I have SEEN it work.
Some choose not to believe even after they have seen it work.
A property owner next to mine had an 800 foot well dug and for several years it produced just enough to supply showers and toilets. I purchased property next to his, and dug a well for the purpose of increasing its value and reselling. My rig only went to about 170 feet. It was a cable tool rig, and a hole that depth took over two weeks to dig. I hit water at around 80 feet if memory serves, and probably finished around 150. Good water, level didn’t drop after bailing as fast as possible. I didn’t complete the well, but bailing methods produced about the same numbers as a pump would, over 19 gallons per minute. This was years ago; the well is still there, being used.
Well, my neighbor at that time was having trouble with his well going bone dry, and had no other option than to hire a well driller, or move away and lose money on the house and property. We had talked and he would have loved to have had another well drilled that would hit water at the depth mine did. He hired a driller, and the driller, although not caring whether my neighbor chose the location or not, advised him that he had much experience in the area and to let him choose. He knew I dowsed my location (maybe a hundred feet away) but was adamant that he didn’t believe in dowsing, and that he couldn’t take a chance with it. He turned down my offer to dowse his property, although I didn’t usually make such offers to those I did not know well. I felt sorry for him.
So the driller plugged his old well, moved to a new location on his property and drilled another, to a thousand feet. Later I learned that well produced less than a gallon a minute.
I drilled about 20 wells in the area, which the local contractor said averaged 250 foot wells with decent production (today the water “table” has lowered). Most of mine were less than 160 feet, all produced well, and no dry holes. The local commercial driller in the area had a 95% success rate. The two wells on properties I still own continue to perform, and several others I know of are still performing.
Glenn,
A qualified hydrologist or geologist, on receiving the data n your story, would likely draw a cross section between a dry hole and a wet one, the more holes the better. Then, with surface mapping, would try to answer what prevented water from showing up in the dry holes. Also, what volume constraints there were on any reservoir for water, affecting draw down rates and replenishment rates. By systematic studies such as these comes understanding of what is possible and what is wrong.
We set up a number of geological field camps, some of them in dangerously hot and dry areas where survival without water is less than 2 summer days. We didn’t use dowsing.
It was simply too silly to contemplate using old wives’ tales to guide us. Can you imagine your legal chances during an inquest into the death from lack of water of employees who rested their future lives on the craft of the dowster swivel? “Honestly, Your Worship, we used the best technology available to us and thoroughly inspected the sticks to confirm they properly bent.”
The likely finding? “Guilty, 20 years with hard labour. The only thing properly bent is your understanding of science.”
Geoff
crosspatch
Of course it’s possible that this was just down to chance alone.
Recalling that, as a species, we have a tendency to remember the ‘hits’ but to forget the ‘misses’; then someone finding water is much more memorable than someone ‘not’ finding water.
Has the dowser in question ever been subjected to double blind scientific testing? If so, what were the results? If they were positive and statistically significant then why hasn’t that been publicised?
Thanks.
According to all of these credulous believers, it never fails, not even once, and yet it cannot be verified.
If that tells you anything, you are sane.
Why would the dowser in question care to be subjected to some artificial test, or publish her results??
Not all people who have seen the results or believe dowsing is real are less intelligent or informed than you.
Glenn
I don’t see it as a question of intelligence; more a question of credulity.
I will answer that one Glenn.
Because, it is doubtless and beyond dispute that anyone who was to demonstrate an ability to do this in real test where people were watching and to produce repeatable and verifiable results, has great fame and fortune awaiting them, from James Randi if from no one else.
But there would be fame and fortune from all over, not just from claiming Randi’s prize.
Claim the prize, become rich and famous.
What the hell are you and the rest of the drowsingistas waiting for?
Already got all the money you need, is that it?
I understand that but it has worked often enough that two professional businesses use it. If it was no better than random chance, why would they?
Why would people believe in the religion of CAGW.
When you find out, let us know.
BTW, my above reply was to Crosspatch.
crosspatch
It’s a great question. Here in the UK 10 out of 12 water authorities are using dowsers. Why? Is it because it works; or is it because superstition persists over generations of workers in this field? I believe the latter.
If dowsing works then it would be easy to provide convincing evidence of it. We could ‘prove’ it day after day. Problem is: every time dowsers face up to double blind experiments they crash and burn. Every single time. Results prove no difference from chance alone.
I have no idea why professional businesses continue to pursue this particular branch of pseudo-science; all I can say is that a true sceptic should see it for the ridiculous nonsense that it is.
I do not even think you have to be particularly skeptical.
Just one who requires proof.
Or even evidence.
I watch videos of magicians all the time.
Some of them are such wondrous prestidigitators it is nothing short of astounding and gob smacking.
But do you believe they are doing actual magic?
Seriously…do you?
DWR,
This was meant as a rely to Crosspatch, sorry about that.
I was another skeptic. We had several engineers from Shell Chemical at our plant witnessing a test on a large piece of equipment we were building for them. They related how they were having a lot of trouble locating underground piping at an old refinery and hired a dowser who located the route of the piping and saved them a small fortune. They knew I was skeptical so one of them asked if we had any steel welding rods. We had a welding shop, so I went to get two rods that they requested. they bent the rods so there was a straight piece the length across one’s hand. They told me just balance the rods in each hand with the rods on my palms and resting gently on each index finger. I walked across the floor (wooden blocks on a concrete base) and every time I came to a certain spot the rods turned in towards each other just as if a magnet was pulling them. The foreman of the area came over an wanted to know what we were doing. We had him try it and he had the same thing happen to him at the exact same spot. On of the workers came over and said that this was where the drain for the test stand went under the floor. He walked us over to show us the connection outside. It was exactly inline with the location we were picking up. I am now a believer in dowsing.
Show us the video.
I often have to locate underground electrical cables and conduits, it is a real pain in the butt…it is hard to find them even when you know where they are.
Next time I am going to dowse, and if it does not work, I am going to find all of you liars and kick some serious ass.
Seriously, not everyone can dowse. Your attitude suggests you may be among them.
Glenn,
Well, if you ‘can’ dowse, then how would you go about proving it?
Every single person who has tried to do this under double blind controlled conditions has failed. Do you believe you are different from them?
Glenn, up above have been several assertions that it never fails and anyone can do it with 85% accuracy, and it seems particularly foolproof among novices and children.
And yet you assert, on no evidence, that I am uniquely destined to fail?
Why might this be?
Methinks you fear as ass whuppin’.
🙂
“Glenn, up above have been several assertions that it never fails and anyone can do it with 85% accuracy, and it seems particularly foolproof among novices and children.”
Lying seems to suit you.
Science is not exacting……….but subject to our own understanding. To not believe in a practice that has been used effectively for hundreds of years would suggest that you are afraid of the science behind the act of focusing/ witching for water. The very same technique has been used to locate water and sewer mains.
Um, science requires evidence and repeatability and the ability to make predictions that stand up to scrutiny.
Otherwise it is not science.
Which method of science do you subscribe to that is by definition “not exacting”?
Welcome to the list of people with no credibility.
So you agree with me that climate science is a hoax eh!
I think my position on that is pretty clear.
And yeah…people that like evidence are not being scientific, they are showing fear.
Gosh…that is world class sophistry you got goin on pal.
“And yeah…people that like evidence are not being scientific, they are showing fear.
Gosh…that is world class sophistry you got goin on pal.”
Mark didn’t say, imply or intimate that people who like evidence are not being scientific.
He described observations of real events made by many people over a long period of time,
and suggested that you are afraid of those facts or any explanation of those facts.
Your reaction lends support to that supposition.
Stop lying.
When you are in the sport of gliding you get to know all sorts of people, some of them you might find out later are very far up in their proffession, industry, military and civil aviation and etc.
And often there is information, gossip, aviation anecdotes in particular repeated amongst the gliding types that are never meant to make it into the public arena.
Its along time ago now maybe 30 or more years ago when we had a member of Australia’s military and naval reconnaissance units around our field.
He told us a small anecdote that happened when he was present and involved.
The US Navy and Australia’s Naval units were holding anti submarine exercises probably somewhere well out in the Indian Ocean.
Our informant was crew on the Australian anti-submarine aircraft which for the day’s exercise was to go out to a pre designated area and find if it could, a submerged American nuclear submarine.
Shortly before take off an American officer turned up with a small weedy, self effacing little individual in what was akin to a slept in American naval uniform.
“Take him with, he finds submarines”, was the officer’s comment.
The anti submarine aircrafty was heading well out into the ocean zone where the exercise to find the American nuclear sub were to be carried out.
The weedy little American naval guy just sat at the window without saying much.
And then still a long way from the designated search zone for the exercise,
“There’s a sub down there”.
Nope, said the aussie crew, we still have some distance to go to get to the zone.
The little guy insisted so mindful of the officer’s comment, “He finds subs”, they reversed course and dropped a sonobouy where the little guy pointed out the drop area.
Yep, they got themselves a nice big fat Indian Ocean patrolling Russkie nuclear sub which shouldn’t have been there as far as Intelligence was concerned, to the absolute surprise and shock of everybody except that of the weedy little American Naval guy.
—————————————
And then there was the story of an Australian Oberon class sub that was to sail to Pearl Harbor for execises but could not be detected by the immense American anti submarine detection arrays around Pearl Harbour and was feared lost by the American Navy.
The Oberon Sub did turn up exactly as scheduled precisely on its midday programmed arrival time at Pearl when it surfaced right smack in the middle of Pearl Harbour.
The effect of which was apparently akin to letting off a very big cracker in the American naval ants nest.
But thats another story.
And this is why little stories and what is called hearsay is not admissible in any court of law.
Anyone can say anything, and being emphatic does not make an anecdote more credible, it only makes the credulous less credible.
it is not the stick, but the nervous system in the person being an antenna can move the arm muscles. You will be less sensitive if you try to locate a pipe in danger of heavy traffic, which may make you feel tense.
Aaah, glad you straightened that out for us.
That clears it up.
*rolls the eyes*
You are only fooling yourself.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideomotor_phenomenon