I understand. But it seems worth pointing out that “as a scientist” he is naive as to what the real significance of dowsing is, taking the folklore at face value. Isn’t it easier to demonstrate original premise as being flawed, rather than chase phantoms? Anyway, if he proposes a non-mystical way to go about it, the hang-up is only about terminology. Can’t they just use satellite imagery?
2 Likes
“As a scientist” he has no interest in any of the metaphysical stuff. The mindset has to be methodological naturalism, whether or not that is his real world view. If the phenomenon won’t fit into that frame of reference it can’t become technology or a teachable skill.
Rockets and satellites are seriously expensive technology, so if dowsing could become a simple earth-bound device or shown to be a teachable skill, then it would be a wonderful cost saving and so well worth researching.
Whether or not it works or is even teachable, then you can still continue to believe it has other real significance as it was “only” tested against that scientific paradigm. So no harm done?
2 Likes
One of these things is not like the others.
1 Like
Yeah, you’re right. I have never been sexually aroused by tofu.
6 Likes
Deviant.
2 Likes
That’s great, but while accessing what you don’t know you know is typically used as one theory for how dowsing works, it’s not usually a reason claimed by the practitioners (though, I’d grant you that there are some practitioners who also use it as an explanation for their own “ability”).
Like Skeptic mentioned, it’s a little tough to swallow that as an argument against objectively testing dowsing since the “what you know” that dowsing is usually supposed to be accessing is “where something is located in the physical world” and it’s usually something that the practitioner shouldn’t have any way to know (even subconsciously).
You assumptiuons about my prior working conditions are incorrect, and a funny attempt to discredit a total stranger! http://xkcd.com/386/
Also, question marks are for use by the curious and the cynical. Which way were you using them?
1 Like
Or the same kind of magic pixies. There is no sound reason to believe there is such a thing as “chi” (by which I’m referring to an actual force that has physical effect, not the “concept” of chi).
To control for the concern about unknown effects in the field that might be the key to dowsing working, James Randi first has dowsers do an open test to confirm their dowsing ability “works” under the physical conditions of the test. It goes something like this (in the case of a static test):
“Here’s a bucket filled with a gallon of water. Can you detect it with your dowsing?”
“Yes.”
"Ok, now I’m covering it with an inverted five gallon bucket. Can you detect the water through the bucket? "
“Yes.”
“Here’s a five gallon bucket inverted over an empty gallon bucket. Do you confirm a negative reading with your dowsing?”
“Yes.”
“Ok, everybody leave the room and select proctors will place gallons of water under the exact same conditions, except under random buckets. They will then leave the room. Nobody who knows which is which will be present in the room during the testing.”
Which is then proceeded by the dowsers failing to find the water at levels exceeding chance. But because they really believe in dowsing the do the same thing you are doing, proposing all sorts of reasons post hoc for why they really can dowse and the test was wrong, rather than them.
4 Likes
Also from reading the thread it seems that people that believe in dousing so conceded that it works some times. So it seems that they tend to focus on the times that it does work as a smashing success and not random happenstance, and will give that event more weight than the times it didn’t.
The scientific method involves focusing on why something doesn’t work, and also making the assumption they are wrong. And will constantly look for evidence of that. But people that believe in the esotheric tend to go the other way and look for every plausible reason post hoc on why they are right.
Surely that is a misprint. Dr. Marshall must have meant to say:
The issue of dried up crops in the field and the cattle dying of thirst “needs to be judged in its efficacy as a mental exercise. Having established this, persisting in judging it as an objective process presents a bogus argument”. Duh. QED.
/s
1 Like
Here’s a televised version of that experiment:
1 Like
I vaguely recall an archaeological study that had a dowser go over a site before any excavation, and had the dowser predict the locations of structures, and the archaeologists uncover the actual locations of different structures.
If it actually kinda-sorta worked, [HOW?], it would be a quick affordable nondestructive means of site survey.
Yes, it would be expected to “kinda” work because people then use fuzzy matching to declare the hits and ignore the misses. It works just like the way John Edwards “talking” to the dead works, “I’m getting a D, anyone in here related to anything at all having the letter D in it, or ‘D shaped’, or any letter of the alphabet?” Or where a “psychic” says a body will be found “near water or near a road”. Sounds specific but is really as vague as possible. It’s an exercise in confirmation bias because the criteria were likely quite vague and couldn’t be decided upon in advance since they didn’t know what they would or wouldn’t find.
I’m thinking the real test is whether this (Abbott-appointed?) goofball turns out to be a climate change denier.
:-0
Well, if he’s looking to dowsing for help with dealing with drought conditions rather than talking about climate change itself, that’s a real possibility. At least he didn’t call for people to pray for rain like the governor of Texas did IIRC.
1 Like
including overhead ones.
Now I know you’re just taking the piss.
2 Likes
From inventing Wi-Fi, to this. Goddammit, Abbot government, is there anything you can’t pull some sort of shit-based midas touch on?
Assuming your implied, repeated experiences with digging holes and identifying things not to accidentally dig into had something to do with professional experience isn’t an attempt to discredit you. Its a fairly natural assumption given that few people have cause to be doing that otherwise. My point was to explain one of the many reasons dowsing might appear to work (or work-ish?) for you. So my point stands. Whether all the holes you were digging, and pipes you were finding, were for fun or for profit you were doing that not the dowsing. If your hit rate is better than chance its because your better at doing that sort of thing that you think, its not because of magic coat hangers. I’m also not sure if I should be insulted that you’d assume I’d use a back ground of blue collar work to discredit some one (a little insulting), or if I should be insulted that you think a blue collar profession discredits some one (very insulting). My brother digs holes for a living. He’s pretty good at it too,
Also, there are no question marks in my previous comment (though I added one for you here). I’m gonna assume you meant the quotation marks. Those are largely because I’m directly quoting your phrasing, pretty standard use for them. The ones around “dowsing” could be misconstrued as scare quotes, and I probably could have done with out them. But dowsing is the very scary work of “The Devil” so I feel like “we’re all good”.
It didn’t even “kinda” work though.
Really? It was when the overhead lines were identified that I realized oh, it is actually something to this.
wasn’t using a stick. Copper rods. I assume there is some magnetic energy involved.
1 Like
