Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this week’s SDA distinguished lecture, documentary & interview symposium. Today, for your delectation, here is The Amazing Randi visiting Australia in order to conduct some scientific experiments regarding the veracity of the alleged phenomenon known as Dowsing ¤ § (1980, 43:53).
How timely – I was just thinking of this “dowsing” thing the other day. CSICOP on TV was trying to diplomatically and non-offensively impose some sort of objective controls so that the phenomenon could be empirically measured.
As usual, everything ended in a wash, as…oh well, just figure it out.
No need to hurt anyones “feelings” or anything, especially if doing so would make for bad TV.
Most of our current problems are maybe related to “bad TV”, but the audience seems to love watching idiots.
I tried “dowsing” for energy lines (“ley lines”) in England once at the Rollright henge in Oxfordshire. Nothing happened for me; the person I was with was impressed.
I’ve always admired James Randi for his approach to de-bunking. He seems to go into a subject hoping to actually find something of the para-normal.
He’s done some valuable work, and helped spare many innocent people the indignity of giving their savings to shysters. His de-bunking of a faith healer was one of my favourite stories.
Penn and Teller have taken a page from his book, with their “Bullshit” TV show.
My uncle was a dowser, in Nova Scotia. He was always pretty accurate in finding water. What I remember of Nova Scotia is having trouble finding dry land. Finding water was like shooting fish in a barrel.
In the video I linked to supra, PiperPaul, the ending is not a wash: the results are clear. Most of our current problems are not the fault of television, they are the fault of irrational thinking, and that’s because human thinking is naturally structurally irrational, as we’ve seen in previous SDA DLDI symposia, such as those featuring Dan Ariely and Dan Gilbert. Rationality is only something that one can study and attempt to master. But most people don’t even try. Just look at how many people comment on blogs without even perusing the putative subject matter. Most people don’t care about studying truth, they only care about convincing others that they are correct. Meanwhile, metaphysics doesn’t give a danm about anyone’s epistemology, but you tell them that, and they get mad at you. What a bunch of silly buggers most people are, although, of course, not you, dear reader 😉
James Randi is da man. I love his demo where he gave personalized horoscopes to students – they were so impressed by how accurate he was
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Dp2Zqk8vHw
Interesting. ‘Dowsing’ is perhaps more understandable as an expression of a relation. The relation is between something that requires water to live, and the existence of water. I would suggest that there is nothing magical or paranormal about this relation.
Plants, for example, will turn towards the sun as an expression of their relation with it. They will send roots or stems across dry soil in their relationship with water, as they seek to access it. Animals will sense water from great distances and migrate towards it.
Therefore, using a branch of a plant, which requires water, need not be anything other than ‘feeling’ the branch sense the water.
It might be if it worked, ET, but it doesn’t: it’s a fraud.
It’s like a one person Ouija board. Your body plays along, subtly tilting the wrists making the wire change direction based on your visual signals.
I experimented with this a lot when I was in my 20s trying to find metal – my coat hanger diviners moved a lot when I could see the metal on the ground – but when I asked my friends to bury it unseen to me, I failed miserably
It’s called the Ideomotor Effect, Erik, as is explained in today’s video. From the link:
Sorry Vit – playing the vid now so I posted too soon – just at that part now (near the end). I was amazed on a personal level how my brain and body colluded like that
Here’s the description of the ideomotor effect from Randi’s Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural:
Incidentally, my interest in this was piqued during my summer job. A guy that I worked with was often too lazy to call before digging, so he would dowse the area with bent coat hangers to make sure there were no buried pipes or electrical lines.
Needless to say, my experimentation was conducted in earnest.
Which brings us back to the point, Erik. Sometimes some people say, about things like dowsing and ghosts and other mystical hoaxes: well, what’s the harm? The harm, folks, is that Erik’s co-worker’s idiocy could have cost Erik his life.
ET your branch theory does not explain one water witcher I knew that used a crow bar to find water. He was quite accurate and later told me in confidence that he read the lay of the land to determine the water flow beneath the soil, the crow bar was just a stage prop. A lot of people used his services because the subterranean water flows were a long way down and it cost a lot to drill 100 – 500 feet down only to come up dry. One Hutterite colony sank 6 dry holes before they called up the man with the crow bar. He told the driller where to drill and after 250′ the Hutterites had a 20 GPM water well.
joe – my living-branch theory most certainly doesn’t explain the use of a non-living prop. Why would it?
Your guy was using surface criteria to come to a conclusion.
My point was only that a living system, such as a living branch (not an old dead one) that requires water will ‘seek’ water, just as a plant turns to and seeks the sun.
So what? The sun rises in the east. What the he11 does that
have to do with the topic here? Dowsing doesn’t work. All
attempts to explain how it might work are hereby inoperative!
Just look at how many people comment on blogs without even perusing the putative subject matter.
Ow, stop hitting me, Vit!
ET – plant hydrotropism as I understand it, is a weak factor, and poorly understood for a variety of reasons – one of which is that water gradients are constantly changing, as opposed to say gravity wrt geotropism. I think hydrotropism only operates over a few mms, and plant roots can’t remotely sense and track towards available water, and only make minimal adjustment for water close to the root.
Dowsing as a relation probably only relates to one of superstition and fanciful thinking
Furthermore, these tests demonstrate that “honest, intelligent people can unconsciously engage in muscular activity that is consistent with their expectations”.
Meanwhile, Samsquanch “researchers” have ongoing pseudo-intellectual feuds deserving broadcasting on TV. Hmmm…
My point was only that a living system, such as a living branch (not an old dead one) that requires water will ‘seek’ water, just as a plant turns to and seeks the sun.
Posted by: ET at July 11, 2009 4:43 PM
You are right about plants seeking water. The one detail you missed, is, only a certain percentage find it, the rest die.
Turning toward the sun is a reaction to physical stimulus. Dowsers heading toward likely water sources, is more likely reaction to visual clues.
I’ve met many people, who are totally sincere about their beliefs. I even believe some may have a gift. I just don’t know how to predict who has that gift, and who hasn’t.
My company is involved in locating buried lines, in the oil patch. I’ve seen many, many attempts to locate lines with a piece of wire, or something similar. It only works when there are visual clues, or prior knowledge. If I ever do find a true dowser, I’ll pay him $100 an hour.
The detail is that plants seeking water
aren’t humans bending wires for a fee.
Erik – I think that hydrotropism is quite important as a ‘relation’ or process within the “Will” of a plant to live. It must have water, or, as has been pointed out, it will die.
dp, I’m not talking about the percentage of plants that fail to access water; only the ‘dowsing rod’ which is seeking water. Vitruvius is adamant that it’s a scam. I am not yet able to declare it as such. I’m still curious.
I’m not interested in the Dowser, ie. the man holding the branch. No interest whatsoever.
I’m interested in whether a living branch retains abiotic sensory capacities and therefore, can sense the presence of a required nutrient, water, over spatial distances. It can certainly do that IN the soil; there’s enough proof of that. But, can it, removed from the soil, still receive those abiotic sensory stimuli? That’s what is interesting.
Abiotic informational input comes as gravity, light, temperature, oxygen, CO2, water. My questions refer to whether a biotic system, the branch, continues to receive those stimuli even when removed from the plant.
ET, do you know what the word topic means?
Ok, I’m sorry, ET, pardon my frustration. But come on, honestly, the point of the video is that there is no evidence, not even correlative, of causality, in the case of human dowsing claims. The beauty of a flower or a girl in a meadow in the spring doesn’t enter into it.
I’m confused. A few weeks ago ET said she didn’t believe WILL existed now she thinks that a dead stick has enough of a will to seek water! 😉
Danm it Joe, the topic here isn’t “What ET Believes”.
It isn’t “What Vitruvius Believes”, either. It’s the results
from Randi’s experiment. That’s the topic, ok, folks. What,
do we have to hold an auction so you can buy a clue?
Oh come on Vit. I’ve watched enough water witchers in real life to know that dousing doesn’t work! I absolutely agree with James Randi on that point. I’m having a bit of fun with someone who tries to explain how something that doesn’t work might work through something she once said she didn’t believe existed.
joe – what you mean by ‘will’ and what I mean by it, are two different things. I don’t agree with your definition.
Vitruvius – calm down. You and I have both gone off topic, often enough, to be able to put up with it in other areas.
And besides, what kind of discussion can be had with the topic of ‘human-as-dowser’? Since the answer has to be ‘impossible’, then, what’s to discuss?
Understood, still, it’s a muggs game, Joe, the context is different.
some tree roots grow AWAY from water, esp. birch
So the dowsing effect might depend on the branch type.?
Yes, Vitruvius. I think the thing that is proven, is that things seem a priori to be nonsensical, often are
Yeah, no, look, ET, we have to be able to do these symposia without always wallowing off into a mire of peripheral irrelevancies, or Kate is going to smack us upside the head. So, look, fine, we agree, the dowser is impossible. Said and done. Go no further, lass, lest ye be slayed by the gods for hubris 😉
Then, Kate willing, next week we’ll have another symposium, and we can talk about something else then. But I shall not stand for this here to be the place to talk about all things now. When one has nothing on-topic to say, one can conserve one’s resouces by simply saying nothing.
Been a fan of James Randi for over twenty years, and have enjoyed watching him expose human folly and con artists, especially Uri Geller and the “psychic”,Sylvia Browne, who charges a higher hourly rate, for a “reading”, than the top trail lawyer in the U.S.
One thing that has always struck me regarding dowsers, is if they can all detect metals “with 100% accuracy”, why aren’t they ALL rich?
There should be NO precious metals undiscovered in Australia, and all those old gentlemen should have been chauffeured to the test site in their Mercedes limousines.
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”
“Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth”
We had the wells on the family property drilled with the help of dowsers and they were successful. Now, we lived in a valley, so maybe the chance of finding water was 100%, I don’t know. By word of mouth news, others who didn’t dowse were not as successful.
The operative point is…it worked. I, for one, am willing to suspend disbelief for results. If it works, even though its fraudulent, I’ll use it.
I am interested in WHY people believe the unbelievable. What factors drive them?
I believe that many people believe themselves to be intellectual frauds (I’ve heard of this studied and reported on before)…that they believe they don’t really know as much as it SEEMS that they do or should. So, they live in constant fear of their lack of knowledge/intelligence being discovered…they exude confidence as a defense mechanism.
When faced with an unbelievable situation (such as dowsing), perhaps they are unwilling to attempt to expose it (unconsciously) lest they be exposed themselves…a form of “professional courtesy”, as it were.
Is this fear of “being discovered” a factor in people believing the unbelievable? Can someone elucidate other reasons why people believe the unbelievable?
I hope this is sufficiently on topic, Vitruvius.
No, Eeyore, you have no evidence by which to claim it worked. You have people who claimed to be dowsers, and you have wells, but in order to claim that dowsing worked you need to be able to establish a causality that goes beyond coincidence. You can’t do that, moreover, this symposium’s video shows you that dowsing doesn’t work. And yet you say you are willing to continue to believe in it because you say it works, even though we now know it doesn’t. So, if you want to know why people believe in things that aren’t believable, ask yourself. You’re the one who’s doing it.
Gosh, you’re awfully testy lately, Vitruvius. Particularly so for a guest host.
Anyway…
When the goal is to drill a well that produces water and you use dowsing techniques to find said well, then…it worked. Whether it worked by fluke or random chance or not is immaterial…it worked. Dude said the water was HERE…he drilled…it was where he said it was. Ergo, it worked. To say it doesn’t or didn’t work when you have the evidence of gushing water (which I saw with my own two eyes) is to defy reality.
It has been shown to work. Period. Full stop.
The Amazing Randi has shown, in his video, that it works no better than random. Fine. Intellectually, I can understand and accept that. It is as our rational mind says it should be…a falsity.
But the well driller STILL was able to dowse the correct spot for a well. Since his technique, however false, works, then I am willing to accept it…not sing its praises and advocate for it, but accept it.
I don’t know and haven’t seen anyone explain how accupuncture works. But it does (apparently). I’m not going to NOT use accupuncture simply because I can’t explain how it works.
My question as to the psychology of belief in the unbelievable remains…whether you choose to discuss it or not is your perogative.
If I listened to everything James Randi had to say I wouldn’t have been able to find several viable wells through dowsing. In addition, I have located water lines, phone lines, power lines, gas lines and sewer lines. If I thought it was only an “ideomotor” effect I wouldn’t bother.
No you didn’t Greg. You may have found some things. You did not find them through dowsing, because dowsing doesn’t work. And I’m not testy Eeyore, I just don’t suffer fools gladly. Look, there is a $1,000,000 reward for anyone who can demonstrate better than statistical chance by dowsing, so if any of you believe it works, go prove it and get the reward. Otherwise, you’re just spreading falsehoods, and now that you know better, that’s an offence under section 181 of the Criminal Code of Canada. Not that I particularly care, I’m just here to help educate my fellow citizens, and now I’ve provided you with true information, so I’ve done my duty.
Criminal Code?
The relevent section, EBD, is “181. Every one who wilfully publishes a statement, tale or news that he knows is false and that causes or is likely to cause injury or mischief to a public interest is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years”.
But let me be clear, EBD, what I’m frankly angry about is people who claim to be able to detect power lines and gas lines by dowsing. One of these days they are going to electrocute or blow up an innocent person, so the “causes or is likely to cause injury or mischief to a public interest” test kicks in. We are not talking about telling ghost stories around a campfire, we are talking about gross public stupidity.
In addition, I have located water lines, phone lines, power lines, gas lines and sewer lines. If I thought it was only an “ideomotor” effect I wouldn’t bother.
Posted by: Greg Hindbo at July 12, 2009 12:50 PM
I don’t have $1,000,000 to offer you, but my offer of $100 an hour stands. I’m serious about this, but in over 30 years dealing with buried lines, I haven’t seen a single event where someone found an otherwise unmarked line, with anything other than an electronic instrument.
I have seen people think they’ve found something, and cause plenty of problems when it turns out to be somewhere else.
Funny, I’ve never heard of you Greg. You should be famous.
Even though I’m a skeptic, I have to side with ET on this. I can’t say with 100% certainty there isn’t some undiscovered force that might allow us to detect certain things.
As for dowsing being effective, I’d say it’s as effective as a blessing from a holy man. It seems to have the same status for some people.
Indeed, DP. I was lead software architect for a project in the early ’90s to map all the buried gas lines in rural Alberta. The problem was that there was a period of time over which some plastic lines were laid without an embedded helical wire, so electromagnetic interferometry couldn’t be used to locate them. To the best knowledge of modern science and engineering, nothing could locate them, and this was a huge liability to the major multinational engineering companies that were my clients. Now, I have to ask myself, if they could just get some guy to wander around with a pointed stick and eliminate their liabilities, wouldn’t they have? Of course. But they didn’t. Why? Because as this symposium’s video shows: dowsing doesn’t work.
Thanks, dp.
Vitruvius .. so I can I can find buried lines with L-shaped coat hangers. Are you going to sue me? Report me to the “authorities”? Next thing you’re going to tell me is that I have to believe in Black Holes, the Big Bang, Dark Matter and Anthropogenic Global Warming. LOL. Cheer up.
You misunderstand me, Greg. I have nothing to say about what you are allowed to believe, clause two of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees our freedom of belief. I’m just saying that what you believe is blatantly wrong, and so you may face potential liabilities for public nuisance if you insist on practicing in public. I don’t know, I can’t say, I’m not a lawyer, but you might want to discuss it with your lawyer.
Vitruvius- I’ve found an extremely effective tool for finding those lines. It’s called a backhoe. The next best method is a sonde, but low pressure lines tend to be too small to accept transmitters. It’s a crapshoot, for sure. I’ll say again, $100 an hour, once you pass my test.
Greg- No one is going to sue you for finding lines, but you might be in trouble for misleading someone, who subsequently breaks one you failed to locate. Leave it alone.
That’s what scares the crap out of me, DP. I mean, if we’re gonna’ bury a garden water hose and having a dowsing competition at our annual summer church picnic, sure, fine, ok, publish a disclaimer somewhere and be done with it. But when someone’s monkeying around with a backhoe at the end of their shift and they nick a natural gas line that a dowser said wasn’t there, and then they go home and over night the basement fills with gas, and in the morning when granny gets up and she goes to the basement, to see what the smell is, and turns on the light, or pulls a spark off the door-knob onto her finger, and blows up the house, granny, and possibly some neighbours? No. I’m opposed to that.
I’m not sure if you’ve ever taken a “ground disturbance” course, Vit, but some of the statistics are troubling. The scenario you describe is more common than I’d like to admit.
There’s another aspect to the increasing level of risk, and that’s the safety industry’s assertion that all risk can be removed by following their rules. They’re selling us a bill of goods that almost rivals the one dowsers are plugging.
People were a lot safer when they still had sense enough to keep their fingers away from the fire. No amount of technology, or faith, is a substitute for common sense caution.
Agreed on the matter of the limitations to the veracity
of the “safety” industry, DP, although, that is, as they
say, another topic, so I’ll leave it at a nod for here.
I’ve actually had a couple of first-hand experiences with dangerous situations, caused by dowsing. I can’t name names, but one of the cases was an oilwell, almost drilled through a gas line. A survey party chief actually believed he had found the line outside the work area, with a coat hanger (his electronic locator was not working to his satisfaction). The mistake was caught by the construction supervisor, before any damage was done, but it cost thousands of $ to move over, and start again.
I’ve seen a couple more cases that didn’t make it so close to a disaster. The construction industry has no tolerance for witchcraft, but there’s always some guy who thinks he’s smarter than the rest. Trying to get rid of these people is an ongoing battle.
I’d like to see this Randi video made part of the standard training course for ground disturbance supervisors.
Well, DP, now you can recommend it to the relevent
pedagogists, and we have yet another feather in the cap
of Small Dead Animals. Thanks again, as always, Kate.