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What's the deal with Water Divining?

nightning

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This was one of my first introductions to the scientific method and all of the biases it needs to fight through. And it was in Australia that I read about the new challenges that were being brought to challenge myths, which I believe this falls into.

A quick google turned up what I remember reading about - Australian Skeptics Divining Test

*nods* But the size of the study is rather small... You're dealing with human perception vs machines. How variable are human response? In particular humans placed through stressful situations? Maybe you need a larger sample size?

There's no scientific evidence to support how dowsing can work. Yet people way back are finding sources of underground water at a significantly higher probability than chance. So it does look like there's something there.
 

ptgatsby

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*nods* But the size of the study is rather small... You're dealing with human perception vs machines. How variable are human response? In particular humans placed through stressful situations? Maybe you need a larger sample size?

There's no scientific evidence to support how dowsing can work. Yet people way back are finding sources of underground water at a significantly higher probability than chance. So it does look like there's something there.


No one knows for sure if they are (detecting higher than chance). When the amount of water to be detected is controlled, the area removed of any 'markers' of water and so forth, you find water at the same level as chance. IOWs, it's not the dowsing that does it. The only examples of it being higher than chance are found in uncontrolled experiments - land markers and so forth. Finding water through dowsing doesn't happen.

If you think someone can beat the competition, which has been run multiple times (and in the US too, I believe) then get them to do it. I think the prize is now $1,000,000. The competition has been on for over 25 years... There have been experiments on this for over 50 years. It's the same story each time, with one notable chain of experiments done in Germany. Again, however, every controlled experiment (ie: one where the land is removed from markers and water is controlled on/off) fails.
 

nightning

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No one knows for sure if they are (detecting higher than chance). When the amount of water to be detected is controlled, the area removed of any 'markers' of water and so forth, you find water at the same level as chance. IOWs, it's not the dowsing that does it. The only examples of it being higher than chance are found in uncontrolled experiments - land markers and so forth. Finding water through dowsing doesn't happen.

If you think someone can beat the competition, which has been run multiple times (and in the US too, I believe) then get them to do it. I think the prize is now $1,000,000. The competition has been on for over 25 years... There have been experiments on this for over 50 years. It's the same story each time, with one notable chain of experiments done in Germany. Again, however, every controlled experiment (ie: one where the land is removed from markers and water is controlled on/off) fails.

Ah... I didn't know that. Landmarks help in the explanation. People were telling me how there's not much water to be found in Australia... yet they were managing to dig wells using some sort of process, dowsing or otherwise... so I thought perhaps it worked.
 

Carebear

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James Randy devoted an entire program to water divining in the 80's and debunked it rather well in my eyes. What's interesting is he said that even though Australia is fairly dry on the surface, it's almost impossible not to find water if you drill deep down. So might be it's not so strange that's where water divining stands strongest. I'll see if I can't locate an online version of the program now.

Edit: Located it right away. See what you think.
James Randi in Australia

Edit 2: Ah, it's the video from the same thing ptg linked to, btw. 1980.
 
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Carebear

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(henceforth: rod)

Bad move.

So you walk along with your rod in front of you. [...] This is not merely a twitch, but often such a strong pull that my dad tells me that it's impossible to hold the rod straight. [...] Dad says that some people can do it and some people can't. If you can do it, you can get better at it. If you can't do it, you'll never be able to do it. His brother, for instance, could never do it. The rod wouldn't move at all. As soon as dad put his hand on his brother's body, however, the rod would "work". [...] I'm sure I've lost many of you by now. Let me get weirder.

LOL! I couldn't stop laughing re-reading your first post.

I know, I'm terribly childish. :blush:
 

wildcat

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It was "unscientific" to discuss ball lightning in the 70s and the 80s.
Now it is not.

Ball lightning did not exist.
Now it does.

If it does exist, it did exist.
 

sundowning

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It was "unscientific" to discuss ball lightning in the 70s and the 80s.
Now it is not.

Ball lightning did not exist.
Now it does.

If it does exist, it did exist.

Science can be wrong? We aleady knew that.

Doesn't change the fact that we don't have any real evidence for dowsing. So until you can come up with some, the ball lightening argument is just a dead horse.
 
O

Oberon

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Science can be wrong? We aleady knew that.

Doesn't change the fact that we don't have any real evidence for dowsing. So until you can come up with some, the ball lightening argument is just a dead horse.

My favorite phrase in the media has always been "we now know..." as in "It was once thought that Newtonian physics governed the universe, but we now know that planets and particles behave according to Einstein's theories." Oddly enough, what was "previously believed" was once just as known as what is "now known."

So while it may not prove or disprove the validity of dowsing, wildcat's post is an important reminder that we should approach this and every question cautiously and with an awareness of our own limitations.
 

ptgatsby

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My favorite phrase in the media has always been "we now know..." as in "It was once thought that Newtonian physics governed the universe, but we now know that planets and particles behave according to Einstein's theories." Oddly enough, what was "previously believed" was once just as known as what is "now known."

So while it may not prove or disprove the validity of dowsing, wildcat's post is an important reminder that we should approach this and every question cautiously and with an awareness of our own limitations.

Hrmmm... aren't you saying we shouldn't trust in water divining then? The diviner is making a positive assertion. Wouldn't it go "we now know that water divining now works off landmarks, not metaphysical principles?"

Course, that's also ignoring that science wants to understand but the effect cannot be reproduced... unlike your example, where a new condition needed to be explained. Rather like "I can find water by waving this stick around, so there is some connection between water and the stick... but now I can find oil too, so it must be something more than the connection between the stick and the water".
 

Totenkindly

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What evidence do you have that it isn't staged, that it isn't a parlor trick or simple coincidence? I don't mean to be a critic, but just taking something like that on faith is more than I can handle.

I've heard of it, but I don't really believe in it. Underground water can't make sticks move without touching them. That's just not possible. I generally avoid people who believe in this. It seems too much like some kind of cult thing, and there's no telling what else they might accept as reasonable if they do this.

Logically, you are correct. It shouldn't work. It makes no obvious sense.

But I've read and heard enough from real-live people that my curiosity filed it in the "Must Do Further Research" category.

But what I'm saying is, maybe they don't know consciously that they can, so their conscious mind prevents them from finding it without the stick. People's processing of their senses is normally limited, and perhaps they have access to information they don't normally let themselves process, and projecting onto the stick allows them to perceive an aspect of reality that's normally obscured from consciousness.

I'm sorry, but this is sounding even more complicated than the simple suggestion that someone's using a stick to find water.

Doesn't mean you're not right, but it still comes off as a real stretch.

...and at the risk of sounding like a dick, it's all BS. There is nothing that can describe the effect. And it also shows a general lack of knowledge about the way something called the 'water table' works. Dowse ten 'streams', and drill randomly ten times and you're going to find similar/same results.

I knew an ISTP would pull through for me. ;) Seriously, though, I was wondering about confirmation bias on this one.

Makes me wonder about the Ouija again too. (Hmm... Do dead spirits drink water?)

The "landscape" theory seemed to make some sense to me, where someone intuitively recognizes the signs of water by the terrain (sort of an unconscious patter recog at work). Still... I'm open.
 
O

Oberon

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Hrmmm... aren't you saying we shouldn't trust in water divining then? The diviner is making a positive assertion.

I personally don't care what your "diviner" straw man asserts. I am more interested in the phenomenon as such, and not the claims of the culture from which it springs.

As I've mentioned before, I've tried it, and it seemed to work. I'm willing to entertain the idea that there was some idiomotor function attendant on my experiment, but I'm also willing to entertain the idea that there is some physical cause for the phenomenon, one which remains as yet unexplained. I do not attribute the phenomenon to any "metaphysical" cause.

What I am willing to do thus far, which is the point of my previous post, is to have an open mind.
 

ptgatsby

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I personally don't care what your "diviner" straw man asserts. I am more interested in the phenomenon as such, and not the claims of the culture from which it springs.

Oh, the straw man doesn't assert anything, don't worry. It's you who are asserting something that cannot be measured, isn't demonstrable in controlled conditions and saying that we should keep an open mind because information, in a generic sense, isn't perfect.

The problem is that you used a scientific example that explains something that was flawed. Science has nothing to explain here - it has no positive assertion. The only skepticism suggested by the Newton would be that the phenmonen doens't exist. We aren't talking about measuring what allows it to happen, only that it doesn't happen.

If you disagree and think it can be done, there is a gigantic prize and a huge contribution to science to be made. I'm open to changing my mind based on new information, not belief through skepticism.
 
O

Oberon

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Oh, the straw man doesn't assert anything, don't worry. It's you who are asserting something that cannot be measured, isn't demonstrable in controlled conditions and saying that we should keep an open mind because information, in a generic sense, isn't perfect.

The problem is that you used a scientific example that explains something that was flawed. Science has nothing to explain here - it has no positive assertion. The only skepticism suggested by the Newton would be that the phenmonen doens't exist. We aren't talking about measuring what allows it to happen, only that it doesn't happen.

If you disagree and think it can be done, there is a gigantic prize and a huge contribution to science to be made. I'm open to changing my mind based on new information, not belief through skepticism.

I venture now to suggest that all your information is hearsay. All you know on the topic is what you've read.

Or am I wrong?
 
O

Oberon

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Nope, completely correct.

Well, I would not say this to show a perspective that is superior to yours in any way, but rather one that is simply different: I have felt the stick move in my hands, and that compels me to investigate further before forming a final judgment.

From your vantage point, your conclusion is a perfectly reasonable one, and indeed probably the best one. However, it won't suffice for me.
 

ptgatsby

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Well, I would not say this to show a perspective that is superior to yours in any way, but rather one that is simply different: I have felt the stick move in my hands, and that compels me to investigate further before forming a final judgment.

From your vantage point, your conclusion is a perfectly reasonable one, and indeed probably the best one. However, it won't suffice for me.

I don't disagree - what I'm saying is that the Newton example should work the other way around... more that you should have an open mind towards what caused it to jump. That is not a reason for skeptics to have an open mind (ie: it might be true). Skeptics have claimed nothing other than "please show me", which is an open mind. You can prove it to them anytime. The positive assertion that it jumped when it found water should be open to the possibility that it may not have actually done so if it can't be done under controlled conditions accurately enough to actual be said to predict the location of water.
 
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Oberon

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I don't disagree - what I'm saying is that the Newton example should work the other way around... more that you should have an open mind towards what caused it to jump.

I've already said I'm open to the idea that it's an idiomotor process.
 

Carebear

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I've already said I'm open to the idea that it's an idiomotor process.

LOL
I think it's normally spelled ideomotor, because the idea controls the movement, but I guess idiomotor is more correct in some situations. :D
 
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