Thread: Dowsing in the Falklands

It doesn't bother me as such - I'm just a fan of reason and science. Neither of which support dowsing. I actually find it fascinating as a subject. That said, I didn't post the thread in order to rail against dowsing, so I should have been a bit less emphatic about the fact that it doesn't work. But ho-hum, in for a penny..

If you think you have evidence, by all means show me - I'm interested.

It isn't a case of dowsing 'working' for one person and not another. If it's a real phenomenon, it either works, or it doesn't. And not one properly controlled test has shown that it does.

And thegimp, many different mechanisms have been proposed by many different proponents - magnetism, psychic powers - but no evidence for any of them exists. The human body isn't sensitive enough to detect any magnetic fields of the strength we're talking about even with electrical wire that's carrying a current.

Originally Posted by thegimp

Some one explain the scientific reasoning behind dowsing...............

I was extremely sceptical until I tried it. It does work and as rightly said not just for water. I don't know of any scientific reason. If as suggested by some it is all in the mind then fine, but it still works practically. I read an interesting paper on I ching not too long ago. A list was presented of possible explanations as to how the I Ching system worked. (For those who don't know I Ching is a system originating in the Eastern Mystery traditions. Wiki give a reasonable account of the system and if you’re interested it’s worth a look). Anyway, one of the suggestions was that discounting any 'fanciful' reasoning it could simply boil down to acting as a tool to concentrate ones mind and allow one to draw their own conclusions and answers to a problem. By believing in the system one could 'block out' other doubts and thoughts that had been obscuring their thought process. Perhaps dowsing allows us to connect a corporeal facet that may otherwise lay dormant. In layman’s terms perhaps you could dowse for water without rods if you could tune you pysce finely enough. With all the distractions of modern life it can be pretty hard to devote ones mind fully to something. Perhaps dowsing rods remove some negativity.

Much megalithic building took place on 'Ley Lines'. Indeed most of our large religious constructions of 'recent' years can be traced along these lines. And I mean most; ranging from Druid and Pagan through to Christian buildings. I doubt that it is all coincidence and I also doubt there is a simple scientific explanation as why all these buildings were constructed geographically as they were.

Ley lines are found through dowsing incidentally.


Sorry to bore.

Slayer.

"Two thin bent bits of metal... "advance".... wires cross.... find water. "

Same as quoted - however observers wait for the loud BOOM!! and then say to one another "He's found one!"

Originally Posted by theslayerofmen

Much megalithic building took place on 'Ley Lines'. Indeed most of our large religious constructions of 'recent' years can be traced along these lines. And I mean most; ranging from Druid and Pagan through to Christian buildings. I doubt that it is all coincidence and I also doubt there is a simple scientific explanation as why all these buildings were constructed geographically as they were.

Ley lines are found through dowsing incidentally.

There is no real evidence for the existence of leylines, even the originator of the idea, Alfred Watkins, only posited that the straight lines were just trading routes, quickest point from A to B is a straight line after all, the Romans built straight roads but these aren't associated with leylines in the same way as the Stone Age to Early Iron Age constructs, why is that? Because we know more about Roman History perhaps, due to the written record, whilst the more unknown pre-Historic constructs allow us to project our own fantasies and conjectures on them.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leylines

http://skepdic.com/leylines.html

http://witcombe.sbc.edu/earthmysteries/EMLeyLines.html

The human mind has a propensitiy to seek patterns, and find them, where there are none, and the nature of those patterns will more often than not coincide with pre-concieved prejudices and beliefs: the Templar's Laundry List at Reins Le Chateau, the Feminist Therapist who views past events as symptomatic of abuse, the spiritualist who interprets the old plumbing as a restless ghost, the Marxist Politician who sees all history as purely class struggle, and on and on and on.

Originally Posted by theslayerofmen

Originally Posted by thegimp

Some one explain the scientific reasoning behind dowsing...............

I was extremely sceptical until I tried it. It does work

Sorry to bore.

Slayer.

Will you be donating that $1,000,000 to H4H when they give it to you then?

http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/1m-challenge.html

Originally Posted by theslayerofmen

I was extremely sceptical until I tried it. It does work and as rightly said not just for water.

Are you going to claim the prize?

http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/1m-challenge.html

Not strictly to do with dowsing, and nothing to do with the Falklands, but I can assure readers that there is another world/plane/dimension/whatever you want to call it, that we normally cannot perceive (nothing to do with religion, either)

well, it worked for me. Perhaps it was just random luck. Oh, and Alfred Watkins was not the originator of the theory of energy channels running throughout the earth. He simply coined the term Ley lines. And incidently I do not agree with many of his theories as quite rightly time and scientific/historical research has disproved them beyond doubt. I think you will find I suggested that there may be a more natural rather than supernatural reasoning behind these things. Incidently I belive that there is much in the human mind that is dormant/unexplored or indeed has been forgoten about. I can harp on about things I have seen/experienced first hand that science/reason/logic would be hard pushed to explain but you could say I was making it up. I will settle for my experiences and welcome anyone elses opinions. Particularly if it helps explain things that I may not fully understand myself.

Slayer

Incidentally I didn't dowse for water although I know people that started out that way and progressed to other things. Also, I will not tell you what I dowsed for. Not to be mysterious. Just because it could be embarrassing!

Originally Posted by theslayerofmen

well, it worked for me. Perhaps it was just random luck...

That's the thing though, we do fool ourselves. Our ability to do so is one of the main reasons that the scientific method is so crucial in developing knowledge on how things work.

If you watch the Dawkins video, the dowsers seem sincere. Mistaken, not dishonest.

yes, but believe me i have seen and experienced things that would be hard to explain using science (or indeed rationale). Therein lays (for me anyway) the problem with the blanket dismissal that we are all 'kidding ourselves'. I agree that I could be - but feel pretty sane (most of the time). I also don't like the idea of using Dawkins as an example all the time. Having read his books, although in many respects superb his thoughts are as flawed as the next persons/religions/dogmas.

Originally Posted by theslayerofmen

yes, but believe me i have seen and experienced things that would be hard to explain using science (or indeed rationale). Therein lays (for me anyway) the problem with the blanket dismissal that we are all 'kidding ourselves'. I agree that I could be - but feel pretty sane (most of the time). I also don't like the idea of using Dawkins as an example all the time. Having read his books, although in many respects superb his thoughts are as flawed as the next persons/religions/dogmas.

It isn't just you, it is everyone. We all fool ourselves.

CARGO CULT SCIENCE by Richard Feynman


...We have learned a lot from experience about how to handle some of
the ways we fool ourselves. One example: Millikan measured the
charge on an electron by an experiment with falling oil drops, and
got an answer which we now know not to be quite right. It's a
little bit off, because he had the incorrect value for the
viscosity of air. It's interesting to look at the history of
measurements of the charge of the electron, after Millikan. If you
plot them as a function of time, you find that one is a little
bigger than Millikan's, and the next one's a little bit bigger than
that, and the next one's a little bit bigger than that, until
finally they settle down to a number which is higher.

Why didn't they discover that the new number was higher right away?
It's a thing that scientists are ashamed of--this history--because
it's apparent that people did things like this: When they got a
number that was too high above Millikan's, they thought something
must be wrong--and they would look for and find a reason why
something might be wrong. When they got a number closer to
Millikan's value they didn't look so hard. And so they eliminated
the numbers that were too far off, and did other things like that.
We've learned those tricks nowadays, and now we don't have that
kind of a disease.

But this long history of learning how not to fool ourselves--of
having utter scientific integrity--is, I'm sorry to say, something
that we haven't specifically included in any particular course that
I know of. We just hope you've caught on by osmosis.

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself--and you are
the easiest person to fool. So you have to be very careful about
that. After you've not fooled yourself, it's easy not to fool other
scientists. You just have to be honest in a conventional way after
that...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman

BTW Dawkins is only presenting that vid. His personal opinion don't matter. He just explains the methodology behind the experiment and the reasons for doing it that way.

As mentioned before, if you stuff up when searching for water then you go thirsty or get wet. If you stuff up when searching for mines it is a different outcome that would not be pleasurable to all involved.

When we had a mine worry building the road to Stanley, If we could not get the EOD boys up we simply drove a CAT D8 over the area involved, we had been told there were no AT mines

Originally Posted by StickyEnd

Originally Posted by theslayerofmen

yes, but believe me i have seen and experienced things that would be hard to explain using science (or indeed rationale). Therein lays (for me anyway) the problem with the blanket dismissal that we are all 'kidding ourselves'. I agree that I could be - but feel pretty sane (most of the time). I also don't like the idea of using Dawkins as an example all the time. Having read his books, although in many respects superb his thoughts are as flawed as the next persons/religions/dogmas.

It isn't just you, it is everyone. We all fool ourselves.

CARGO CULT SCIENCE by Richard Feynman


...We have learned a lot from experience about how to handle some of
the ways we fool ourselves. One example: Millikan measured the
charge on an electron by an experiment with falling oil drops, and
got an answer which we now know not to be quite right. It's a
little bit off, because he had the incorrect value for the
viscosity of air. It's interesting to look at the history of
measurements of the charge of the electron, after Millikan. If you
plot them as a function of time, you find that one is a little
bigger than Millikan's, and the next one's a little bit bigger than
that, and the next one's a little bit bigger than that, until
finally they settle down to a number which is higher.

Why didn't they discover that the new number was higher right away?
It's a thing that scientists are ashamed of--this history--because
it's apparent that people did things like this: When they got a
number that was too high above Millikan's, they thought something
must be wrong--and they would look for and find a reason why
something might be wrong. When they got a number closer to
Millikan's value they didn't look so hard. And so they eliminated
the numbers that were too far off, and did other things like that.
We've learned those tricks nowadays, and now we don't have that
kind of a disease.

But this long history of learning how not to fool ourselves--of
having utter scientific integrity--is, I'm sorry to say, something
that we haven't specifically included in any particular course that
I know of. We just hope you've caught on by osmosis.

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself--and you are
the easiest person to fool. So you have to be very careful about
that. After you've not fooled yourself, it's easy not to fool other
scientists. You just have to be honest in a conventional way after
that...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman

BTW Dawkins is only presenting that vid. His personal opinion don't matter. He just explains the methodology behind the experiment and the reasons for doing it that way.

so sceptics could be foolong themselves too?