Dowsing

[Sebastian Toe]

Coming to dowsing....it involves the mind and our spontaneous reactions to subtle natural phenomena. Testing (double blind or otherwise) always involves the Meta consciousness. Once the meta consciousness gets involved, all spontaneous and natural reactions and responses get blocked automatically. Self consciousness prevents spontaneous responses.

.and if those being tested  are not told that they are being tested, that would remove that issue would it not....?

[Walter]

.and if those being tested  are not told that they are being tested, that would remove that issue would it not....?

as I've  said , try it without humans holding the rods

[ProfessorDavey]

I would however say that the placebo effect - undeniably a real thing - isn't (yet) an explanation of anything. It's a label for sure, a name for a well observed and well attested phenomenon, but not an explanation because it rests upon a still unexplained link between the mind and the body and the way that the former can influence the latter to the extent that a bland substance of no medicinal value can make someone feel better psychologically because of their mental attitude that it will work. Just calling it the placebo effect doesn't take us any further forward in understanding how this happens. The same goes for the ideomotor effect - it's a label for a particular thing but not much of an explanation.

I agree - the placebo effect is psychological but real and not completely understood. The point about using a placebo (where appropriate, which is actually quite rare) is to negate that effect in order to reveal (or not) an effect of a drug or other intervention.

But actually the placebo effect isn't relevant to studies testing whether dowsing works as there is no intervention.

[ProfessorDavey]

Coming to dowsing....it involves the mind and our spontaneous reactions to subtle natural phenomena. Testing (double blind or otherwise) always involves the Meta consciousness. Once the meta consciousness gets involved, all spontaneous and natural reactions and responses get blocked automatically. Self consciousness prevents spontaneous responses.

Which effectively boils down to suggesting that it only works when you aren't trying to determine whether it works - how convenient.

[Walter]

What's all the big deal about 'double blind tests'...double blind tests'...?!

The public have been fooled for 40 years about eating saturated fats and cholesterol and atherosclerosis and all that stuff. Now its all being claimed as.... "well...not really...you know...maybe cholesterol really isn't so bad...maybe fats are ok....hee...hee".  There were all kinds of tests with a whole village (Framingham) being studied over decades (starting from 1948). It still turns out to be wrong.

I think you need to read up on that before using it as an example here

[Walter]

Which effectively boils down to suggesting that it only works when you aren't trying to determine whether it works - how convenient.

what appears blatantly obvious to thee and me  is out of reach to Sriram for some reason .

[Sriram]

It is the only way you can actually determine whether something actually works, because it removes the placebo effect.

Frankly if you aren't prepared to accept that properly controlled double blind studies are the gold standard way to determine whether something actually works then there really isn't much point in discussing this.

I have nothing against double blind tests. They are tools and are fine where they are relevant and meaningful.  They are however not infallible and cannot be taken as the final word on anything. A tool is only useful depending on the person using it.

[Maeght]

I have nothing against double blind tests. They are tools and are fine where they are relevant and meaningful.  They are however not infallible and cannot be taken as the final word on anything. A tool is only useful depending on the person using it.

Which is why we have said the test need to be carried out properly.

[Stranger]

What's all the big deal about 'double blind tests'...double blind tests'...?!

You need to ask!?

Okay, they are simply a way to isolate the thing you are trying to test. If you are testing a drug for example, you randomly choose two groups of patients and give one the drug and one a placebo and make sure that nobody who interacts with the patients knows which they are being given. That way, as far as is possible, you ensure that the only difference between the two groups is the drug (the thing you are trying to test).

The public have been fooled for 40 years about eating saturated fats and cholesterol and atherosclerosis and all that stuff. Now its all being claimed as.... "well...not really...you know...maybe cholesterol really isn't so bad...maybe fats are ok....hee...hee". 

The problem with dietary advice is not that double blind trials aren't reliable, it's that it's impractical to do them for diet. You can't get large groups of people to live identical lives except for one dietary component.

[Stranger]

I would however say that the placebo effect - undeniably a real thing - isn't (yet) an explanation of anything.

...

For the record I would say exactly the same (to date) of some of the ongoing researches in physics and cosmology, namely dark matter, dark energy and dark flow. Carefully sceptical people recognise that these are, for now, placeholders for areas in which we don't have sufficient data, often because the technology isn't yet sufficiently sophisticated.

Did somebody suggest otherwise?

[Shaker]

Did somebody suggest otherwise?

About dark matter/energy/flow? No. With regard to dowsing however it's implicit whenever somebody says that dowsing is 'explained' by the ideomotor effect - to wit, Sally Le Page in her original blog post. It isn't. Ignotum per ignotius is as invalid now as it ever was.

[jeremyp]

2. How does it work? No idea. Saying that our subconscious mind  somehow identifies subtle environmental conditions that indicate the presence of water...is nonsense.

Rubbish. It's the only possible mechanism given that people's ability to dowse always disappears when you introduce double blind conditions the remove the visual cues.

Water has been located through dowsing in large parched fields where there is no indication of water anywhere.  Finding specific tiny spots for drilling bore wells of a couple of feet in diameter, cannot be through such subtle environmental observations.

The water table doesn't just appear in certain spots. If you drilled down 80 feet and found water in one spot in a field, it's likely you could have drilled the same depth anywhere in that field and found water.

However it is possible that our sub/unconscious mind is able to detect changes in the biofield which could indicate presence of water.

What is this "biofield" bullshit? Can you provide any evidence at all that such a thing exists? Also, why would water, which is not biological, have a biofield?

After all,our mind, intuition and instincts are connected to the biofield which helps in coordinating the activities of the eco system as a whole.

Yeah, that's utter bollocks.

[jeremyp]

I did explain that we couldn't see each other.

Who went first? Did you go first or did the other person go first? Can you provide evidence that the other person didn't see you? Can you provide evidence that the professor was not communicating with you in some subtle way?

[jeremyp]

I tried holding two twigs over your post.
 They jumped out of my hands and ran away screaming!

Probably an ideomotor effect caused by your sense of smell detecting bullshit.

[jeremyp]

Also the experiment needs to be devoid of any other cues that might consciously or subliminally lead the dowser to know where the water was. So for example an explanation for the 'success' of dowsing has been that experienced dowsers are actually (albeit perhaps not realising it) using other cues to find water - for example a slight dip in the surface of a filed, subtle changes in colour of vegetation etc.

What about the hypothesis that dowsing works via subliminal cues in the environment? Surely, if dowsing is shown to work in that way, it is shown to work.

[jeremyp]

To be honest, no. Because you could just as easily state 'Dowsers are not people  who claim they can find water and the mechanism they use is to find disturbances in the flow of energy by using two sticks, they are people who claim they can find disturbances in the flow of energy by using two sticks and they    offer water as evidence that they do.

But they don't do that as a rule. I don't think you'll find any consensus amongst dowsers as to how it works, but they do all claim they can find water.

[jeremyp]

I am still up for the plan that Shaker and A.N. Other on here work with the bods  from Leicester University to come up with an appropriately designed double blind test, and we have an away day picnic to see it.

Yes, I think that would be a great day out as long as we can retire to the pub à la Time Team.

[Walter]

Yes, I think that would be a great day out as long as we can retire to the pub à la Time Team.

Time Team? they do dowsing with a bloke called Georgeo Fizz , or something , I think he's Italian !

[ProfessorDavey]

What about the hypothesis that dowsing works via subliminal cues in the environment? Surely, if dowsing is shown to work in that way, it is shown to work.

Not really - thats a bit like saying that magic is real because magicians are exceptionally skilled at sleight of hand and/or reading subliminal signs from members of the public.

It may mean that certain people are able to identify areas most likely to contain water, it doesn't mean that dowsing works.

[jeremyp]

Not really - thats a bit like saying that magic is real because magicians are exceptionally skilled at sleight of hand and/or reading subliminal signs from members of the public.

It may mean that certain people are able to identify areas most likely to contain water, it doesn't mean that dowsing works.

It depends how you define dowsing. If you define it as walking around using twigs to find water, the mechanism is irrelevant.

If you see a metal plate levitated off a table by a magician, just because it turns out the table conceals a massive electro-magnet doesn't mean the plate hasn't levitated.

[Sriram]

This is still going on?!

What is the difficulty in admitting that there is probably some explanation for dowsing that we don't know anything about?

It doesn't have to be only well known phenomena such as electricity, magnetism, gravity and such other stuff. It doesn't have to be a con or hoax. Nor does it  have to be some known mental phenomenon such as 'subconscious observation of the environment'.

All these are 'comfort' explanations. They keep us within our comfort zone.  Why are people scared of lateral thinking and exotic explanations?  People are scared that somehow God will be forced down their throat if they are not careful. The God phobia!

Just as scientists have come up with bizarre and exotic explanations such as Dark Matter and Dark Energy to explain certain observations (going against all intuitive and normal explanations)....we also may have to come up with some new explanations, not just for dowsing but for other unexplained phenomena as well.  The Biofield is just one such possibility.

It doesn't have to be either a well known 'Scientific' explanation or else 'Woo'.       But that may take a few more generations, I guess.

[Stranger]

What is the difficulty in admitting that there is probably some explanation for dowsing that we don't know anything about?

It doesn't have to be only well known phenomena such as electricity, magnetism, gravity and such other stuff. It doesn't have to be a con or hoax. Nor does it  have to be some known mental phenomenon such as 'subconscious observation of the environment'.

All these are 'comfort' explanations. They keep us within our comfort zone.  Why are people scared of lateral thinking and exotic explanations?  People are scared that somehow God will be forced down their throat if they are not careful. The God phobia!

Why do you think anybody is scared of anything? We know that dowsing (when isolated from the general environment) simply doesn't work - so in that sense there is nothing to explain - let alone any need to consider bizarre new speculations.

If you can find some solid evidence for something new and unknown, that's just fine with me. Your problem seems to be that you have a need to believe in all kinds of stuff that has no supporting evidence.

Just as scientists have come up with bizarre and exotic explanations such as Dark Matter and Dark Energy to explain certain observations (going against all intuitive and normal explanations)...

What makes you think dark energy and dark matter are counter-intuitive or even explanations? They are placeholders for actual observed phenomena - just like dowsing isn't.

...we also may have to come up with some new explanations, not just for dowsing but for other unexplained phenomena as well.  The Biofield is just one such possibility.

What evidence do you have for anything like a "Biofield" and what predictions does the "hypothesis" make so that it can be tested? (I'll not be holding my breath for an answer.)

It doesn't have to be either a well known 'Scientific' explanation or else 'Woo'.       But that may take a few more generations, I guess.

No, it doesn't (as was discussed before) science accepts phenomena that it can't explain yet (dark energy, dark matter, the placebo effect) provided there is some actual evidence...

[ProfessorDavey]

It depends how you define dowsing. If you define it as walking around using twigs to find water, the mechanism is irrelevant.

If you see a metal plate levitated off a table by a magician, just because it turns out the table conceals a massive electro-magnet doesn't mean the plate hasn't levitated.

But it isn't magic is it.

Like dowsing the implication of magic is that it is somehow supernatural. Somehow that special energy moves the twigs outside of the control of the dowser. If the reality is that the dowser is simply picking up perfectly natural signs and is themselves responsible for the movement of the twigs via the ideometer effect then that isn't dowsing.

The point is that dowsing is the mechanism rather than the outcome or you could claim that any method of finding water is dowsing, including using sophisticated instrumentation.

That dowsing fails to work under controlled conditions where the twigs are retained yet any possibility of those external subtle signs are removed shows that dowsing doesn't work.

[ProfessorDavey]

This is still going on?!

What is the difficulty in admitting that there is probably some explanation for dowsing that we don't know anything about?

It doesn't have to be only well known phenomena such as electricity, magnetism, gravity and such other stuff. It doesn't have to be a con or hoax. Nor does it  have to be some known mental phenomenon such as 'subconscious observation of the environment'.

All these are 'comfort' explanations. They keep us within our comfort zone.  Why are people scared of lateral thinking and exotic explanations?  People are scared that somehow God will be forced down their throat if they are not careful. The God phobia!

Just as scientists have come up with bizarre and exotic explanations such as Dark Matter and Dark Energy to explain certain observations (going against all intuitive and normal explanations)....we also may have to come up with some new explanations, not just for dowsing but for other unexplained phenomena as well.  The Biofield is just one such possibility.

It doesn't have to be either a well known 'Scientific' explanation or else 'Woo'.       But that may take a few more generations, I guess.

But it doesn't work as study after study has proved. So trying to explain how it works is totally irrelevant as it doesn't work.

[Robbie]

Also it doesn't matter, hardly impacts on our lives unless we have nothing else to think about.

Sririam:- "...there is probably some explanation for dowsing that we don't know anything about? "

Yes sririam.