Divining rods, oy vey!

[Belinda Barfield]

Guess I shouldn't bring up the subject of leylines, huh?

Just a thought (I do have them occasionally) - in the studies did the scientists bring in a group of people who live on the land to test, or did they just use people who live in the city and work in labs all day? People who live on the land do have a different sense of nature and their environment. They tend to be more "in tune" with the earth. Perhaps those successful at dowsing and divining have a more open mind and spirit. A lot of results depend on belief - believe it or not. As others have said, just because we don't understand "it" or believe in "it" doesn't mean "it" isn't possible.

[Jeff Bartley]

Actually, I looked at the studies sited in Wiki and the first study from '87 was focusing on finding water within pipes in the basement of a barn, the goal of the more recent study was finding water within buried pipes.
What myself and others have described here (as was previously stated) is finding buried utilities, not water! And the tools used were metal rods, not the branch from some special tree. Comparing that experience to the studies in Wiki is apples to oranges.
So, we don't KNOW that it doesn't work.

[Greg Peterson]

We live in an analog world but possess a digital understanding of it.

I don't believe dowsing is real. Not saying that our understanding of the world is complete. I do however, find it unlikely that we've advanced our state of understanding the laws of nature to the point where we can hold anti-matter still for sixteen minutes yet are unable to effectively conduct a test to prove or disprove dowsing.

[Joe Angrisani]

....As others have said, just because we don't understand "it" or believe in "it" doesn't mean "it" isn't possible.

Isn't the corollary to that: "Just because one believes in 'it' doesn't means 'it' is true"?

[Belinda Barfield]

Isn't the corollary to that: "Just because one believes in 'it' doesn't means 'it' is true"?

True, very true.

[Dan Hintz]

Isn't the corollary to that: "Just because one believes in 'it' doesn't means 'it' is true"?

Are you trying to tell me the Easter Bunny isn't real? Sacrilege!

[Belinda Barfield]

Are you trying to tell me the Easter Bunny isn't real? Sacrilege!

I believe in Dan. Next you're going to try to tell me Dan isn't real!

[Mike Cruz]

Boy Dan, you really know how to stir the pot, don't you?

I've seen it work (believe me, very reluctantly) on underground wires. At my last house, we were having Invisible Fence install a doggie fence for us. Before digging the line in, the guy pulled out two of those metal markers with white flags on the end. He ripped off the flags, bent one end of each and started walking around the property. I just about fell out of my chair! I curiously (and cautously) approached him. Asked him, um, just what he was looking for. Underground wires, he replied. I scratched my head. He said, don't believe me? I've already found your main electric and cable lines, and pointed over his shoulder. Then a few minutes later, he kept passing over a spot in the back yard. He flagged it. Moved on, then kept coming back. I knew ther was an old electric line buried there (no longer power running through it) but how the $%&@ did he? I finally went out to let him know that he found an old line that went through there. He double checked with me that it wasn't live, and moved on. I didn't question him again...

[Greg Portland]

For those who think they can dowse or know someone who can go get yourself a $1M+ prize: http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/1m-challenge.html

Many dowsers have tried to win the prize and none of them have even gotten past the basic preliminary testing.

[Jason Merck]

Well since science has proven they don't work I guess I'll have to throw mine in the trash. Too bad, they have served me pretty well during my years in the underground utility construction business. But since there was an experiment done that absolutely proved they do not work I guess I have to ignore my past field experience with them.

[Joe Angrisani]

Well since science has proven they don't work I guess I'll have to throw mine in the trash. Too bad, they have served me pretty well during my years in the underground utility construction business. But since there was an experiment done that absolutely proved they do not work I guess I have to ignore my past field experience with them.

Take your field experience and go win the $1,000,000 prize.

Seriously. Why wouldn't you? Unless you couldn't....

[Chris Kennedy]

Well since science has proven they don't work I guess I'll have to throw mine in the trash. Too bad, they have served me pretty well during my years in the underground utility construction business. But since there was an experiment done that absolutely proved they do not work I guess I have to ignore my past field experience with them.

Science hasn't proven that they do not work. What has been shown by the various double-blind studies is that there is no significant difference between using divining rods and random chance. It is quite to the opposite -- the purveyors of divining rods are proclaiming that they work, but when rigorously tested, there is no significant difference between divination and guessing. It would be more to the point that diviners cannot adequately demonstrate that they work better than anecdotally.

For the record, I have no idea whether they work. I have never seen someone try to use them. And there is anecdotal evidence that certain people can effect the physical world in strange ways for no currently known reason (look up the Pauli effect).

Cheers,

Chris

[Tom Winship]

Funny this thread came up. I knew an old man at home when I was a kid who supposedly could "witch" for water with a forked stick. Hadn't thought about it much since then until a friend came up several weeks ago. Before leaving he went over and pulled some metal ones out of his trunk. I started walking across the yard with them and they crossed when I crossed a water line. Don't know if I influenced it or not, but as I say, funny this thread came up.

[Scott Shepherd]

So for those of you who believe in dowsing - what do you say to the scientists, who are trained in statistical analysis and experimental design, who have concluded that it's nothing but chance? Do you believe that your personal experiences with dowsing are somehow better experimental examples than those designed by experts?

I've not seen it in person or done it, so I have no opinion on if it works or not. However, I can think of a number of times in my lifetime that scientists have been very wrong about things.

I'd push it back the other way. Just because you can't prove it, doesn't mean it's not happening. Science isn't done understanding everything in the universe just yet. If we lived life based on what scientists tell us, we'd have a strange life.

Just a very recent example- the food pyramid. We've been told since I was a kid how that was the key to healthy living. Now they (scientists) say it's a bad thing. So yes, I would believe my own eyes over a scientist if I could support it in a level that proved to be accurate.

[Bruce Kohl]

A few years back I used to do some work for a couple of partners who were in the oil and gas business. One was a college trained geologist and the other an old roughneck who hadn't graduated from high school. At the time they were drilling deep gas wells in Texas, and when they were deciding where on a particular lease to drill they would visit the site together, the geologist with his seismic charts and graphs and the old timer with his witching sticks. The geologist would study his seismic data, and the old timer would roam the lease with his sticks in hand. They both believed fervently in their respective methods of selecting a well location, and together they would pick a site for the well. And darned if they didn't have fabulous success. More often than not the site selected would be the favorate of the old timer. These were very deep wildcat wells, so no guarantee of success. So while as an educated person I question the "science" of divining rods, based on this experience I've often wondered if there may be something to it.