Phil Parker On Wikipedia trying top get SMILE added

[Chrisb]

I have vague recollections of someone turning up to the club caving cottage at about that time brandishing dowsing rods and saying he was going to track the course of some cave. Mind you, I suspect that it was someone known to his friends by a name which suggested that he was clean round the bend. I don't recall the outcome.

However it was considered worthy of serious investigation by some.
http://www-sop.inria.fr/agos/sis/dowsing/dowsdean.html

 

[Countrygirl]

No, no drinking. My co-student Jerry Marsden (not of the Pacemakers) had heard that it did in fact work but that to get reliable results you needed 50cm copper rods with 10cm right angle bend bases that would rotate freely in sheaths held in the vertical fist. He bought some copper and fashioned the rods and we went round to the Radcliffe Infirmary after we had finished in clinic. I think Jerry had already been amazed to find it worked but he got me to try. I walked around with the rods swinging freely forwards in parallel. You have to get the angle just right so that they lie forward but will swing at the slightest sideways force. For about fifty yards nothing happened and then suddenly they both went sharp left. On inspection we found manholes with water filled pipes on either side of where I had walked. We did it half a dozen more times or so and it was totally reliable. Having proved the point the copper then got used for gardening purposes. You should try it. It is quite a party trick.

When I had a water leak I called SW Water who said they would send round their expert on detecting water leaks.

When the SW Water van turned up, I waited for some impressive equipment to be unloaded on my property. Much to my astonishment, it was a pair of metal rods.

When I expressed my surprise to the SW Water employee, he told me that dowsing with rods was regarded by the water companies as the best way to detect leaks.

Actually I confess to having a go myself and much to my surprise the rods suddenly take on a life of their own when over water. It does seem to work although I would like to know how science explains it.

 

[TiredSam]

No disrespect but dowsing actually works. At least with good length copper rods. I have done it over sewer pipes with my eyes shut and it was totally reliable. (We did it in a hospital car park and checked the water by lifting the manhole covers in the flower beds once we had located them - in medical student days.) I assume it is something to do with electromagnetic induction. Not sure how hazel twigs work though. And I don't think it picks up Lyme disease very well.

I can confirm this. About 20 years ago I was teaching a group of factory workers and one of them was a dowser. After the lunch break we went into a field and dropped a coin somewhere while he wasn't looking. He nearly found it on the third attempt, which was pretty impressive. He also had a neighbour who had been ill, so he dowsed in her room, found an underground water line and told her to move her bed, so she did and got better.

 

[Cheesus]

He also had a neighbour who had been ill, so he dowsed in her room, found an underground water line and told her to move her bed, so she did and got better.

How does an underground waterline make someone sick?

 

[TiredSam]

How does an underground waterline make someone sick?

Energy or something. Dunno, I'm not an expert.

Nice to see your old avatar back .

 

[Cheesus]

Energy or something. Dunno, I'm not an expert.

This made me belly laugh.

Nice to see your old avatar back .

My new face was freaking me out. I feel like I have my identity back now.

 

[Jonathan Edwards]

For water flowing through pipes to do this still seems like something that would be of interest.

I don't really know anything about dowsing, but this site argues it is largely a result of people misinterpreting chance changes in the rods, or else unconciously altering the rods like a ouija board if they know where the water is: http://wtamu.edu/~cbaird/sq/2015/04/15/how-does-water-dowsing-work/

They claim:

I did see one study tried to find the 'best' dowsers, narrowed it down to 50 to test, and then of these 50, 5 were found to have useful skills... but a statistician responded by arguing that this is what you'd expect by chance.

I'd be surprised if there was anything to it.

You are not making a very good case here Esther12. You are just prejudiced, just as I was before the experiment. The idea that it is due to misinterpretation of chance changes is obvious to anyone who is sceptical and may well apply if people are in a suggestible mood. But I was not. I burst out laughing when the rods moved because it seemed so absurd. If the phenomenon is to be tested I would think that professional dowsers are the last people to use because they will indeed believe in it. Moreover, if, as I suspect, the effect is actually of no great practical use, the anyone who bothered to try it more than once is exactly the wrong person to study. The bit about the statistician would only be valid if he knew the statistics of the study and I bet he did not. He probably assumed that p values were not Bonferoni corrected.

Your scepticism reminds me a bit of the scepticism I met with when I did my first rituximab study. The sceptics did not bother to look t the data. They just assumed it must be dodgy. They were wrong, as you know. Good science relies on having no preconception about the plausibility of something. I know that sounds like trying to defend quackery but I am just pointing out how easy it is to be lulled into being sceptical about something that is bona fide. You have given absolutely no arguments as to why my electromagnetic explanation should not work!

Of course what is needed is a dispassionate replication in a double blind fashion. I very much doubt that in any studies done so far anyone was dispassionate. They either wanted it to work or not to work. If you know it is a waste of time anyway then you do not bother to test it.

It reminds me a bit of Ben Goldacre - bad science is bad unless it is the bit you would rather not be bad, in which case you find reasons why it really must be good. And the converse. It is all an interesting exercise in how hard it is for us to be dispassionate.

Can you explain why when you tap the bottom of a cup of freshly stirred hot cocoa with a spoon the note emitted by the mug rises by two octaves over a period of about twenty seconds? I know why, but I had to consult a Fellow of the Royal Society with a career in fluid dynamics. It puzzled enough people to get into Scientific American. It does not work with tea.

 

[Jonathan Edwards]

Actually I confess to having a go myself and much to my surprise the rods suddenly take on a life of their own when over water. It does seem to work although I would like to know how science explains it.

That is exactly it. They take on a life of their own.

I can confirm this. About 20 years ago I was teaching a group of factory workers and one of them was a dowser. After the lunch break we went into a field and dropped a coin somewhere while he wasn't looking. He nearly found it on the third attempt, which was pretty impressive. He also had a neighbour who had been ill, so he dowsed in her room, found an underground water line and told her to move her bed, so she did and got better.

You see Esther12, we have replication already. You really should try it. It taught me more about not assuming what one should be sceptical about than almost anything.

 

[wdb]

The reactions at 4:07 are the best bit

 

[Wonko]

I have to ask @Jonathan Edwards , why were you tapping the bottom of a mug of freshly made cocoa in the first place, let alone making notes about it's musical properties? Further I need to know how the cup was supported and why this didn't dampen the oscillations, increasing frequency would suggest additional energy input rather than any dampening, although it could also suggest a resonant frequency issue, in which case be careful

 

[Hip]

That Richard Dawkins dowsing test is of ridiculously poor quality: Dawkins used tiny bottles of mineral water in boxes in an attempt to simulate an underground body of water or an underground stream. That is never going to be an adequate simulation.

If we assume that dowsing may work through some magnetic or electromagnetic effect (remember that water is diamagnetic as well as a conductor of electricity), then this tiny quantity of water in a plastic bottle is not going to have any appreciable magnetic or electromagnetic influence.

 

[Countrygirl]

The reactions at 4:07 are the best bit

The water companies disagree!

They rely on their dowsers as the best way to detect leaks who must have a good record or they would be out of a job.

 

[Wonko]

The water companies disagree!

They rely on their dowsers as the best way to detect leaks who must have a good record or they would be out of a job.

erm......they lose millions of gallons a thingy, locally I've seen virtual lakes, complete with fountains, come from leaks, happening for weeks, and they still couldn't find it. I don't think, if they are using dowsing, that it works very well.

edit - this isn't/wasn't really meant as a criticism of dowsing per say, it is a criticism of my local water company, and as far as I am aware, all other water companies, everywhere, apart from, possibly, those operating in deserts.

 

[Esther12]

You are not making a very good case here Esther12. You are just prejudiced, just as I was before the experiment. The idea that it is due to misinterpretation of chance changes is obvious to anyone who is sceptical and may well apply if people are in a suggestible mood. But I was not. I burst out laughing when the rods moved because it seemed so absurd. If the phenomenon is to be tested I would think that professional dowsers are the last people to use because they will indeed believe in it. Moreover, if, as I suspect, the effect is actually of no great practical use, the anyone who bothered to try it more than once is exactly the wrong person to study. The bit about the statistician would only be valid if he knew the statistics of the study and I bet he did not. He probably assumed that p values were not Bonferoni corrected.

I realise that I'm not making much of a case, but I've never really thought about dowsing before. It could be that I'm being misguidedly skeptical out of prejudice, but I think I'm becoming more sceptical as others post in favour of it, rather than less. Using it to find water leaks, or a coin in a field... it sounds implausible.

The the criticism of the statistics from that paper is here:

https://www.csicop.org/si/show/testing_dowsing_the_failure_of_the_munich_experiments

I've not gone through it in detail, or looked for any response from the pro-dowsers (apparently there was one, and the author of the above piece in unhappy about what he says is a false claim that he had retracted his critique), but to me it looked like they were right to say that results were not impressive.

 

[Countrygirl]

erm......they lose millions of gallons a thingy, locally I've seen virtual lakes, complete with fountains, come from leaks, happening for weeks, and they still couldn't find it. I don't think, if they are using dowsing, that it works very well.

edit - this isn't/wasn't really meant as a criticism of dowsing per say, it is a criticism of my local water company, and as far as I am aware, all other water companies, everywhere, apart from, possibly, those operating in deserts.

Clearly they just need to employ more dowsers then.

 

[Large Donner]

Was their drinking involved in this medical students' experiment?

 

[Jonathan Edwards]

That Richard Dawkins dowsing test is of ridiculously poor quality: Dawkins used tiny bottles of mineral water in boxes in an attempt to simulate an underground body of water or an underground stream. That is never going to be an adequate simulation.

If we assume that dowsing may work through some magnetic or electromagnetic effect (remember that water is diamagnetic as well as a conductor of electricity), then this tiny quantity of water in a plastic bottle is not going to have any appreciable magnetic or electromagnetic influence.

Absolutely. Moreover, they are not beginning to hold their rods right and the rods are too flimsy to be any good. If the rods can droop on themselves as they do I doubt you can get the effect at all. Why pick idiots who think it is done by God? This is Dawkins at his most ridiculous.

 

[Jonathan Edwards]

I have to ask @Jonathan Edwards , why were you tapping the bottom of a mug of freshly made cocoa in the first place, let alone making notes about it's musical properties? Further I need to know how the cup was supported and why this didn't dampen the oscillations, increasing frequency would suggest additional energy input rather than any dampening, although it could also suggest a resonant frequency issue, in which case be careful

Doesn't everyone tap the bottom of their mug? Certainly any self-respecting teenager with an enquiring mind must do so, I think. The cup is supported by a held handle (I have done this with many cups over the years). The cup itself, if made of good quality china, will ring nicely. A tall mug is preferable but not essential.

It is not increasing energy input. A resonant frequency is I think right, but if worried one could stand on a carpet to avoid it encroaching on mental resonances!

 

[Wonko]

Doesn't everyone tap the bottom of their mug? Certainly any self-respecting teenager with an enquiring mind must do so, I think. The cup is supported by a held handle (I have done this with many cups over the years). The cup itself, if made of good quality china, will ring nicely. A tall mug is preferable but not essential.

It is not increasing energy input. A resonant frequency is I think right, but if worried one could stand on a carpet to avoid it encroaching on mental resonances!

I think that raises more questions than it answers, such as what was a teenager doing with good quality china, let alone whacking it with metal objects when filled with hot burny stuff, where were the parents who should have explained why this was a bad idea (probably by whacking them with aforementioned metal object) but.........I'm losing the will to live

 

[Large Donner]

Can you explain why when you tap the bottom of a cup of freshly stirred hot cocoa with a spoon the note emitted by the mug rises by two octaves over a period of about twenty seconds? I know why, but I had to consult a Fellow of the Royal Society with a career in fluid dynamics. It puzzled enough people to get into Scientific American. It does not work with tea.

Can you do this with a cuppa soup and a bit of white bread with butter. I'm not a ready made food fan but I do love to indulge in cuppa soups sometimes. I always find it amazing how a little bit of powder in a pouch can taste so good with a bit of hot water poured over it and as for dipping in the white bread n butter Ooo, I do love that.

Actually I don't care if it raises octaves or not just the thought of the cuppa soup is music enough to my ears.