Water Dowsing

[Tin Pot]

I was trying to be more inclusive of the broad church that is CC

It’s a waste of time, in my exceedingly humble opinion.

But then again, maybe scientific method, the fact that eye witness evidence is worthless, and the pointlessness of a system (a human in this case) trying to objectively observe and monitor itself...is in fact the bollocks

 

[swansonj]

It’s a waste of time, in my exceedingly humble opinion.

But then again, maybe scientific method, the fact that eye witness evidence is worthless, and the pointlessness of a system (a human in this case) trying to objectively observe and monitor itself...is in fact the bollocks

In my even more exceedingly humble opinion, you are the sort of person who is in danger of giving scientists a bad name
Eye witness evidence is not worthless.
Half the advances we benefit from in medicine and psychology started with someone observing themselves.
Half the epidemiological discoveries ever made followed a hypothesis-generating anecdotal observation.
Virtually every worthwhile scientific advance has in it somewhere someone thinking "I can't explain that observation" and rather than deciding that the observation was bollocks, looking for an explanation.

 

[lazybloke]

We used to have a parlour game where my dad would hide two sixpences of our pocket money somewhere on the ground floor of the house whilst me and my brother were out playing. We would then use bent metal coat hangers to 'dowse' for it. We would both invariably identify where they were as the rods crossed. Kept us quiet for a while. Don't ask me how it worked; I haven't a clue, but we never lost out on our pocket money!

How would coat hangers know to ignore other bits of metal which are not of interest (nails in the floorboards/joists, stair rods, pipes, radiators, wiring, the back-boxes of sockets and switches, appliances, furniture, doorknobs and so on?

Using your senses (consciously or subconsciously) to take cues from bystanders or the environment is a much more likely explanation than any kind of mystical power. Sensitivity to magnetic fields possibly....

 

[Tin Pot]

In my even more exceedingly humble opinion, you are the sort of person who is in danger of giving scientists a bad name
Eye witness evidence is not worthless.
Half the advances we benefit from in medicine and psychology started with someone observing themselves.
Half the epidemiological discoveries ever made followed a hypothesis-generating anecdotal observation.
Virtually every worthwhile scientific advance has in it somewhere someone thinking "I can't explain that observation" and rather than deciding that the observation was bollocks, looking for an explanation.

And from that viewpoint springsforth all pseudoscience.

Hey, I’m not here to fight, honest...just poke fun.

 

[Dirk]

How would coat hangers know to ignore other bits of metal which are not of interest (nails in the floorboards/joists, stair rods, pipes, radiators, wiring, the back-boxes of sockets and switches, appliances, furniture, doorknobs and so on?

Using your senses (consciously or subconsciously) to take cues from bystanders or the environment is a much more likely explanation than any kind of mystical power. Sensitivity to magnetic fields possibly....

Who knows? It seemed to work, though.

 

[glasgowcyclist]

Yes.

Took several tries with the rods before I twigged (no pun intended) that I was causing the rods to move and that they were just amplifying subtle muscle movements. I then realised I could actually feel my muscles tensing and sort-of didn't need the rods if I really concentrated. It's easier, and much more clear cut with the rods though.

Edit: as a sciency / sceptical sort of guy it was a relief when it was clear it wasn't some mysterious magick moving the rods or the twig, but just me detecting something - or perhaps better to use the word "noticing" something - and it all becomes a bit less mumbo jumbo

In that case I'd be looking to eliminate visual clues or other stimuli as mentioned earlier.
Repeat the process while blindfolded!

 

[Illaveago]

In that case I'd be looking to eliminate visual clues or other stimuli as mentioned earlier.
Repeat the process while blindfolded!

How would you know the rods were moving?

 

[glasgowcyclist]

How would you know the rods were moving?

We've moved on to doing it without the rods since Prof's muscles still react when detecting something.

 

[swansonj]

I read this twenty years ago, so have almost certainly misremembered and embellished the details.

Sandy Woodward, later Falklands Task Force commander, was a submarine officer undergoing training on when it was safe to surface a submarine amidst other shipping. This involved using sonar to measure distances. But he seemed to have a sixth sense for whether the other shipping was coming towards him or not. No-one believed him and said he must be guessing. But then eventually they worked out he was subconsciously Hearing and interpreting the Doppler shift of the sonar pings, something nobody had thought of.

So there was an entirely physical explanation, and a useful one to have discovered- which wouldn't have been discovered if people had dismissed his supposed instinct as being impossible.

 

[swansonj]

It is that rather twee, insufferably middle class tosh that was cranked out between the wars.

Ahem:

..,..
Nomination for all time best ever children's book:
Stream on the Line - Philip Turner
Run Away Home - Elinor Lyon
We didn't mean to go to sea - Arthur Ransome

 

[jefmcg]

Nomination for all time best ever children's book:
Stream on the Line - Philip Turner
Run Away Home - Elinor Lyon
We didn't mean to go to sea - Arthur Ransome

I can't make head or tail of this post. Who is nominating? What criteria?

A quick google using the phrase "Nomination for all time best ever children's book" produces these as the first two links https://www.timeout.com/london/kids/the-100-best-childrens-books#tab_panel_10 and http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20150402-the-11-greatest-childrens-books

No sign of Ransom on either list.

 

[nickyboy]

Did you discover anything? Something to do with the number of useable coathangers in the house perhaps?

Absolutely nothing. And considering how wet Glossop is, that's saying something. All I managed was a bollocking for destroying a couple of coathangers

 

[Profpointy]

" Science" rubbished the existance of monster waves that sunk big ships and pooh-poohed the tales from mariners who claimed to see them. By theoritical calculations from well understood, tried and tested fluid dynamics there was a maximum size of waves. And there it rested until there were satellite pictures of said impossible waves.

Of course, some of the claims made of dowsing a clearly nonsense, likewise many of the more outlandish mechanisms. But when 8 out 10 people get a clear unmistakeable reaction walking across a car park with a couple of bits of coathanger wires it is flat out wrong to dismiss the whole thing as bunk. I have seen ultra-sceptic sciency types literally jump and drop the rods almost in fright. My own reaction was along these lines.

I did read a book on dowsing and it was indeed full of all sorts of manifest nonsense and I binned it. But as I mentioned upthread "and yet it moves"

 

[jefmcg]

All I managed was a bollocking for destroying a couple of coathangers

View: https://youtu.be/XOILKHmZBwc

 

[User482]

" Science" rubbished the existance of monster waves that sunk big ships and pooh-poohed the tales from mariners who claimed to see them. By theoritical calculations from well understood, tried and tested fluid dynamics there was a maximum size of waves. And there it rested until there were satellite pictures of said impossible waves.

Of course, some of the claims made of dowsing a clearly nonsense, likewise many of the more outlandish mechanisms. But when 8 out 10 people get a clear unmistakeable reaction walking across a car park with a couple of bits of coathanger wires it is flat out wrong to dismiss the whole thing as bunk. I have seen ultra-sceptic sciency types literally jump and drop the rods almost in fright. My own reaction was along these lines.

I did read a book on dowsing and it was indeed full of all sorts of manifest nonsense and I binned it. But as I mentioned upthread "and yet it moves"

Unlike the existence of freak waves, it would be pretty straightforward to demonstrate that dowsing works, through a double blind trial.