Divining rods, oy vey!

[Jeff Bratt]

One study seems to indicate that 6 of the dowsers did perform above the levels of chance. A later person disputes the findings of that test.

...the best dowser [of those 6] was on average 4 millimeters out of 10 meters closer to a mid-line guess, [a difference from guessing] of 0.0004%.

I think Henry Ford said, "Whether you believe you can do something or can't do something, you are probably right."

That is true for many things - especially those requiring perseverance. But it is not true of everything - no matter how much you believe, or how hard you try, you cannot build a perpetual motion device. A solid understanding of the principles applicable to what you are trying to accomplish is always useful.

Next question about dowsing rods:

Background: One of the things I've noticed about dowsers I've observed (on TV, not in person) is that, when the rods are crossing, their hands/wrists seem to be moving in a way that would cause the rods to cross. Very subtle movement of the hands/wrists will cause this.

This is the operating principle of dowsing with L-shaped wires

Question: Can the rods work without a human holding them? Could you place them in a board with holes, and move the board around a property, and still expect the rods to cross when over water or electrical lines?

That sounds like a good, relatively easy, and cheap experiment to do. Maybe one of the dowsers can try? Drill accurate holes in a board and mount the rods such that tilting the board only causes the wires to move in tandem with each other. Then try to find places that can repeatably cause the wires to cross...

[Scott Shepherd]

That sounds like a good, relatively easy, and cheap experiment to do. Maybe one of the dowsers can try? Drill accurate holes in a board and mount the rods such that tilting the board only causes the wires to move in tandem with each other. Then try to find places that can repeatably cause the wires to cross...

Or, the actual PERSON could have something to do with it. It could be something in their body that causes their hands, wrists, etc. to move at that point. It may have zero to do with the rods and everything to do with the person. Just as stated earlier, maybe those people have a higher percentage of "something" in the body. Maybe their body is hypersensitive to something we aren't aware of. Taking the person out of it only proves it's not the rods. Just as someone's knee hurts when rain is moving in, maybe this is something along those lines.

Maybe it's not. I have no idea, nor does anyone else, but if you're going to test things, you can strip all the factors out one by one and then when it yields no results individually, declare the whole as a failure.

I witnessed a cooperate HQ coming online about a year ago. They had huge chillers, and tons of equipment for heating and cooling the place. All top of the line. Turned it all on individually and it worked. Turn it on all together, it didn't work. It took them 2 months to figure it out. Every engineer of each piece said their piece worked fine, yet none of it worked together.

This could be the exact same thing, in reverse. Maybe it's the environment, the person, and the rods, so isolating it to one thing isn't going to prove that it works or doesn't work.

[Scott Donley]

The Narrows Bridge was a design error, they did not have any vents to allow wind to flow allowing for the wind harmonics that resulted in this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-zczJXSxnw The replacement has grates in the roadway

[Greg Portland]

All I'm saying is that I'm open to accept the fact that there are many things we still can't explain and I'm not smart enough to know for 100% certain just about anything in life, other than death and taxes. Outside of that, I'm open to hearing all people's accounts of life.

... as are scientists. Once someone demonstrates dowsing abilities with results greater than average chance then the scientific community will work toward explaining it. Until that is done then it doesn't make sense to waste resources on explaining a result that does not exist.

[Jason Roehl]

Yes, dowsers move their hands--AFTER the rod begins to move. I use a single, L-shaped rod, and it takes a lot of concentration to keep it pointed away from me but still parallel to the ground. Once it starts to swing, I have to move my hand to compensate or it will all but fall out of my hand--the pull is surprisingly strong. But there's no subconscious (or conscious) influence on its movement on my part. The faster I walk across a water line, the faster it moves and the more I have to compensate.

I guess I'm also curious why 50% would be "better than chance". If the items located don't comprise 50% of the area of the field being dowsed, then it's just a number out of a hat. Or are all baseball players just hitting on chance since they ALL hit less than 50%? Oh, yeah--neither the frontal area of the ball nor the bat comprise 50% of the pitching zone of any pitcher (note that I didn't say "strike zone").

[Jeff Bratt]

Or, the actual PERSON could have something to do with it. It could be something in their body that causes their hands, wrists, etc. to move at that point. It may have zero to do with the rods and everything to do with the person. Just as stated earlier, maybe those people have a higher percentage of "something" in the body. Maybe their body is hypersensitive to something we aren't aware of. Taking the person out of it only proves it's not the rods. Just as someone's knee hurts when rain is moving in, maybe this is something along those lines.

Everything I've read describes a sensation of the rods pulling on the dowser's hands - usually strongly. There is a description in this thread that says the same thing. If that person tries the suggested "board experiment", then there could be something to investigate.

[Dan Friedrichs]

I guess I'm also curious why 50% would be "better than chance".

The result is either positive (There is some water/metal buried within a reasonable distance of the present location) or negative (There is nothing at the present location). Thus, 50% accuracy would be expected by chance.



Jason, you seem to be one of the few in this thread who claims a personal ability to do this - why aren't you applying for the big prize money?

[Chris Kennedy]

I think batting averages have come up a couple of times in this thread, and I would point out that there is no comparison. There is a pitcher and a batter, hence two very complex variables and a contest of skills. If you are divining a buried utility, yeah, well, a pipe/power line has no animation, let alone skill. It isn't moving and trying to avoid detection. It is just . . . there.

I would be a little slow to question scientific methodology. I am not saying that scientific methodology is perfect, but this is something that scientists and the scientific community have been working to perfect (if such a thing is possible) since the birth of the scientific method in the Renaissance. As knowledge and technology have increased, so have the demands on scientific rigor.

Cheers,

Chris

[Mike Henderson]

Everything I've read describes a sensation of the rods pulling on the dowser's hands - usually strongly. There is a description in this thread that says the same thing. If that person tries the suggested "board experiment", then there could be something to investigate.

If the rods were really "pulling" you wouldn't have to hold them. You could just build some device that indicated where the [water,pipes,electricity, etc.] is and you could tow it in a cart. But, of course, that doesn't work.

I'm just amazed at how many people believe such superstitious nonsense.

Mike

[Greg Portland]

I guess I'm also curious why 50% would be "better than chance". If the items located don't comprise 50% of the area of the field being dowsed, then it's just a number out of a hat. Or are all baseball players just hitting on chance since they ALL hit less than 50%? Oh, yeah--neither the frontal area of the ball nor the bat comprise 50% of the pitching zone of any pitcher (note that I didn't say "strike zone").

Imagine a 100x100 ft platform and under each 3x3' region is a container. Half of these containers are filled with water, others are not. You are standing on the platform and need to "guess" whether the container below has water or not. I say 3x3 but assume that this is the region that you can dowse without interference. If I walk around and guess randomly then I will be ~ %50 correct (just like a coin flip). People who believe in dowsing claim that they can guess correctly -statistically- better than average chance. This isn't a flat percentage... it depends on the number of trials being performed. For example, it's easier to guess 9/10 than 16 out of 20 (statistically speaking). If you're interested in the math involved than read up on binomial trials.

[Greg Portland]

The result is either positive (There is some water/metal buried within a reasonable distance of the present location) or negative (There is nothing at the present location). Thus, 50% accuracy would be expected by chance.

Not really... with regards to finding a water pipe the odds are much lower in a residential lawn (odds of no pipe > pipe).

[Greg Peterson]

If I walk around and guess randomly then I will be ~ %50 correct (just like a coin flip). People who believe in dowsing claim that they can guess correctly -statistically- better than average chance. This isn't a flat percentage... it depends on the number of trials being performed. For example, it's easier to guess 9/10 than 16 out of 20 (statistically speaking). If you're interested in the math involved than read up on binomial trials.

Oh yeah, statistics. You make them say anything you want them to say. Math is corrupt.

[Dan Hintz]

You could just build some device that indicated where the [water,pipes,electricity, etc.] is and you could tow it in a cart. But, of course, that doesn't work.

Yeah, the problem with any contraption that is handheld is it is still under the control (subconscious or otherwise) of the user. In dowsing, the rods cross when the user tilts their hands forward. It's such a slight motion that it can be (and is) done subconsciously... you can force it, but then you notice the shift you have to make to your hands. If you place the rods in a holder, rather than your hands, you can still tilt the entire shebang forward. The holder must have a level sensor.

In fact, that's the best way to test dowsing... put a level sensor on the holder. The rods should cross all on their own without the user tilting... if a buzzer goes off, the user is tilting. For those believers about to say "But it is the user tilting his hands that causes the rods to cross", fine... let's get the rods out of the equation and just put a tilt sensor on the user's hands. They can't hear the buzzer, only someone else can, so no feedback when their hands tilt... let's see them keep those hands perfectly straight without the feedback of the rod, and let's see them tilt just enough to set off the buzzer any time they pass over some water/electric lines. "Oh, but it's the combination of the rods and the hands", you say... <sigh> no matter what combination of limits placed on it to make the test repeatable and measurable, someone will say that ruins it. And it all comes back around to the inability to test because you can't test blind faith.

[Lee Schierer]

Yeah, the problem with any contraption that is handheld is it is still under the control (subconscious or otherwise) of the user. In dowsing, the rods cross when the user tilts their hands forward. It's such a slight motion that it can be (and is) done subconsciously... you can force it, but then you notice the shift you have to make to your hands. If you place the rods in a holder, rather than your hands, you can still tilt the entire shebang forward. The holder must have a level sensor.

In fact, that's the best way to test dowsing... put a level sensor on the holder. The rods should cross all on their own without the user tilting... if a buzzer goes off, the user is tilting. For those believers about to say "But it is the user tilting his hands that causes the rods to cross", fine... let's get the rods out of the equation and just put a tilt sensor on the user's hands. They can't hear the buzzer, only someone else can, so no feedback when their hands tilt... let's see them keep those hands perfectly straight without the feedback of the rod, and let's see them tilt just enough to set off the buzzer any time they pass over some water/electric lines. "Oh, but it's the combination of the rods and the hands", you say... <sigh> no matter what combination of limits placed on it to make the test repeatable and measurable, someone will say that ruins it. And it all comes back around to the inability to test because you can't test blind faith.

Doesn't a blind test occur when a rod user is taken to a place where there are buried utilities (water & electric) and that user has never been on that site and is able to locate the buried lines with no prior knowledge of the site?

How did a person who had never been in my yard find my, fully buried existing well, septic system, and downspout drains which do not run straight out from the house?

[Dan Hintz]

Doesn't a blind test occur when a rod user is taken to a place where there are buried utilities (water & electric) and that user has never been on that site and is able to locate the buried lines with no prior knowledge of the site?

How did a person who had never been in my yard find my, fully buried existing well, septic system, and downspout drains which do not run straight out from the house?

Since I wasn't there to see what happened, I can only guess. I could pull site plans for your place for a few bucks (don't they pull a permit for this sort of thing anyway?)... I could use my (his) experience as a whatever to make an educated guess on the best place to run a sewage line (always downhill, away from boulders, towards an open area for the drainage field, etc.)... I could look for disturbances in the natural lay of the land to surmise digging had happened there, and so on and so on.

If I went into an area that has a pretty wide water table at 50', it looks like magic when I say "dig here, you'll hit water by 60 feet"... and lo and behold, you hit water. Five feet away in any direction I'd likely hit water at the same depth, but that's not what people remember. For reasons that remain a mystery, the rods swing only over a 1' square patch... if drilling is done and nothing comes up, "it's approximate", a new hole is dug 5-10' away and surprise, surprise, water is hit. That's not rocket science, it's the law of averages. In an area that has a wide water table, your chances of hitting a pocket are pretty high, so dowsing looks good to those who believe... to a scientist, it's nothing more than fitting the data to suit the theory.

Why do some dowsers only find water, some only find electrical lines, and others claim to do all of the above? How is it they can find a 2'-deep buried wire with 2 gram-per-foot wire braid in it, but they pass right over a 2,000 gram iron skillet 6" under the surface of a junkyard with no perceivable twitch? Does the water need to be moving to create a sensable electric field? Not likely, as water is rarely flowing in a waste drain pipe... but a clay pipe that contains little more than residual moisture and human feces is supposedly found without issue. So what makes that area any different than any other? What if there was just a huge rain and the surrounding area was flooded with water... betcha a dowser will still claim to find the pipe... maybe now because it has less water than the surrounding area?

That's a lot going on from a subconscious standpoint than people realize or even want to admit. The owner of Clever Hans, the counting horse, swore up and down his horse could actually do math, from basic addition/subtraction to square roots and fractions... he honestly believed it could. In the end, though, we now know (via double-blind tests) Clever Hans was picking up on subtle visual clues in the people around him. Once those clues were removed, the horse suddenly had no more talent at math than a newborn. Even when confronted with the proof Clever Hans was not actually doing anything other than reading body language, his owner refused to believe otherwise... strong beliefs are tricky that way.