Divining rods, oy vey!

[Dan Friedrichs]

I don't know why I can find electric and water lines but I can with two metal rods.

Can you do it repeatedly? Apparently there's a chance for you to become a millionaire, here.

[Jerome Stanek]

Yes I can go it I worked with an excavator that wanted me to find lines for him all the time. He couldn't do it but his young daughter could so she now marks the lines for him.

[Greg Peterson]

Well, nerds with pocket protectors designed the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, the Challenger and Columbia, the I-35 (?) bridge in St. Paul, MN, the Edsel, the Corvair...

How is the bridge that replaced the Tacoma Narrows bridge holding up these days? Has it failed?

Shuttles did not fail due to design failures. Challenger failed because the booster was operated outside its design parameters. Columbia failed because a heat shield tile fell off during ascent. Again, not a design error. Perhaps optimistic that such an event would not occur, but space travel is a high risk endeavor.

The I-35 bridge failed due to neglect, not design.

The Edsel was a commercial failure. The Corvair is certainly not the first or the last knowingly dangerous vehicle produced by Detroit. Don't forget the Lee Iacoca's Pinto fiasco.

I'm curious how we have come to hold science in such disdain these days.

[Jeff Bratt]

I don't know why I can find electric and water lines but I can with two metal rods.

No one has ever been able to find anything with dowsing rods repeatably, under controlled conditions. People have tried to find water, electrical cables, metal ores - all kinds of stuff. No one has ever demonstrated they can dowse better than just guessing. There is $1,000,000 dollars waiting for anyone who can... may have tried, no one has yet been able do what they say they can do.

This does not matter whether the method is understood. No dowser has been able to state beforehand what they will and will not find, and then do it repeatably. When all their predictions are totaled up, every time they say "yes" or "no" - based on their own criteria - is recorded, then their results are always no better then random guessing. This has nothing to do with "scientists" proving or disproving anything. People who claim to be able to dowse have (so far) never been able to repeatable do what they say they can do. If anyone demonstrates repeatable dowsing, then scientists would be able look what might be happening. So far there is nothing to examine... a couple of anecdotes, by themselves, don't really mean anything.

Read the wikipedia article, and follow it's links to find descriptions of large dowsing experiments that have been done in the past.

[Scott Shepherd]

I don't think anyone holds science in disdain, I think there are people who have a healthy skepticism of various items. No one's throwing science or scientists under the bus. Certainly science has done wonders. Not one person suggests it hasn't. What people keep repeated and it keeps getting taking as such, is that science isn't 100% right 100% of the time. That's all that's being said.

How's that Alar treated apple working for you?

Pork is bad for you. Wait, no it's not. Wait, yes it is, wait, not it's not....

Eggs are bad for you. Wait, no they are not. Wait, yes they are, wait, no,yes,no.......

White bread is great for you. Wait, no it's not. Wait, it's okay, wait, no it's not, wa.....

And the shuttles did come apart because of design failure. If they were designed properly, the tiles wouldn't have come off during re-entry. If you say it's not design related, it's scientist that write those procedures for coming back into the earth's atmosphere. They didn't think to perform any kind of checks or put any systems in place? Scientists make mistakes. They are human. We all make mistakes.

There's nothing wrong with not blindly following what someone says in a book or on tv. That's a healthy perspective to have. It makes you think instead of being a sheep that follows all the other sheep.

Just because one questions a scientific activity doesn't mean they don't believe it science, it just means that's like to see more data to satisfy their own thoughts, experiences, and beliefs. Again, to me, a very healthy thing to have in todays world.

[John Coloccia]

re: bridges, shuttles, et al

Another case of ignoring all of the evidence that doesn't agree with the view point. What about all of the hundreds of thousands and millions of devices, space craft, bridges and fruit that function perfectly as designed? Science and engineering is held to an innumerably higher standard than the downright puny results that would be cause for excitement surrounding psychics, dowsers and mediums.

"There's this guy I know that can sometimes make a bridge that doesn't collapse".



Why not accept that there could exist a perfectly natural explanation for what you see? On the science side, we certainly accept that there could be a hitherto undiscovered explanation, and we explore and investigate. Again, it's not we that are close minded. We simply report what we see, without excluding inconvenient contrary evidence. Where it goes astray is when you start only reporting evidence that agrees with your viewpoint and excluding all other evidence, such as pointing out a handful of engineering failures while completely ignoring the generations of predominantly successful endeavors.

[Jason Roehl]

My point was that "nerds with pocket protectors" are not 100%. No one is. I think someone else mentioned sports. We throw millions of dollars at baseball players who are doing very well to hit the ball 30% of the time ("batting .300").

So scientists haven't been able to repeat the results of dowsing or divining. Maybe their experiments were done on a tract of land that had some other anomaly that adversely affected the dowsers/diviners. That still doesn't PROVE that it doesn't work. That just means that the scientific method hasn't been able to repeat it yet (gotta cover all those variables!). Was flying airplanes not possible when only the Wright brothers were doing it and no one else was repeating it?

All I know is that I was VERY skeptical of divining when a friend of mine (who worked as a construction supervisor for the local Water Works for many years) showed me. I gave him lots of grief--until I tried it. I was just using one clothes hanger bent into an 'L' shape. The tendency of it to line up with a buried water line was unmistakable. He showed me this at my church (I was sure we would get struck by lightning...). I went home to try it and checked it on my own water line, since I know where it is (I know where the meter pit is, obviously, and I know where the main shutoff is, and it's a pretty straight shot). I could walk a mile with that rod pointing straight out in front of me, but as soon as I cross a water line, it will swing hard to line up with the buried main.

[Bill Cunningham]

No matter what forum your on, the two subjects that never fail to get a thread moving 'large' is Dowsing, and Mac or PC..
Dowsing is also a big issue on treasure hunters forums, Some swear by it, some swear at it.. But it always leads to interesting conversations, and sometimes flame wars.. My opinion? When I was 15 I was taught how to dowse by a old farmer who was well known for 'witching' water wells in the Flesherton Ontario area.. Did I find water? Don't know, but the copper rods moved back and forth, and crossed on several occasions. A green forked branch held so the 'Y' ends were twisted in your hands, moved up, over, and down with enough force to strip the bark off in my hands.. A long branch (6' or so), thick at one end (about 1-1.5"), and thin at the other (usually about 1/2") would be held over the spot water was suspected. It was held by the thin end, and the thick end was prevented from moving by someone holding it steady. Once the thick end was released the long branch would sit motionless for 15-20 seconds, and would then start bobbing up and down. You would count the number of times it bobbed before it stopped, and that I was told, would correspond to the number of feet the water was down. Did it work? well, it seemed to. When tried at every location where the well depth was known to the owner, but not revealed to the dowser (15 year old me) the bobbing branch was 100% accurate every time.. Why? I have no idea.. It was just a curious 'something', taught to me by an oldtimer.. (who was probably only about 15-20 years older than I am now)

[Dan Friedrichs]

The tendency of it to line up with a buried water line was unmistakable.

Well, if you're sure it works, why don't you apply for the $1M, Jason?

[Bruce Wrenn]

As for being able to drill most anywhere, come down to our section of the country. I can show you several 700-800 foot deep post holes. Drill rig blowing dust out of the hole all the way down. I can also show you several wells less than 100' deep that yield over 20 gallons per minute. That about 30,000 gallons per day. Most of these high yielding wells were either drill based on "water witch's location, or using hundreds of thousands of dollars of equipment. But most home owners can't afford this, so dowser comes in and says "drill here. " High tech equipt. is used to locate diabase dikes. Drill on the up side and get water, drill on down side and get dust. Get an underground locater to locate either transite, or plastic pipe that doesn't have a tracer wire. I first experience with divining was on a job that had a transite water line on it. We had engineers "as built drawings" locating water line. Old guy from water company came out and located pipe with divining rods. Even went trouble to show me location of shut off valve, and leave me a wrench to fit such. Sure enough, next day grouser bars on D-8 tracks pierced pipe along it's length. Multiple geysers, spaced about 12" apart. The valve had two offsets between valve and actual line, even though drawings indicated none. Not far from me is a state park. The had drilled many wells, and none with enough water to meet needs. Finally the agency in charge said to get a dowser. He located two places to drill on an area of several hundred acres. Both yielded the required water, even though one was less than 10' from a previously drilled post hole. As for me, I will take a dowser every time over random chance. The last well I had drilled (1987) was located by dowser, and yields 20+ gallons per minute. All the wells in a half mile radius combined don't yield 20 gallons per minute. Because I can't see TV pictures traveling through the air doesn't mean they don't

[Jim Koepke]

Read the wikipedia article, and follow it's links to find descriptions of large dowsing experiments that have been done in the past.

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.

My curiosity has me wondering if something else may be missing from the testing. Dowsers are usually looking for something that has been in place for a long time.

An interesting attribute of magnetic fields is they can be influenced by forces and materials in their environment. Sometimes the effects are unstable until a balance is reached.

Maybe I should go see if I can find my water and electric lines.

Then there is faith or beliefs. I have worked with people who would say something like, "I couldn't sharpen a knife if my life depended on it." As long as they believed they were not going to be able to do something, they were not going to be able to do it. They would first have to believe there was a possibility of them being able to perform a task before it would be possible to teach them the task.

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

jtk

[Brian Ashton]

Then there is faith or beliefs. I have worked with people who would say something like, "I couldn't sharpen a knife if my life depended on it." As long as they believed they were not going to be able to do something, they were not going to be able to do it. They would first have to believe there was a possibility of them being able to perform a task before it would be possible to teach them the task.

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

jtk

I whole heartedly agree with that except that I attribute it to compete and total ignorance. If I had any idea about some of the things I've taken on I would never have even attempted it because I wouldn't have believe I could have pulled it off, but by the time I was at a point of thinking "this isn't working" it was too late and I had to keep going. And low and behold most often it worked out...

I had just changed my signature before I read your post to: ignorance is the mother of all invention. (it's in italian) I.e. if you don't know you can't do it... what's going to stop you.

[Phil Thien]

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.

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?

Follow-up question: Would it be possible to make a tilt meter that could tell when a dowser is tilting their hands/wrists to cause the points to cross?

[Dan Hintz]

And the shuttles did come apart because of design failure. If they were designed properly, the tiles wouldn't have come off during re-entry.

What killed the shuttles was bureaucratic nonsense, not design failure. The first shuttle was lost because the bureaucrats decided it was safe to fly, despite strong objections from the engineers of Morton Thiokol (the manufacturers and designers) of the solid rocket boosters). The second shuttle was lost, yet again, to bureaucratic nonsense... despite the voiced concern of NASA engineers that falling tiles during launch (every launch lost several tiles or pieces thereof) would eventually cause major damage, the bureaucrats decided not to let the engineers make the appropriate modifications. So again, the design may not have been perfect from the beginning (what is?), but when engineers tried to make it better, bureaucrats stepped in and said "We know better, because we have to control the purse strings and look good to our bosses."

Anyone want to guess what happened with the Tacoma Narrows bridge? If memory serves, the original design was scrapped for a cheaper one, using a design that was more theory than practice, and not enough work had been done with the chosen design to make sure it would work as intended. Science didn't fail, the arrogance of the pencil pushers and a civil designer with eyes bigger than his brains killed it.

[Jim Koepke]

Anyone want to guess what happened with the Tacoma Narrows bridge? If memory serves, the original design was scrapped for a cheaper one

I thought they used the same basic structure and went with extra lanes so the weight would change the harmonic resonance factor.

So, not being sure, it was looked up on the internet. Wow! That bridge was down for about 10 years due to the second World War.

Stuff happens.

jtk