dowsing / divining water

[shivvy]

I thought that this was a bit kooky but tried it recently and it works - it absolutely works - sceptics and believers alike!
Can anyone explain how though?
We did it with clothes hangers in empty biros which made us think it was magnetism but then we remembered programmes on the telly where it was done with wood and that blew our rationale out of the water (excuse the pun).
All (simple) answers welcome.

[dawkins]

hi shivvy

its called the ideomotor effect. your muscles twitch without you noticing and the rods move. see:


http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTop ics/ideomotor.html

You get the effect when you know where the water/oil is located but if you genuinely don't know where it is you get nothing.

Uri Geller and his ilk claim to have used dowsing to find oil for "major oil companies" but cannot or will not replicate their results under controlled experimental conditions. If they could they would be eligible for the JREF foundation million doller prize for evidence of the paranormal

D

[Loosehead]

Well James Randi is offering $1m to anyone who can find water under test conditions. The test divised is a very fair one and anyone who claims to be able to find water should have no problem with it. Guess what no one seems to want to pick up the dosh!

It's easy to get the dowsing "effect" when you know there's water there.

Yet another branch of TWWOTB. See here:

http://www.randi.org/encyclopedia/dowsing.html

[shivvy]

Now I am confused!
Although I clearly had no idea about James Randi or the ideomotor effect until now, I was pretty sure that it was all a bunch of crap!
However . . . we had an underground mains water leak and so had the Water Board out to assess the situation. I wasn't remotely interested in what the fella had to say about getting the leak fixed so my husband was out talking to him while he was doing his thing. Apparently the conversation turned to divining and this fella said that he would show him how to do it - which he did.
The next day we had a few friends up for a barbeque so we decided to give it a go. We did it one by one (with the next person not seeing where the previous one was) and the wires crossed in the same part of the garden!
Could there be any other reason apart from divining that could make this happen? (or am I being a fool to myself and just have to accept the ideomotor effect?!)
PS - one of the guys that did it has a phd in psychology so I will have to get him to read this too and reassess the situation.

[Catso]

But 'professional' water dowsers do seem able to find water far more often that pure chance would indicate.

OK, many might be fakes, and many instances might be chance, but it would only take a 0.1%-above-chance-rate to prove that something was happening.

As to what/how - I don't think anyone really knows for sure. That's part of the proving problem.

[mibn2cweus]

The chance of a random event happening twice as often as on average is not at all unusual nor does it invoke the paranormal. Some dowsers might be very good at selecting a likely place to find water. The reason for this will not be explained with conjecture divorced from skepticism.

My explanation for this, in the form of a prediction, is that if you leave your chain dangling long enough sooner or later someone will come along to yank it.

[bobclean]

Don't be cofused, shivvy... dowsing does not work. If you want to prove it for yourself, buy ten identical buckets, and put water in one of them. Ask your dowser friend to check his powers are working by walking past all the buckets, then over the water filled bucket. No doubt the rods will cross when the dowser reaches the bucket with water in. (this is because of the ideomotor effect). Now remove the dowser from the room, rearrange the buckets, cover them all up and ask the dowser to find the bucket containing water. He will not be able to do it, and this is why we can be certain that dowsing does not work.

[newtron]

Finding water is not that hard. If you drill deep enough, you can find water anywhere. If you are in a region where the water table is at a certain depth, you can drill almost anywhere in that region and find water at approximately that depth. It's not like there is only one point where you can find water. On a larger scale, one can use other indicators such as topography and geology to make an educated guess about where groundwater will be easier to access.

I just recently met someone who claimed to be a dowser and he also demonstrated by finding the water main, although it was never confirmed that the water main was where he said it was. Being a hydrogeologist, I am skeptical.

[heathfield]

Congratulations, Shivvy, and welcome to the club of those who've tried it, and find that it works. Let the sceptics scoff all they want to, but you now know. It's reckoned that 85% of ordinary folks have the ability, but very few ever try it out. There's no time nor space here to rabbit on about examples, but do try and find something on Elizabeth Penrose, one of the best dowsers ever. You'll be amazed by what she was able to do.

[dawkins]

As said before heathfield, simply demonstrate it to an independent judge and you will be a millionaire. Go on what's stopping you? All you have to do is demonstrate it once and I can help you apply. Gosh just think what you can do with that million pounds.....

D

[mibn2cweus]

. . . then you could afford a solid gold dowsing rod and just think what you could find with that!

Those of you who remain sceptics, just gander at what this guy found!