Challenge applications

[zooterkin]

So I'm confirming what many of you in the JREF Forum predicted - I'm blaming myself and my protocol. I am not admitting to myself that dowsing does not exist (I have been surprised too many times to consider that it is all due to the ideomotor effect).

How do you explain that the dowsing 'worked' when you knew where the disturbed area was, and didn't when you didn't?

 

[Pixel42]

I am not admitting to myself that dowsing does not exist (I have been surprised too many times to consider that it is all due to the ideomotor effect).

How does this reasoning differ from that used by believers in homeopathy, psychics, magic crystals and other supposed manifestations of the paranormal? You say you do not believe in the paranormal, but you use exactly the same argument that those who do believe in it resort to in order to justify continuing to believe: that a large amount of highly unreliable anecdotal evidence trumps any amount of objective evidence to the contrary.

However surprising you found them at the time, there is nothing in your experiences that cannot be explained by the ideomotor effect. There is, however, plenty of evidence which cannot be explained by the hypothesis that the movement of dowsing rods results from some kind of outside force rather than the ideomotor effect: every unsuccessful double blind test of dowsing which was preceded by a successful unblinded test ever done, including the one you did yourself yesterday.

I am encouraged in this by a telephone conversation I had when I got home. It went something like this "...but you cannot have failed! You taught me and I've taught others. You must persist."

No-one disputes that most people can be taught how to get a response out of dowsing rods. Having got such a response, if you don't bother to research the matter and find out about the ideomotor effect, it's very easy to convince yourself that the movements are meaningful and the result of an outside force. But the only way to find out if that's really true is to do a blind test like the one you did yesterday. Are you going to point the people you taught to the links about the ideomotor effect and this thread, so they can make up their own minds about whether to continue to believe on the basis of the same information you now have?

At a more serious level - I don't follow the arguments that one negative result should cancel out the many positive ones.

Because the positive results have only ever been obtained when various sources of error are present, and the dozens of negative results (yours is only the latest) have always been obtained when those sources of error are carefully and methodically eliminated.

Nor do I retract my statement that there have been no earlier field tests of dowsing.

Yours was not a field test (I doubt a properly blinded field test could be designed) it was a simulation. The latest of many such simulations which have been tried, all of which similarly failed. In every case the dowser passed the unblinded test before failing the blinded one. It's hard to see what more evidence anyone could reasonably require.

As Pixel 42 has quoted "The correct scientific response to anything that is not understood is always to look harder for the explanation, not give up .....". David Attenborough.

The response of dowsing rods was not understood. Scientists looked hard for the explanation. They found it.

 

[EHocking]

...I am not admitting to myself that dowsing does not exist (I have been surprised too many times to consider that it is all due to the ideomotor effect). ..

With respect Don, if dowsing worked, the oil industry would not be spending BILLIONS of dollars each year (for decades) on seismic and seismic interpretation.

In my 27 years in the industry I have NEVER met ANYONE that claims to have found oil (or indeed water supply) wells using dowsing, known anyone who has, nor HEARD of anyone who has.

And I've asked.

Despite your beliefs Don, Randi's million is safe from dowsers.

 

[Southwind17]

Thanks for devoting your time to following the assessment of my proposed protocol yesterday. I am naturally disappointed with the result but acknowledge that it was a fair test of my proposed protocol. It was not a JREF recognised trial.
As with any scientific experiment that produced results that were not expected, there will be an analysis and then, hopefully, further development. I'm sure that is what they have been doing at the Large Hadron Collider since they turned it on - at far greater expense.
So I'm confirming what many of you in the JREF Forum predicted - I'm blaming myself and my protocol. I am not admitting to myself that dowsing does not exist (I have been surprised too many times to consider that it is all due to the ideomotor effect). I am encouraged in this by a telephone conversation I had when I got home. It went something like this "...but you cannot have failed! You taught me and I've taught others. You must persist." As I'm easily flattered I shall indeed persist.
At a more serious level - I don't follow the arguments that one negative result should cancel out the many positive ones. Nor do I retract my statement that there have been no earlier field tests of dowsing.
I shall update my web site within the next month with a description of yesterday's events and any further tests I plan. As Pixel 42 has quoted "The correct scientific response to anything that is not understood is always to look harder for the explanation, not give up .....". David Attenborough.

The Oxford English Dictionary says that scientific method is: "a method or procedure that has characterized natural science since the 17th century, consisting in systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses." The chief characteristic which distinguishes a scientific method of inquiry from other methods of acquiring knowledge is that scientists seek to let reality speak for itself, and contradict their theories about it when those theories are incorrect. (Copied from Wikipedia).
I observed systematically. I experimented. I have a hypothesis for testing, modification and development. I was hoping that prize money would enable me to commission others in UK and a USA universities to identify and measure, what I can only qualitatively describe as dowsing.
Thanks to all the well wishers who have been following my progress.
Now to the important things in life - the lawn needs mowing.
Bye
DowserDon

I am repeatedly perplexed at how seemingly intelligent people can simultaneously be both gullible and blind to science and logic. I admire the vote of thanks afforded DD here by JREF members, if only in recognition of your resistance to mockery. My advice DD? Continue to focus on something productive, like tending your garden. Forget the dowsing. If it really worked people would have put it to good scientific use by now. Nobody has. What does that tell you?!

 

[Marcus]

Thanks for devoting your time to following the assessment of my proposed protocol yesterday. I am naturally disappointed with the result but acknowledge that it was a fair test of my proposed protocol.

I am also disappointed, not with the result, that was easy to predict given the number of times dowsing has been disproven, but with DowserDons failure to share any of his excuses in this post. The closest he comes is implying that this test had nothing to do with his dowsing abilities but was merely a test of his protocol.

Congratulations on a well run test, DowserDon, it's a pity you still aren't able to admit that your dowsing powers don't exist.

 

[JimOfAllTrades]

I am encouraged in this by a telephone conversation I had when I got home. It went something like this "...but you cannot have failed! You taught me and I've taught others. You must persist." As I'm easily flattered I shall indeed persist.

If the boards and trenches are in place, how about allowing that person to come over and try their luck at the same test, with you or anyone else who was there for the first test not watching?

And it is easy to teach others that the rods will move, no one disputes that at all. The question is why they move.

At a more serious level - I don't follow the arguments that one negative result should cancel out the many positive ones.

But keep in mind that the many positive results were all under non-controlled conditions. This negative result was during a test where some controls were put in place to stop a result from unconscious movement of the rods due to the ideomotor effect. So this one trial carries more weight than any of the individual positive results.

Is it enough to disprove your earlier experience? We think so, but we see these results through the lens of many other similar tests with equally negative results.

Please think of this: the frustration you see expressed here is fueled by those other dowsing tests done over the years. In every case the dowsers were able to successfully dowse under the open test (when they knew what they were dowsing), but in the blinded test when they didn't know, they *all* failed. And every one thought just as you did. They were all confident that they had performed successfully too many times for it to be anything other than genuine. But *every single one* failed on a controlled test. This is the exact same result as your test.

I applaud your honesty and resolve in seeing this test through to end. Please consider more controlled testing, and please carefully consider the results.

 

[wardenclyffe]

Before we went out to start the testing he described the personal experiences which had led him to believe that dowsing really does work. Most of them (some of which he described earlier in this thread) involved him getting a dowsing reaction to something he already knew was there. The one notable exception was when he detected two responses whilst walking a cliff path; later he noticed from the beach below the cliff that waterfalls fell from those positions.

Any dowsing response to something the dowser knows is there can be explained by the ideomotor effect. He may not have been able to see the waterfalls from the cliff top but he may well have been able to hear them (even if he didn't consciously register doing so) again making the ideomotor effect the most probable explanation. So even if he had justifiably found these experiences initially puzzling I honestly cannot understand why he would have continued to do so after having looked into the research that has been done on dowsing and the ideomotor effect. He's indicated that he's aware of this research (and Prof French told me he'd sent him many links) yet he ended his introductory remarks by stating that no investigation of dowsing had ever been done. After failing the test he referred again to his experiences and invited us to consider how we would have reacted if they'd happened to us, and how we could explain the responses a few of the people who'd tried using the rods had got, as if neither he nor we were aware of the research that has been done into that very question and the well established conclusions it has reached.

To me this is a real mystery. I can understand how perfectly intelligent and rational people can inadvertantly fool themselves into believing something that isn't true. I can understand why they can continue to hold that belief as long as they remain ignorant of the evidence against it and the alternative explanations of the experiences that led them to it. What I can't understand is why some persist in the belief even after they've been shown compelling objective evidence that the alternative explanation is in fact the correct one.

This is how I think I would behave, and it's how you think you would behave. But neither of us have had the experience that DowserDon has.

I think if DowserDon is being dishonest with us, it's in this way. The experience he had with the moving rods was far more than he's letting on. I think if you or I had experienced rods moving in our hands that seemed to indicate water (or gold or disturbed ground or whatever) and then we did research and tests which indicated that it was just the ideomotor effect, we'd probably be convinced that there was nothing to dowsing and we'd just been fooling ourselves.

But if we'd had those initial experiences coupled with some sort of spiritual "feeling" then that research and those tests would be far less convincing. I suspect that DowserDon and most other dowsers have some "experience" that cannot be measured as they are dowsing.

I don't know if it's a communication with a perceived god, an out of body experience or just a feeling in their bones, but it seems like their personal experience transcends mere moving rods (at least from their point of view). Otherwise, they would be easily convinced by the mundane explanations that seem obvious to the rest of us.

I have no proof of this. It's all pure speculation. And as long as I'm speculating based on very little evidence, let me toss this out there, as well.

Why is it that most dowsers seem to be white men of a certain age? Obviously, there are exceptions to the rule. But as I look at various dowsers online, they mostly seem to fit a certain type. Any ideas?

Ward

 

[Pixel42]

But if we'd had those initial experiences coupled with some sort of spiritual "feeling" then that research and those tests would be far less convincing. I suspect that DowserDon and most other dowsers have some "experience" that cannot be measured as they are dowsing.

That may be true of some dowsers but DowserDon has maintained throughout that he has no belief in the paranormal, and I see no reason not to take him at his word.

During the conversation taking place amongst the sceptics who were watching him dowse, it was remarked that dowsers seem to come in two distinct flavours: New Age types who believe every woo going, and engineers like DowserDon who believe only in dowsing and are dismissive of the paranormal. To an engineer the behaviour of the rods looks like an engineering problem with an engineering solution.

A comparison with made with medical professionals who specialise in particular areas; experiments have shown that a patient who presents with exactly the same set of symptoms will get a different diagnosis from, say, a heart specialist a disease specialist and a cancer specialist. Each will tend to make the best fit of the symptoms with those that occur in their particular area of expertise so the heart specialist will diagnose a heart problem, the disease specialist a particular disease etc. It's not hard to see why that would happen. An engineer knows about physical forces and how to measure and investigate them, they tend not to know much at all about psychology, so it's within their area of expertise that they will look for the solution to the mystery of the moving rods.

I don't know if you watch House, but the process by which he arrives at a diagnosis of whatever mystery illness he's presented with is to make the best fit with the data immediately available (calling on a far more extensive area of expertise than a typical specialist), and then order a test to confirm. With 40 minutes to go the test always comes back negative, so it's back to the drawing board for a different diagnosis, taking the additional information of the failed test (and any new symptoms that have manifested) into account, and new tests. And so on until the correct diagnosis is eventually made, ideally before the patient dies. But this whole process assumes that there is something physically wrong with the patient; if there isn't - if the patient is a hypochondriac, say, or suffering from some sort of mental trauma - it won't produce the right answer until and unless that is realised and a whole new area of expertise is brought in.

DowserDon is at the point where he's done some investigation, made a diagnosis and arranged a test to confirm it. The test is well designed and would certainly have confirmed it if it were correct but of course it is not, so the test has come back negative. But rather than accept that that means his diagnosis is wrong, he has decided that there must be something wrong with the test. The true diagnosis is so far outside DowserDon's area of expertise that he cannot recognise it, even though the result of his own test is clearly pointing to it.

The irony is that by involving JREF he has been put in touch with the very specialist he needs - a professor of psychology, no less - who has already told him the correct diagnosis. Unfortunately his emotional investment in his original diagnosis is so great that he can't accept it.

So we're in the position of passengers in a car whose driver has just taken what we know is a wrong turn, but is so sure he knows the way that he is ignoring the sat nav he himself programmed and carrying on down the wrong road regardless. We can only hope that as the scenery looks less and less as he expected, the passenger who has travelled the route dozens of times before tells him again that he's going the wrong way and the sat nav keeps telling him to "make a U turn when possible", he will eventually accept that he has made a mistake and turn back.

Why is it that most dowsers seem to be white men of a certain age? Obviously, there are exceptions to the rule. But as I look at various dowsers online, they mostly seem to fit a certain type. Any ideas?

Because most engineers who are likely to have come across dowsing, convinced themselves they know what is really causing it and have the time to investigate it are white men in retirement?

 

[wardenclyffe]

That may be true of some dowsers but DowserDon has maintained throughout that he has no belief in the paranormal, and I see no reason not to take him at his word.

During the conversation taking place amongst the sceptics who were watching him dowse, it was remarked that dowsers seem to come in two distinct flavours: New Age types who believe every woo going, and engineers like DowserDon who believe only in dowsing and are dismissive of the paranormal. To an engineer the behaviour of the rods looks like an engineering problem with an engineering solution.

A comparison with made with medical professionals who specialise in particular areas; experiments have shown that a patient who presents with exactly the same set of symptoms will get a different diagnosis from, say, a heart specialist a disease specialist and a cancer specialist. Each will tend to make the best fit of the symptoms with those that occur in their particular area of expertise so the heart specialist will diagnose a heart problem, the disease specialist a particular disease etc. It's not hard to see why that would happen. An engineer knows about physical forces and how to measure and investigate them, they tend not to know much at all about psychology, so it's within their area of expertise that they will look for the solution to the mystery of the moving rods.

I don't know if you watch House, but the process by which he arrives at a diagnosis of whatever mystery illness he's presented with is to make the best fit with the data immediately available (calling on a far more extensive area of expertise than a typical specialist), and then order a test to confirm. With 40 minutes to go the test always comes back negative, so it's back to the drawing board for a different diagnosis, taking the additional information of the failed test (and any new symptoms that have manifested) into account, and new tests. And so on until the correct diagnosis is eventually made, ideally before the patient dies. But this whole process assumes that there is something physically wrong with the patient; if there isn't - if the patient is a hypochondriac, say, or suffering from some sort of mental trauma - it won't produce the right answer until and unless that is realised and a whole new area of expertise is brought in.

DowserDon is at the point where he's done some investigation, made a diagnosis and arranged a test to confirm it. The test is well designed and would certainly have confirmed it if it were correct but of course it is not, so the test has come back negative. But rather than accept that that means his diagnosis is wrong, he has decided that there must be something wrong with the test. The true diagnosis is so far outside DowserDon's area of expertise that he cannot recognise it, even though the result of his own test is clearly pointing to it.

The irony is that by involving JREF he has been put in touch with the very specialist he needs - a professor of psychology, no less - who has already told him the correct diagnosis. Unfortunately his emotional investment in his original diagnosis is so great that he can't accept it.

So we're in the position of passengers in a car whose driver has just taken what we know is a wrong turn, but is so sure he knows the way that he is ignoring the sat nav he himself programmed and carrying on down the wrong road regardless. We can only hope that as the scenery looks less and less as he expected, the passenger who has travelled the route dozens of times before tells him again that he's going the wrong way and the sat nav keeps telling him to "make a U turn when possible", he will eventually accept that he has made a mistake and turn back.

Based on his behavior here in the forum and your description of him, he doesn't seem the type to become so emotionally invested in this. That is why I do not necessarily take him at his word that he does not believe in the paranormal. He may not define it as paranormal, but it seems like his personal experience must involve more than just rods moving in his hands in order for him to remain so convinced in the face of all the evidence on record and now the evidence from his own test.

Because most engineers who are likely to have come across dowsing, convinced themselves they know what is really causing it and have the time to investigate it are white men in retirement?

Makes sense, I guess. I think it's also a very "masculine" discipline even for the new-agers.

Ward

 

[Professor Yaffle]

I think this holding on to a belief you tend to see after a negative test is at least patially because the person has allowed the "ability" to become part of their personality, part of who they are. They will be known among their circle of friends as the "the one who can dowse". To let go of something like that will seem like denying a part of who you are, so cognitive dissonance is bound to kick in, in a major way. It is easier to find reasons why you failed this time than it is to remove a part of your identity, so that's what the brain prioritises.

 

[Saule]

Yes, if you think about it, there is a pattern. Not as much engineer type where I live; rather jack of all trades type. Pre-retirement or retirement age mostly, yes. It is quite rural here too. The traditional use of dowsing has been dowsing for water, i.e. where to drill drinking water wells.
Then there was a period of hype of women dowsing for the bad points in the ground under one's home. Gold (only gold) rings on a string were used for that. The idea was that those underground water (or whatever) and their stream points/junctions/clusters and whatnot emit energy that harms your health; even if you live on the 10th floor. Furniture was moved around in many, many apartments and houses, oh it was. It even went that far that people were advised to put black polythene under the bed if it could not be moved to a "safe" place...
The latest dowser I ran into was a man who approached me with an offer to dowse my garden to find a "safe/good" place for planting my fruit trees I just had bought.

 

[EHocking]

Bump for DowserDon.

In light of this comment of yours,

"I am not admitting to myself that dowsing does not exist (I have been surprised too many times to consider that it is all due to the ideomotor effect)."
​

Could you put this in the context of zooterkin's question?

How do you explain that the dowsing 'worked' when you knew where the disturbed area was, and didn't when you didn't?

 

[zooterkin]

I think this holding on to a belief you tend to see after a negative test is at least patially because the person has allowed the "ability" to become part of their personality, part of who they are. They will be known among their circle of friends as the "the one who can dowse".

And may even choose their username based on it.

 

[DowserDon]

How do you explain that the dowsing 'worked' when you knew where the disturbed area was, and didn't when you didn't?

I’m surprised that no-one who claims to be unbiased has pointed out how the ideomotor effect could be invoked to confirm my view that the protocol I developed was at fault.
1) I and a couple of others detected the old (>100year-old) disturbances that were not covered by plywood.
2) The ideomotor effect could explain my detection of the “standard” where I knew a trench had been dug.
3) I could not detect the other trenches where they were covered by plywood.
One interpretation of those three events is that plywood inhibits detection. It had been used, not for my benefit, but to successfully mask the earth works.

If Pixel 42 can invoke the ideomotor effect, I'm sure she won't mind if I do too.

 

[wardenclyffe]

I’m surprised that no-one who claims to be unbiased has pointed out how the ideomotor effect could be invoked to confirm my view that the protocol I developed was at fault.
1) I and a couple of others detected the old (>100year-old) disturbances that were not covered by plywood.2) The ideomotor effect could explain my detection of the “standard” where I knew a trench had been dug.
3) I could not detect the other trenches where they were covered by plywood.
One interpretation of those three events is that plywood inhibits detection. It had been used, not for my benefit, but to successfully mask the earth works.

If Pixel 42 can invoke the ideomotor effect, I'm sure she won't mind if I do too.

Is the highlighted event something that happened on the 25th or at some earlier date?

Ward

 

[Saule]

And here it is.
Plywood.

 

[realpaladin]

I’m surprised that no-one who claims to be unbiased has pointed out how the ideomotor effect could be invoked to confirm my view that the protocol I developed was at fault.
1) I and a couple of others detected the old (>100year-old) disturbances that were not covered by plywood.
2) The ideomotor effect could explain my detection of the “standard” where I knew a trench had been dug.
3) I could not detect the other trenches where they were covered by plywood.
One interpretation of those three events is that plywood inhibits detection. It had been used, not for my benefit, but to successfully mask the earth works.

If Pixel 42 can invoke the ideomotor effect, I'm sure she won't mind if I do too.

Actually, that gives you a good refinement possibility; you can now check what will and what will not inhibit detection.

This means you could basically redo the trial but with a non-inhibiting cover.

 

[Czarcasm]

I'm surprised you haven't seriously considered the possibility that you failed a valid test.


No-not really.

 

[Mashuna]

And here it is.
Plywood.

It's a nice change from gold leaf.

 

[Saule]

So, a test without plywood. Just spread out sand over the area. But I guess the spread-out sand will act as disturbed ground and the rods will spin like mad all over the sand.