StoatBringer
Scholar
- Joined
- Oct 27, 2005
- Messages
- 63
Jon Tickle put dowsing to the test on today's episode of Brainiac, in response to a viewer's letter.
It probably wasn't as strictly controlled as the $million challenge would expect, but not too bad for a TV show.
They had 50 plastic buckets in a field, and while Tickle was looking the other way and wearing ear defenders, five buckets were filled with water. All the buckets were covered.
Tickle then attempted to dowse for the water using dowsing rods. He would go to each bucket in turn, and place a marker on those that appeared to produce a response.
After he had placed all five markers, we saw the results. He had correctly marked.... one bucket, which he said is about what you would expect from pure chance alone.
Of course, I'm sure "real" dowsers would raise the following objections:
1) Tickle stated from the start that he thought it was a load of old tosh, and was therefore biased against the test. Also, he was no doubt emitting negative energies etc. etc.
2) Tickle is not a practised dowser, and therefore not sensitive enough or in tune with the natural vibrations etc. etc.
3) The buckets were too close together / too far apart / the wrong sort of bucket / etc. etc.
4) He may have been detecting some other water source, like an "underground river" which we all know criss-cross the entire planet.
Still, it was nice to see a reasonably fair test of this sort of nonsense on a science programme (although it's far from a serious show, and devotes most of it's time to finding new and interesting ways to blow stuff up).
It probably wasn't as strictly controlled as the $million challenge would expect, but not too bad for a TV show.
They had 50 plastic buckets in a field, and while Tickle was looking the other way and wearing ear defenders, five buckets were filled with water. All the buckets were covered.
Tickle then attempted to dowse for the water using dowsing rods. He would go to each bucket in turn, and place a marker on those that appeared to produce a response.
After he had placed all five markers, we saw the results. He had correctly marked.... one bucket, which he said is about what you would expect from pure chance alone.
Of course, I'm sure "real" dowsers would raise the following objections:
1) Tickle stated from the start that he thought it was a load of old tosh, and was therefore biased against the test. Also, he was no doubt emitting negative energies etc. etc.
2) Tickle is not a practised dowser, and therefore not sensitive enough or in tune with the natural vibrations etc. etc.
3) The buckets were too close together / too far apart / the wrong sort of bucket / etc. etc.
4) He may have been detecting some other water source, like an "underground river" which we all know criss-cross the entire planet.
Still, it was nice to see a reasonably fair test of this sort of nonsense on a science programme (although it's far from a serious show, and devotes most of it's time to finding new and interesting ways to blow stuff up).
