From part one of "The Enemies of Reason" Richard Dawkins investigates dowsing en.wikipedia.or... richarddawkins.... www.imdb.com/ti... www.richarddawk...
The thing is, every expert working in the field of irrigation or plumbing will dowse. Here in the UK, every single water company, along with the water board, use dowsing. When the water board came round to find a leak in one of my garden pipes he had special scientific listening equipment which failed to find anything, so he dowsed and found the leak in less than a minute.
John Deacon What do you mean by dowsing in this case? Are you referring to the kind of dowsing depicted in this upload (putting an object in your hand that automatically turns in the direction of water. Or I guess in your example toward a cylinder of water with a little water leaking out)? Okay now that I just wrote that I have to ask. So dowsing doesn't just find water, but specifically where water branches off from other water? So that you can use it to find a leak in a pipe? If this actually works then surely it could be subjected to scientific examination, right? PS I'm sorry if you were joking. It didn't seem like a joke but now I think it might be.
I think there might be a lot you're leaving out. If you dowse before you look, and you keep looking, then you will find what you're looking for immediately after dowsing in the direction you found it. Also, you're not mentioning how large the possible search area was or how many tries it took. Also, is this a normal result when dowsing is attempted? Is this a representative example? Why doesn't dowsing ever succeed when it's being looked at scientifically? How's that even possible?
It's kinda sad, how so many apologists in this comment list talk about "electromagnetic properties" of dowsing, considering the first woman shown in this video is trying to dowse with a twisted piece of plastic.
Dowsing has been debunked so completely, I have no idea how so many still believe in it. I can forgive people in the 80's and 90's but information is literally just a click away at this point; there is no excuse for ignorance on the validity of this subject anymore.
Hmmm. Pro dowsing people keep commenting that that the test is designed poorly from the start; that dowsing only works with flowing water because of an effect the moving water causes and is then detected by the rods. Since there was no flowing water, nobody could possibly pass the test; impossible test and it proves nothing. I disagree. Because if that reasoning were true, then the dowsers would all say "hey, I'm not getting any positive reading on any of the bins; there's no water according to my assessment. Is this a trick test? My final answer is there is no water here." But that's not the case. Every dowser had positive readings and pointed to the bins that showed the positive readings. But their positive readings turned out to be false and statistically akin to guessing. If only flowing water makes dowsing work, then why did the stagnant bottled water give positive readings? One explanation is that it's fraudulent.
Exactly. I had an argument with this guy who claims every dowser except him is doing it wrong. And, that if there is a skeptic of dowsing in the vicinity, then it won't work because it disrupts ion vortexes or some shit to that effect. (Eye roll and face palm)
Not really. It is easy to pick up water mains, telecom cable, gas pipes and electric cables. I use rods numerous times a day to find all of these for my work. It’s harder to find stagnant things. I would say I’m 1 out of 5 when I get people to hide stuff and I try to find it. There is something in it. Anyway is able to do it. It’s just not something that can be scientifically proven. Because there are conditions like on the video that people aren’t 100percent. If the test was to find services I would get it 100 percent of the time. Don’t knock it until you try it.
@@johnlarkin3020 I would never be able to find a bottle of water in a plastic tub with dowsing rods. I can, however, find electro-magnetic fields around buried pipe, wires or cables nearly every time using dowsing. It's not supernatural. There is a scientific explanation. I just don't know what it is. Just because I might not understand gravity, doesn't mean that I can float. Mineral content in the sand in this expirement is more likely to cause electro-magnetic fields than bottled water. Not a scientific experiment.
I am a great admirer of the professor, however not sure about this. We use it a lot on the farm to find blocked field drains, it works quite well. The field drains are made from clay, really old and we don't have a field plan. Rushes are a problem in our area. They can take over a field quite rapidly. Good drainage is essential to prevent this. The guys come with the digger, go to the problem area in the field (lots of rushes). Then use the rods to find the blocked drain. They dig where the rods cross. The clay drain is nearly always there and the blockage released. It's faster than trying to find it by trial and error digging. There is nothing mystical about the process, just straight forward working guys who are doing it. Time is money, this saves us both.
So you’re a believer? I have a bit of a predicament. 141 acres of forest land, and the house nor the spring has been used for 35+ years. For the first time since acquiring the property, the water level is below the run off pipe, meaning no trickle. 3.5 inches to be exact. I could get a 2500 gallon storage tank, but there is no way to know how long it would take to replenish the tank. If it’s no longer producing water for a month, then I probably need to find a new water source. With the globe warming, and more and more people unfortunately moving out here into the rural countryside, the water table certainly won’t get better. I don’t know what to do. I’m going to keep an eye on it, but it’s September, and I need to pipe the area between the spring and the house. Come late October, there’s a good chance it will be too wet for an excavator.
If you admire him, I suggest you seek to educate yourself more on the subject and step outside what you've personally seen. Your evidence for success is that you've watched other people do it, and human senses are the lowest standard of evidence. Are they always 100% accurate or are you just not remembering the many failures? Are you sure they don't have a map of the area or prior knowledge? Is there something else you haven't considered and could be missing? The only reason most people don't believe a magician has supernatural powers is because they tell the audience it's just a trick. I would bet $1,000,000 that those people, when tested under scrutiny, are about as accurate as random chance.
It's really sad... My parents paid for the services of a water finder while they were building their house several years ago... What my parents didn't realize was that the geological location of their house set them right on top of an average flowing water table which was common knowledge to anyone that bothered to look up the geological records of that area. They were scammed by some asshole with bent coat hanger wires!!! WTF!?!?!? This is 2015!!! When are people gonna start researching stuff before they spend their hard earned cash on what is clearly bullshit!!!!
+Nate Dawg Did anyone check prior to the experiment if the wet sand or the percentage of water in the sand. Or whether the place where the searches are underground water. Thus it is easy to cheat RADIESTHESISTS if previously nisuproverene these things because forked seek water, and where they find it they will react
Nate Dawg The thing is I felt the same as you. until I had to locate the water line in my yard. I figured it would be a straight shot from my water meter to the spicket on the front of the house like in most cases. well I checked it with the coat hangers where I thought it was and it wasn't there. I continued walking around the yard and found the water pipe with the coat hangers. the reason it wasn't a straight shot is because years ago there was another house on that lot that have burned to the ground. for the new house they did not run a new line straight shot from the water meter to the spicket they simply cut it close to where the spicket on the old house was and then made a turn. and travel 50 feet to my left. I was looking for the pressure regulator. so anyway with the dowsing rods I was able to determine the exact spot where the pipe turned and went from an old probably 50 60 year old galvanized pipe to a 25 year old CPVC line. so anyway yeah I know it works for water I don't know if it works for finding artifacts for whatever BS. it definitely does work though I had 2 other people try it and it also work for them. give it a try you'll see
MIKE HUNT, and, just like in the video, you give anecdotal evidence and excuses. Anecdotal evidence is the most unreliable form of 'evidence', which is why it is never used in scientific tests. Dowsers have never been able to replicate results under controlled tests.
Chris Moeller I use it to find water mains before excavations. Don’t knock it til you’ve tried it. It may look like an old fairy’s tale but being a skeptic myself-I tried it and was blown away. I use braising rods bent 90° with 3” handles inside an empty pen tube. Give it a go! 👍
That's because dowsing will only work if the water reacts with the water in the dowsers own body so there must be contact. It rises through the ground, how can it do this if it's sealed in a plastic bottle? The experiment is invalid I'm afraid, Mr. Dawkins should know better than to de-bunk what is simply a scientific property of the magnetic forces of water, there is absolutely nothing mystical about it. If you have a higher water content in your body then the effects are stronger, if you have a lower content then it may not work at all, thats why it's controversial. Saying it does not work is as ridiculous as saying electricity does not exist.
Magnetic forces would pass much more easily through plastic and air, than soil. Equating what is at best unproven(dowsing) to electricity is pretty ridiculous. When I turn on the light, I don't need to believe it will work, for the light to turn on.
@@richardpaling600 By your pseudo logic, that would mean dowsers needed to be barefoot to make "contact" with the water in the ground. And if THAT were the case, the dowsers participating in the test should have reported NONE of the containers holding water, because they wouldn't register any. This experiment is totally valid, as demonstrated by the dowsers thinking they were registering water in the bins they chose. Comparing dowsing to electricity is ridiculous because while electricity can be objectively proven to exist, dowsing cannot.
I was raised in a rural area where water was said to be scarce. At one time my father asked a contractor to drill a well. One of the employees dowsed the field and then pointed to a certain spot where he said there would be plenty of water, so they drilled and water there was, plenty of it. I was just a kid, and went like.. wow! this dowsing thing works. Years later I befriended a geologist who knew the area where I was born and he said that you could dig where ever you wanted to, at a certain depth there would always be an abundance of water. Faith lost! It's funny, and tragic in some cases, how all the drivel you pick up as an infant seems to stick with you, unless you develop a sense of scepticism as you grow older, and that counts for anything religious/supernatural
I agree that it does not work. But to duplicate the typical environment dowsers work with. Set up a large open test field with a series of buried water lines that can be selected individually to have water flowing through them. Then repeat this test. I still think they will fail, but that would be the ultimate litmus test with almost perfect test conditions. Maybe the tent or plastic containers affected their dowsing abilities. ;D
@@lucascrandall5737 ya why can’t it ever be replicated in a fair setting. Without any knowledge of where something was buried or using other resources? For any person to even believe in this is so troubling to me. Any scientist or engineer or inventor that provided us with the life we live, would think this is a joke.
I question the parameter's of this experiment. It would be better to find examples of where pipes, springs, water courses etc have been found by dowsing, and then try to find out what's really going on, in terms of perception of the terrain and other clues in a landscape as to the location of water. The parameters of such an experiment would be tricky to design, and there'd be a lot of loose variables around. My impression here is that people who use science as a crutch find it tricky to tolerate what science can't at once establish, deeming that what science cannot establish has to be 'rubbish'. Some of the time that's true. The sleep of reason brings forth monsters, so thank heavens for science. I would be far more interested in trying to understand why in so many cases 'dowsing' appears to 'work'. I have no doubt that in its first manifestations to the ancient Greeks 'static electricity' looked like magic. It took scientific research to invent ways of using discoveries about the potential of electricity that have such practical use now. There may yet be something larger to be discovered through studying 'dowsing'; not to prove that it's rubbish or its practitioners deluded, but to try and learn what is actually going on in a process that seems to have a certain practical staying power.
@@solomonheppner except people have been brewing beer and baking bread for thousands of years without knowing what yeast actually is, giving all kinds of superstitious explanations, even though what they were doing worked remarkably well just based off experience. if you didn't know what yeast was, it would be quite silly to deny the existence beer because they couldn't get the yeast god to make their brew successful in a double-blind controlled environment
@@solomonheppner it's just strange why people who pride themselves on being scientifically minded are so vehemently opposed to researching this phenomenon
@@efenty6235 yet every double blind study about witching wells has not proven anything more than confirmation bias and the existence of fruads and the occasional intelligent person who falls for the scams.
@@efenty6235 it might suprise you to know that superstition was always nonsense. Beer wasn't superstition. It was a recipe that anyone could follow, the fact it was attempted to be kept such a secret made it a higher valued commodity.
Not a fair experiment. The power of dowsing allegedly comes from the energies of the Earth. Vast sources of water, held deep within the live, shifting crust of the Earth, would have a very different resonance (and 'magnetism') than a small plastic bottle of water sitting in a bucket.
I don't believe in dowsing. But if it did work .. it could probably argued that it takes a larger source of water for the effect to work. Either an underground river, lake, water pipe etc. I happen to believe it's chance, however. The successful dowser probably got lucky and hit an area full of water. It doesn't matter where he drills.
This otherwise completely reasonable security guard I work with was going on about this tripe earlier today. He almost had me convinced, but with some credible sources and my man Dawkins came through.
So dowsing doesn't work over still water? Or is it the plastic that's the problem? If you filled the bottles with spring water would that make a difference? Why have so many dowsers agreed to do this, even signing agreements stating that this was a fair test of abilities in other similar experiments?
In which case, the dowsers should have said "If the water is still, it's not suitable for dowsing. It has to be moving. This is not a fair test so I will not take it."
“Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them" -Thomas Jefferson
Also the people who claim to be Christians and believe in this shit. It’s a form of divination and like fortune telling is a sin you the Bible says they will go to hell for. I’m not religious and even I could see the contradiction there.
@@KandiKlover I am Christian and you are correct, it is a form of witchcraft and should be avoided by Christians...but then again most professing Christians dont follow the bible anyway.
One thing that blows my mind is when I went to the water festival as a child. They were teaching this as fact. When there’s literally no scientific backing, for it School was literally teaching me miss information
@@lucascrandall5737 I work for a water utility company in the UK that uses dowsing to locate leaks and it's a constant source of amusement between my co-workers that the company still uses this medi-eval method.
@@lucascrandall5737 I don't doubt that you *think* it works. Try dowsing but instead cross your arms when you think there's water. If you really believe in it, you'll find it's just as effective as using copper rods. People will swear a pyschic is above 90% accurate after a 30-minute reading. But when you watch their session as an observer, they'll be less than 10% accurate as they throw out a barrage of names in a span of 20 seconds. As soon as a name hits with you, perhaps a dead uncle or a friend, the next barrage of questions branch off from it. After being bombarded with so much information, all you really recall - because it was of interest to you - are the things that "hit". This is called 'cold reading' and is something literally anyone can do. Remember that your senses are the lowest form of evidence and it's actually hilariously easy to fool the human brain. Doubly so when you already believe in something to begin with.
Legit question here: Why do people who believe in their paranormal abilities keep believing in them even when they face the truth? Why is it so difficult for them to admit that red is red and blue is blue?
:) because privately, it works 100% provided its not for malicious purposes. The space of which answers is your higher self. And the access to that self is down to the dowser. With their ability to surrender their egoic self.
Its called a dunning-kruger syndrome, when someone ignorant is ignorant of their own ignorance, they fall into a bubble of confidence that excludes any criticism or evidence of proof contrary to their beliefs. The key word here is "belief", someone ignorant has an absolute certainty of things they believe in, and belief is already not rooted in evidence or logic, its just that, a belief that they refuse to put up against evidence, otherwise it would not be a belief, it'd be fact. This also happens to very estabilished people, like a doctor who is very successful and gets praise for being knowledgeable, might become certain that because he is knowledgeable, then he must be right about things outside of his area of expertise too. You see it all the time. Celebrities might be amazing actors, but they will believe they know all about climate change, journalists who think they are experts on subjects just because they studied some of it for a report, cops who wrongly treat civillians without understanding the law they think they are following.
@@gwidao123 I think people who hate to think take on this model. Because you believe there is an authority that dictates reality. Then you can safely measure everything with that authority. To say no, take on the world with your own eyes and perception is where it is at. It takes a lot more courage than an athiestic individual who's taken on scientism. Cowardace vs Courage. Dowsing and divination works because on a quantum level, we are cocreating this world with our conciousness. It is all conciousness. There is no matter, it is all energy. Everyone is made of light. Every particle is made of light. Our perception causes things to materialise. If you go and you get a bunch of dishes wit 1 droplet of water, you can repeatadly affect how the water crystalises from intentiality alone. Without uttering a word.
@@toothacheforever8437 I know you genuinely believe what you just said was deeply insightful and brilliant; I feel very sorry for you. To be trapped in a prison of ignorance, with no hope of ever realizing it, is a hell I wouldn't want for anyone.
Dowsing ou radiestesia em português,quem já assistiu isso no programa do ratinho ou no fantástico aqui no Brasil sabe o que é porém a explicação racional para o 'fenômeno' é simples: efeito ideomotor induzido pela crença da pessoa que sem querer vai mexendo no aparelho para dar o resultado que ela espera,como na antiga brincadeira do compasso.
i do a lot of home remodeling and what i don't understand is that i dowse WEEKLY to trace buried water and cable lines before digging footers or post holes (using 2 squared ferrous wires). i've done it for 25 years and it's always accurate to a fraction of an inch. i'm astounded that there's a controversy. i'm also as shocked as those people in the video. every building contractor i know does it. it's common knowledge, an aircraft mechanic showed it to me! apparently i'm deluded?
@OtagoMark The objective of the test is not to create evidence against supernatural phenomena, but to find the first evidence in support of something for which none has been found previously. While the failure of a person to perform does nothing to validate their claims, it does not say anything else either. However, if even a few of the hundreds tested did possess a supernatural ability, the overall statistics should have shown even a slight deviation from the predicted margins of chance.
I like how that one lady was using her foot to weigh the bucket. She thought they were all full, then when the researcher pulled out a bottle of sand, she IMMEDIATELY said, "then I can't do this". Well duh, lady, you were cheating and they planned for that.
@@richardpaling600 Nope, there is not a single shred of evidence that points to that being the case, but a shit ton that proves it doesnt. You're delusional, please find help; you clearly have something wrong with your brain.
I dont buy into dowsing, but I think this experiment could have been carried out better. Dowsers claim to find underground streams, they could easily say that they need a flowing current to find, at least if we had a moving flow of water (the dowsers natural enviroment) we could flat out disprove it, as a tent with a bottle of evian is a bit cheap haha. They will only end up making excuses like they are picking up drain pipes under the ground beneath the tent. But who knows the budget lol
Totally Agree. The movement of ions in flowing water should technically cause some magnetic fields to be present. I don't necessarily believe Dowsing is real or true, but I'm also not sure it isn't. It seems like many people use it to find things like electrical and water lines, not just digging a well. In this case, you'd have to be interacting with something if you are at all successful in finding small utility lines like that in an unfamiliar area or an area where they would have no clue where the lines would run. I'm still trying to find some concrete evidence for either confirming or denying the legitimacy of this practice.
@@MrFishing2001whilst the movement of ions does *technically* create a magnetic field, it would be so weak as to be undetectable even if you were right above the stream. If it is 50m below you, then the wind probably generates a stronger magnetic field. Hell the movement of salt in your blood would probably be billions of times stronger compared to the underground water. It’s like saying you can find the exact location of a person in another country based on their smell, a ridiculous premise. Also, something worth thinking about is that the placement of electrical wires, or the location of ground water isn’t random. If you’re an electrician you will intuitively know where wires will be placed underground. Similarly, if you have been digging wells for decades, you will learn from the geography what locations are better for wells. So it is entirely possible (and dare I say the it is the reason) that the only reason rousers are correct is that they already have some pre-existing knowledge. They aren’t sensing magnetic fields from water or whatever, but they are using their eyes to look at their surroundings, and their past successes and failures to figure out what location is best, and subconsciously moving the rods. And finally, you will never hear about people who doused and failed, because it’s not worth mentioning. You wouldn’t go and tell everyone if you failed to find water when dousing. But if you were successful, then maybe you would, which is why you hear so much about successful dousers and rarely unsuccessful ones.
I'm personally a huge doubter of dowsing. However, could it be possible there is water underground creating a false negative in this experiment?... or at least tainting the results? Perhaps run this exact same experiment in several different locations to try and avoid any possible variables.
it sounds more like dawkins is casting off the last guy's explanations also as "delusional denials", rather than investigating their reasoning and core knowledge.
People in general, me included, want to believe in something magic, something incredible, like a miracle. The problem is... it is indeed really cute when you are a kid but not really when you are lying to yourself as an adult...
I feel like the test wasn't good enough. Obviously the test that they did proves that this does not find still water. I think a more interesting one would be a plot of land covered as this was in a tent where a group of dowsers had to "detect" pipes in the ground would be a better test. Have it recorded and participants seperated from anyone going after them. If everyone hit the same spot, then change the hypothesis to "what does dowsing detect" and if they all get different results, add another check mark to the skeptic list. It should be a crime for licensed workers to use them if it doesn't work.
The test selected for people who were confident they could perform something they likely never practiced (or accomplished) before. I don't think dowsers can pick up on such small quantities of still water. You could say that they claim to be dowsing and that's enough, that's the standard, but I for one do not accept the premise of the experiment. I would not attempt it. So there is a selection process here. These dowsers made fools of themselves, but at least now they have a chance to think more critically about their own abilities. There are better experiments to set up.
"If it disagrees with experiment, its wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science. It doesn't make a difference how beautiful your guess is, it doesn't make a difference how smart you are, who made the guess or what his name is... if it disagrees with experiment, its wrong. Thats all there is to it." -Richard Feynman I challenge any of the magical dowsers posting here to post a video showing their magical abilities. All I EVER see is talk and talk is cheap my friend. Back it up with a controlled experiment. And of course we all have to agree on the experiment before you do it. Come on, where's the takers ? If you can truly find shit with your magic wands, you'll become the richest man on the planet. Come on, I dare ya. Make an unbiased, double blind scientific experiment showcasing your gawd-given talent. Also would like to read your peer-reviewed dowsing paper in a top scientific journal. Good luck magic men. LOL
Rusty Cuyler A video would prove nothing. If you SERIOUSLY want to see to work, come to South New Jersey in the USA and I will show YOU how to do it. I wouldn't even touch anything I would just tell you how to make the rods and you can do it all by yourself. As far as I know it has nothing to do with god or any supernatural power which I don't beleive in anyway. You don't even have to come here. Just follow my instructions in the comments above. You video tape it and put it here on youtube. PS I didn't say I could find feces OR water, just pipes under ground, and they are not magic wands, just simple pieces of copper wire. To quote you ''Come on, I dare ya"
Shavian1 dowsing has been proved to be be BS in dozens of well designed experiments. Not even once has to been shown to be more effective than mean chance.
Jim Snow No it doesn't. "The first principle(in science) is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool. - Richard Feynman
@OtagoMark The bar for Randi's test is agreed upon by the person being tested. They are specifically asked whether they are comfortable with the conditions of the test and feel they can demonstrate the abilities they claim to have in the same way they "usually" would. One such client claims to have found Madeleine McCann, but that the government covered it up. The test she was put through was on an incredibly smaller scale.
I remember a guy who used to do this job in my town he always found the best places to make a dwell always 100% this guy tells you to dig you find water, then i went to college and studied some geology and stuff and learned oh i live in a country where it rains a lot half of the year yes whathever you dig you will find subterranian water same happens everywhere this planet is 70% water and most of that water locates under the ground believe me no matter where you dig if you do it deep enough you will find water.
My father used dowsing to find water pipes on the property. Shit worked, and I he told me that he used to do it in construction all the time to find water lines. He described it as spooky. I believe this can be explained somehow scientifically, because dowsing works. Dowsing works very well, but only to find water in pipes.
If you keep looking for water by dowsing, then you are going to find it. If you look for water while chanting in Arabic, you will find water eventually if you keep looking. The Arabic didn't help you find water. The thing that makes dowsing real or not real is not whether you can find water eventually (which can be done with any magic or ritual with enough tries).
@@Kitties_are_pretty I think you’re missing the point of his comment. What dowsing for water pipes does is eliminates the need to keep having tries. The wires cross where the water pipe is below
@@t-rex4211 Except it doesn't. You'd be just as accurate crossing your arms when you "felt" there was water. You could even randomly point and be *just* as accurate as dowsing.
Non-distilled water conducts electricity. That's because it contains various unbound charged particles in the form of ions. So, if you have underground water that is flowing, you will inevitably also have movement of electrical charge, i.e. an electrical current, small as it may be. Around any electrical current a magnetic field is produced. So, if the dowsing apparatus is metallic, that magnetic field will exert a certain force on that apparatus. In the case where the dowsing apparatus consists of the two thin L-shaped metal sticks, it seems quite plausible that this force could suffice to actually move the two sticks. Also consider how those two sticks are being held in one's hands: The shorter part of the L-shape that's being held in the dowser's hands just provides the axis of rotation with minimal friction and the longer part provides leverage, both facilitating the movement of the two sticks, even due to a force that is relatively quite small. Nothing supernatural involved whatsoever. The fact that they are trying to detect stationary water itself constitues a complete sabotage of the whole effort. The way this "experiment" was prepared and conducted at best shows a good deal of ignorance of the part of Dawkins and at worst - a good deal of intelectual dishonesty, which he arguably also exhibits in a number of other contexts. Like for example the way he deals with the fact that the originators of the Darwinian theory were basically all racist eugenicists, much more concerned with apologetics of ruthless social policy and british colonialism than the science itself - which he lightly brushes aside as being "a victorian mistake". Anyway, that's my non-expert take on the matter. Bad Dawkins, bad! In conclusion, I'd say that this new religion of scientism that he's pushing so hard can be as fundamentalist, blatantly misleading and insane as any other.
Its not Religion its reason...doubt everything you see even science can be wrong but is not most of the time. Since we have all these advances in technology.
Kumkvatjezdrav Zelo You don't understand electricity. Running an experiment with controls is insane? I think you should keep your non-expert opinions to yourself until you have a chance to become more of an expert.
@@midwestcookcraft6261 Your answer: confounding variables. Poorly conducted experiment that did not hold all variables constant. Possibly they picked up on water currents below the ground or fields created by metal objects lying around in random locations, possibly buried or above ground...anywhere say within a quarter of a mile...or possibly once there as there may be a lingering magnetic field, as I've experienced after picking up a metal rod and removing it from a location. I douse correctly all the time and taught my repair guy, who also said he saw another repair guy use dousing to find buried water transport pipes. The rods only cross in certain locations and always cross in those locations, repeatedly, day after day
As with many people I have always been attracted by water divining and after a long life I decided last week to make a pair of divining rods and try it myself. During making the rods my mind wondered over what I thought might be the science of the project and as I do not believe in the occult or magic I realised that when dowsing for water the water must be moving to produce an electrical current. One teacher of the process who was not having much success with pupils said, don't worry we will soon get to a hose pipe and by turning on and off the flow of water was able to demonstrate how successful they could be. Rain drops have an electrical charge which can be collected, streams are the same but still water does not produce electricity. Assuming that it is an electrical charge that dowsers pick up from moving water then naturally this shows that your test, no matter how good your intent and how well set up, was untenable and this should have been recognised by the dowsers themselves. Only a few days have passed passed since I made the rods so I am still experimenting, at the moment with no success!
The reason I’m watching this is because I have 141 acres of land without trickling water. I have a spring house on the property, and there is plenty of water underneath, but 3.5 inches shy of the run off pipe. Water hasn’t been used on this property for over 35 years. Water tables have lowered due to both the globe warming, and population growth in the rural countryside. Don’t know what to do. I could always get a 2500 gallon storage tank, but there is no way to know how long it would take in order to replenish the tank, and by the time it does start refilling, it could be too wet to rent an excavator and dig a trench from the spring to the house for new pipe. I’m all kinds of frustrated.
What about the old fashioned windmill pump using virtually only a trickle of water from whatever source you can find to gradually fill, and keep full over 24 hrs a day, a standard high level water tank. As I am in England we could of course give you some water as it is coming out of our ears!!!!! I have always used the phrase 'The sins of parents, this has not been associated by me with water but it seems it should have been.@@NothingButSilicone
@@barryseaton3121 Well, I have every intention on having a windmill. I just didn’t plan on it being a functioning one, was just going to be for show, or perhaps a way I could later source power in addition to the solar that I already have. I already have a pump for the spring house. I don’t have a well, at least not yet. I have a spring house. You open the floor, and you have a big giant pool of spring water underneath. So pumping isn’t the problem. The problem is it isn’t filling up. Typically, water continues to flow and once it gets too high, it goes into a run off pipe into the creek. Right now it’s 3.5 inches under the pipe. I measured to keep an eye on it. I suppose I could dig the spring deeper, in hopes of it filling up faster, but that’s no guarantee. And that would suck. I already emptied out the water this past spring and cleaned it out, made repairs to the building above it.
I tried earlier to respond but the mail could not find an address let me try again. I do like the way you think and your plans. The first thing you could try is to pump some water out of the well and see if it rises to the level it was, in other words it may have found its own normal summer level or has found an overflow below the one you mention. You will be aware that you need a fairly large windmill to gain any serious power output, batteries of course help but these are very expensive, an alternative would be to have a twelve volt generator on the windmill and put the power into your solar panel wiring. By chance I have just made a windmill, only small but it works a treat or should when I make a generator which will again only be small as all I aim for are lights in the garden, particularly as I have just fitted solar panels specifically to run a heat pump. Doing anything with a spring, as you say, is risky and certainly not guaranteed to increase the flow.. Good luck with your plans @@NothingButSilicone
My whole understanding is that it does work if your looking for a water supply. I always assumed that the moving water created a low level of electricity to be omitted which attracts the sticks.
@stephenvaldes No, you're not deluded. I was sceptical about dowsing until I personally tried it,and found to my consternation that it actually worked.
My grandfather taught me about dowsing using the two bent coat hanger thing. I could have sworn I felt it pulling as I walked over underground piping. I never thought it was supernatural. I always thought there was something physical about it -- like water being attracted to a statically charged comb.
there may or may not be truth in dowsing (I have seen it done in our garden, convincingly), but if you are going to test it scientifically, you do need to make it reflective of the circumstances in which dowsers normally work, otherwise it isn't a proper trial of the method.
I hate that people mix dowsing for water with dowsing for buried pipes that do put off EMF… the same way compasses go wonky indoors and around ferrous materials, is the same thing that makes dowsing rods align themselves with pipes under ground, and cables and really anything that is ferrous and has quite a bit of mass to it.
“The dowsing rod is a simple instrument which shows the reaction of the human nervous system to certain factors which are unknown to us at this time.” - Albert Einstein
This experiment doesn't adequately represent conditions under which dowsing would normally be performed. I'm not suggesting that dowsing works, but I can see quite a few flaws in the experiment. For one, only a bottle of water is being used. What effect does volume have on the results? Also, the bottle is standing upright and the projected area under test only consists of a relatively small cross-sectional area. Also, there is no mention of the composition of the water itself. This doesn't account for potential influences from dissolved salts. In groundwater, the concentration of dissolved salts is often quite high. Dissociated ionic compounds in aqueous solution allow for charge transfer. Electric current, in turn, produces magnetic fields. Is this a factor in real-world dowsing? In any case, it's not mentioned in this video. For more subtle considerations, subjectivity could be explored in terms of inherited behavior. People have been finding water for thousands of years. If the physical properties aren't sufficient to move the dowsing rods, then the dowser him/herself could be moving the rods based on innate queues that aren't consciously registered (trees, topology, rock formations, sounds, smells etc). In further exploration regarding potential influence of subjective factors, do the ritualistic acts (such as praying, asking the rods questions or just talking to the rods) have any effect? It could be ruled out without considering other indirect connections. For example, if instinct does play a part as mentioned previously, then the ritualistic behavior may serve to enhance perception. For example, asking the rods questions may naturally make the dowser more receptive as they open up their perception to receive the answer(s). The only thing debunked in this video is the experiment.
the reason you so call believe that "people have been finding water through dowsing" is because you only hear about the cases where dousing has worked, do you really believe someone would tell you the countless times that dowsing hasn't worked? It's not hard to use your brain, we are meant to be the most evolved and intelligent species on the planet even in our solar system as far as we can tell, yet clearly a man like you proves otherwise. Whether you hold rods or not is irrelevant, the rods do not mean anything, that's why these people failed. Usually people subconsciously move their little rods due to them knowing of water beneath. As this experiment proves, the people's rods still moved therefore there was no "unfairness" simply some looney gullible old bats who are willing to believe anything. So overall I think what we have learnt from this video and further the comments, is that there is no science behind dowsing, there is no spiritual godly divine power, it's just a bunch of bullshit, a placebo effect, the human mind once again sending us into twisted subconscious delirium. You can act like you have considered all your facts, you can make up excuses about why the test wasn't fair, but really, your in denial my friend.
@@Harry-yp6oj I wrote "People have been finding water for thousands of years". I didn't include "through dowsing". My second sentence is "I'm not suggesting that dowsing works...", so how does "the reason you so call believe" make any sense? Also, you stated "because you only hear about the cases where dowsing has worked"? How would you know what I've heard? In response to your question, "do you really believe someone would tell you the countless times that dowsing hasn't worked?" Yes, many times. I've heard people say it works and I've heard people say otherwise. If we wanted to be pedantic, proof of this is provided by the fact that I posted in the first place. In regard to the rest of what you wrote, where's your proof? I raised questions, not answers. The only claim I made is that the experiment, as presented, is missing parameters; for which I listed along with why they may have an influence on the results. I didn't assert that they are factors, but said that there's no mention of them and therefore the experiment seems inconclusive. You can lean on public sentiment all you like, but if 1000 people agree on something based on their opinions/comments, it's just that. What matters is what can back those opinions up. Most of the major breakthroughs in science have been achieved by an individual or small team going against 'group think'. If this wasn't the case, then it wouldn't be a breakthrough because everyone would already know about it; at least sufficiently enough to accept it. Look up the biographies of people like "James Hutton" if you haven't already. He even got knock-backs from people in his own game. He is also now known as the 'Father of Geology'. Since, according to you, I've proven I'm not counted among the 'intelligent species', then please provide a scientific explanation as to why the points I've raised aren't valid. I'd like to learn ;)
i always feel a bit bad for dowsers, they generally so genuinely believe and they do look a little silly when they fail every (properly controlled) time. Great video.
@@jimbeam8338the experiment is pretty conclusive however I have seen it done successfully. Can’t do it myself but have seen several other people do it. Locating water lines and electrical cables. Go to a farm where they have never been before, no plans, no prior knowledge, locate a spot in an otherwise featureless area, dig the hole and there it is. It works. Don’t know how, but it works.
I did dowse for water and electric current with the doubts that most would have. To my surprise it does work. I used coat hangers balanced on index fingers. Dont 'dis' what you haven't tried yourself. You may be amazed. :-)
Good for you Laurie. I’m sure you are having as much fun reading the comments from the people who can’t dowse trying to convince us that we can’t either. That reply you received from gjaddajg , “Yea, no” was so profound that I questioned my ability to dowse. Alas, I can still dowse. I’m still waiting for him to give me the “Hard facts.” He thinks if I read and accept them, I won’t be able to dowse anymore. Enjoy
gjaddajg Nice. Good collection for the 'chance' debate. I don't have anything to offer other than I honestly believe I can find underground water and electricity because I have physically done it. [on the "god" part - guess it all depends on what you would define 'god' as.] (-;
laurie watson Laurie - I doubt that anyone can win the million dollars because the challenge will be rigged, just like in the video. Duplicate the experiment yourself by putting a jug of water inside a plastic container with a lid (I used my kitchen trash can) and see what happens. Then pour the water from the jug into the container and see what happens.
I am not sure where 'supernatural' comes into play with dowsing for water. All it is is natural telluric currents - nothing 'super' about that. And bummer about that prize; I wouldn't be able to win the cash 'cuz in my opinion supernatural isn't real. Won't catch me watching ghost hunters - lol.
K - so you are more than welcome to have the last word. Unfortunately for you I am one that will stick to what I know because I experienced it. If anyone else wants to give it a shot and try dowsing... they will. Who's to stop them - an article? Probably not. But yes, I enjoyed trying something new and it was really cool that something I had read about in the old Foxfire books actually worked [for me]. Kudos on you articles and studies - I'm sure there are a lot more for you to find. \m/ rock on
I want to preface my question with the fact that I am a skeptic and I do not believe in any of these supernatural claims. However... ...how would someone explain the claim made at 1:06, in comparison with something as scientifically provable as the double slit experiment?
This only works with flowing or moving water like pipelines or aquifers. It also works on live underground electrical cables. This "test" was set up to fail right from the start LOL
+19Luke89 That was my immediate though also. Dowsing doesn't detect a 12 oz water bottle in a container. It responds to crevasses within the earth. That test was completely moronic.
I'd like to see the double blind trials done with one setup of having water in ALL the spots and then another with NO water at all. For sure they will get roughly the same amount of "hits" as a test with 50/50 water / no water.
***** if, in ancient times, or remote places where you don't know where to get water to survive, being able to find a river would be quite handy wouldn't it!
in ancient times they didn't have steel dowsing rods, whatever rods they used would have to be made out of a non-ferrous material, which would make them fairly impervious to the supposed magnetic Field streams of water produce. and if it would be handy in ancient times, then what use do we have for this today?
What the hell are you talking about? I was simply pointing out how these things actually work which makes the experiment void. Whether you can see a practical use for them is irrelevant.
“I feel the whole test is wrong” - says it all really doesn’t it! “Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.” Mark Twain
Everything vibrates at a resonate frequency, dowsing is very similar to a metal detector for purposes of simple explanation. You send out the resonate frequency via tele-kentic capacitance of that which you seek and when you hit the same frequency of that you are searching for it creates an out of phase " Null " which gives the static capacitance in users hands and will move rods,or in metal detector a tone. Most effective way is to have that which you seek as part of the rod handle enclosed so the hands use it's frequency directly thru the body to ground.
Roby Roberts That makes no sense. Well it makes sense if it was true, but you would have to ignore all the other forces and vibrations on this planet. Mostly electromagnetic and gravitation.
I once saw two city workers (in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada) dowsing on the side of a street. One was walking with metal rods, the other was marking the ground with spray paint. Naturally, i walked over, and asked "WTF are you doing with my tax money???" So the guy explained they are looking for a buried cable, and there was nothing magic about it. Walking over a conductor creates eddie currents in metal rods, causing them to cross. The rods cost less than a metal detector and work better. I asked to try, and it was actually working! As the men explained, it only works when you walk over an elongated conductor, perpendicular to it, and best when there is a current in it (to create the magnetic field). In the video here dowsing would not work, because container is round, small, and there is no flow to create the magnetic field. Also, fresh water is not a good conductor of electricity.
This would work if the current was flowing in one direction in a single conductor. With mains AC distribution however, the return path is bundled in the same cable, and these are twisted around each other, cancelling out the magnetic field.
I'm not a dowser but I know some people who use dowsing rods to detect water. They work for Scottish Water and will detect water sources for various local authorities. I know of one person in particular who uses the rods to the exclusion of high tech equipment because it is preferred method. Should I be telling him it doesn't work and that he is delusional?
+thunderrato I deliberately didn't make a point as,unlike some, I don't pretend to know the answer to this debate. I would be interested to know what point you thought I was trying to make. As for Richard Dawkin's, although I am an admirer, I find it incredible that someone as intelligent as he obviously is believes that everything has to be proven by science and studies before it is deemed credible. How delusional.
+thunderrato You haven't understood my original post and you are off on a complete tangent as a result. I asked " Should I be telling him it doesn't work " as Dawkins is suggesting not as I am suggesting. Also I believe there are many things we can't explain with science.
+Liam Mac how is that delusional? if anything it's delusional to simply assume that X causes Y without ruling out A,B,C etc. that's what science does with testing, it gets to the truth of the matter, otherwise you may as well believe in anything,
+1wibble2 I am well aware of how wonderful science is and how well it works. Are you trying to tell me that every phenomena has a scientific explanation because if you are then, in my opinion, that is delusional.
State your reason as to why that is delusional. Think of everything we've learned in the last 100 years alone! People use to worship the Sun as a God because of how little we knew of the Universe.
...or perhaps try a long elevated platform walkway, and place empty and full 50 gallon drums at different distances underneath that are not visible from above. ..and try it in different locations.
They are in a neighborhood, could be water lines under site throwing off test. It also works better on ground water witch is moving in the water table. water isnt just trapped in pockets underground.
I like this, but let's up the ante regarding scientific reasoning. The water in these test were in containers, not moving. When searching for water that has movement such as plumbing or the water table could it possible give different results, especially when a human body is a part of the tool used in the process?
This experiment is useless, totally invalid. The dowsers body has to have some contact with the water. Water rises like damp and a proper experiment would involve the dowser actually standing above the ground beneath which the water was. The water in the ground reacts with the water contained in the dowsers own body, the higher the water content in the dowsers body, the stronger the effect, the lower, the less the effect. This is the only reason it works for some people and not others. Nothing mystical at all just pure science Mr. Dawkins.
Im not trying to start an argument here but any kind of charge developed by water running in an electric pipe would be dissipated through the water and metal pipe itself (they are both conductors of electricity) The human body has its own electric charges in the nerves so I would think the dowsing rods would be affected by that. Humans are also about 60% water by mass. If they did a test with a pipe buried in a field and people could accurately determine its orientation Id be sold.
There is nothing super natural about it. This experiment proves that for sure. However I believe humans can sense water underground through some detectable signs and dowsing rods just help them understand this. I tried some sort of dowsing myself. You may have seen people ask questions holding these rods, expecting an answer. I tried doing that and after a little practice I was able to move the rods unconciously. I would love to see an experiment like this on real fields where there is data about underground water and its depth.
1.) Again, even bottle water is still flowing. 2.) If all the things you say caused interference, then there would literally be no way to test for anything because there would literally be no way to get away from the interference. "It does not prove or disprove jack." Tests have been done for decades and none have ever found dowsing to be anything better than chance.
I don't know about dowsing for water in a tub, but I have seen my Dad find water on many properties that had dry wells on them. He would find the best spot to drill and could tell you how many feet down it was. He was always right within a couple feet. He even had a couple times that he would tell people to drill their dry well a few more feet to hit water and he was right. He himself is so spooked about his ability that he doesn't charge for his services.
I mean if you do it for years and you are always guessing the right location then there might be something else in play and not simply water detection. It could be magnetic for instance
Possibly, Though, It is somewhat surprising that the dowsers didn't seem to be aware that their dowsing abilities weren't working. Surely, they should have realised that they weren't picking up on any difference between the "vibes" coming from the sand canisters and the ones coming from the water cannister. Surely, they should have felt some difference between what happens when they are "succeeding" at dowsing and when they are failing to dowse.
You can bury a coin 15", run a metal detector over it within seconds and it will ppick it up. It does not need the halo effect. That is caused by rust/corrosion and this leeches into the ground making the object appear bigger then it is. Some cases, when you dig, you disturb the rust and nothing is there except rust/corrosion.
@CoolGuuy23423 what are the other two parts of the documentary available on CZcams? I've been looking around trying to find them, and I've only found the ones on dowsing and psychic mediums.
Yet another empty excuse for why the test is wrong. If dowsing worked at all (and for whatever reason didn't work on stationary water), the dowsers would have said they couldn't detect anything. Instead, they ALL made blind guesses, which proves it;s fake.
I saw FIVE guys work for TWO days once looking for an old tile drain with prods. We still could not find it in some areas. A dowser came in next day and found the WHOLE thing in two hours including the areas we could not figure out and found some errors in our work. When we began to put the new tile in and reconnect, evidence proved that in EVERY case the dowser was right and We prodders were wrong. You will NEVER convince me dowsing does now work.
What you don't see is how tightly they're holding the rods. I don't have an opinion one way or the other. But I plan to try it to find my water main before the city comes out and marks where it is. I'm having a driveway installed. I'll post my results. I'm not sure about the religious or paranormal aspect of it, but I'm curious to try it.
Drac, the point is that all dowsers that have subjected themselves to double blind tests fail every time. The Amazing Randi's Million Dollar Challenge will award one million dollars to anyone who shows this type of ability. It has to be a fair test agreed to by both sides. Dowsing is just another fairy tale. Why are you taking this personally?
The reality is that one in 5 people have the ability for it to work. It is a skill that needs developing, and over a long time. I would like to have serious scientists look at this, but not in the manner I have seen tested before. I fpound that I had the ability when I was 16 and developed the skill over many years. I have found many a lost bore site for land owners.
@OtagoMark Neither James Randi nor Dawkins are looking for god-like abilities. For example, applicants to Randi's challenge simply state what they supposedly know they can do and a test is conducted on the same scale, under controlled conditions to see if that claim is true. Regarding the tester being present, there is no other choice if they are to ensure a fair experiment. The tester does not know which box the water is in, which should eliminate the problem you mentioned.
Double-blind trials, the bane of supernatural phenomena.
You got me. You owe me a punch.
The thing is, every expert working in the field of irrigation or plumbing will dowse. Here in the UK, every single water company, along with the water board, use dowsing. When the water board came round to find a leak in one of my garden pipes he had special scientific listening equipment which failed to find anything, so he dowsed and found the leak in less than a minute.
John Deacon What do you mean by dowsing in this case? Are you referring to the kind of dowsing depicted in this upload (putting an object in your hand that automatically turns in the direction of water. Or I guess in your example toward a cylinder of water with a little water leaking out)?
Okay now that I just wrote that I have to ask. So dowsing doesn't just find water, but specifically where water branches off from other water? So that you can use it to find a leak in a pipe?
If this actually works then surely it could be subjected to scientific examination, right?
PS I'm sorry if you were joking. It didn't seem like a joke but now I think it might be.
Not joking. The plumber had two divining rods which he used to find the leak. They came together just over where the leak was.
I think there might be a lot you're leaving out. If you dowse before you look, and you keep looking, then you will find what you're looking for immediately after dowsing in the direction you found it. Also, you're not mentioning how large the possible search area was or how many tries it took. Also, is this a normal result when dowsing is attempted? Is this a representative example?
Why doesn't dowsing ever succeed when it's being looked at scientifically? How's that even possible?
The moral of the story is, "If it fails under controlled conditions and you have excuses for why it failed, it's STILL a failure."
It's a failure at an inappropriate test, yeah.
Inappropriate? How?
John even failed to respond after 5 years.
@@cdevil9488water stream's down underground are in flowing state not in static ..maybe thats why (just my opinion)
It's kinda sad, how so many apologists in this comment list talk about "electromagnetic properties" of dowsing, considering the first woman shown in this video is trying to dowse with a twisted piece of plastic.
Dowsing has been debunked so completely, I have no idea how so many still believe in it. I can forgive people in the 80's and 90's but information is literally just a click away at this point; there is no excuse for ignorance on the validity of this subject anymore.
As a control, they should have had a few people who don't claim to be dowsers give it a try. Regardless, I never get tired of watching this.
Have people without rods just go and randomly pick a container, and see if pure luck and random guessing is as accurate as the dowers
I loved the guy who said that God was playing a joke on him when his dowsing failed. :)
He is correct
Hmmm. Pro dowsing people keep commenting that that the test is designed poorly from the start; that dowsing only works with flowing water because of an effect the moving water causes and is then detected by the rods.
Since there was no flowing water, nobody could possibly pass the test; impossible test and it proves nothing.
I disagree. Because if that reasoning were true, then the dowsers would all say "hey, I'm not getting any positive reading on any of the bins; there's no water according to my assessment. Is this a trick test? My final answer is there is no water here."
But that's not the case. Every dowser had positive readings and pointed to the bins that showed the positive readings. But their positive readings turned out to be false and statistically akin to guessing.
If only flowing water makes dowsing work, then why did the stagnant bottled water give positive readings?
One explanation is that it's fraudulent.
Randi did a large scale test with running water and the dowsers still failed.
Exactly.
I had an argument with this guy who claims every dowser except him is doing it wrong.
And, that if there is a skeptic of dowsing in the vicinity, then it won't work because it disrupts ion vortexes or some shit to that effect.
(Eye roll and face palm)
Dingdingdingding we have a winner right here.
Not really. It is easy to pick up water mains, telecom cable, gas pipes and electric cables. I use rods numerous times a day to find all of these for my work. It’s harder to find stagnant things. I would say I’m 1 out of 5 when I get people to hide stuff and I try to find it.
There is something in it. Anyway is able to do it. It’s just not something that can be scientifically proven. Because there are conditions like on the video that people aren’t 100percent.
If the test was to find services I would get it 100 percent of the time.
Don’t knock it until you try it.
@@johnlarkin3020 I would never be able to find a bottle of water in a plastic tub with dowsing rods. I can, however, find electro-magnetic fields around buried pipe, wires or cables nearly every time using dowsing. It's not supernatural. There is a scientific explanation. I just don't know what it is. Just because I might not understand gravity, doesn't mean that I can float. Mineral content in the sand in this expirement is more likely to cause electro-magnetic fields than bottled water. Not a scientific experiment.
"I feel the whole test...is wrong."
LMAO!
I am a great admirer of the professor, however not sure about this. We use it a lot on the farm to find blocked field drains, it works quite well. The field drains are made from clay, really old and we don't have a field plan. Rushes are a problem in our area. They can take over a field quite rapidly. Good drainage is essential to prevent this. The guys come with the digger, go to the problem area in the field (lots of rushes). Then use the rods to find the blocked drain. They dig where the rods cross. The clay drain is nearly always there and the blockage released. It's faster than trying to find it by trial and error digging. There is nothing mystical about the process, just straight forward working guys who are doing it. Time is money, this saves us both.
No, it doesn't work lol
So you’re a believer? I have a bit of a predicament. 141 acres of forest land, and the house nor the spring has been used for 35+ years. For the first time since acquiring the property, the water level is below the run off pipe, meaning no trickle. 3.5 inches to be exact. I could get a 2500 gallon storage tank, but there is no way to know how long it would take to replenish the tank. If it’s no longer producing water for a month, then I probably need to find a new water source. With the globe warming, and more and more people unfortunately moving out here into the rural countryside, the water table certainly won’t get better. I don’t know what to do. I’m going to keep an eye on it, but it’s September, and I need to pipe the area between the spring and the house. Come late October, there’s a good chance it will be too wet for an excavator.
If you admire him, I suggest you seek to educate yourself more on the subject and step outside what you've personally seen. Your evidence for success is that you've watched other people do it, and human senses are the lowest standard of evidence. Are they always 100% accurate or are you just not remembering the many failures? Are you sure they don't have a map of the area or prior knowledge? Is there something else you haven't considered and could be missing?
The only reason most people don't believe a magician has supernatural powers is because they tell the audience it's just a trick.
I would bet $1,000,000 that those people, when tested under scrutiny, are about as accurate as random chance.
It's really sad... My parents paid for the services of a water finder while they were building their house several years ago... What my parents didn't realize was that the geological location of their house set them right on top of an average flowing water table which was common knowledge to anyone that bothered to look up the geological records of that area. They were scammed by some asshole with bent coat hanger wires!!! WTF!?!?!? This is 2015!!! When are people gonna start researching stuff before they spend their hard earned cash on what is clearly bullshit!!!!
+Nate Dawg Did anyone check prior to the experiment if the wet sand or the percentage of water in the sand. Or whether the place where the searches are underground water. Thus it is easy to cheat RADIESTHESISTS if previously nisuproverene these things because forked seek water, and where they find it they will react
nate dawg lol, that's a cool name
Nate Dawg The thing is I felt the same as you. until I had to locate the water line in my yard. I figured it would be a straight shot from my water meter to the spicket on the front of the house like in most cases. well I checked it with the coat hangers where I thought it was and it wasn't there. I continued walking around the yard and found the water pipe with the coat hangers. the reason it wasn't a straight shot is because years ago there was another house on that lot that have burned to the ground. for the new house they did not run a new line straight shot from the water meter to the spicket they simply cut it close to where the spicket on the old house was and then made a turn. and travel 50 feet to my left. I was looking for the pressure regulator. so anyway with the dowsing rods I was able to determine the exact spot where the pipe turned and went from an old probably 50 60 year old galvanized pipe to a 25 year old CPVC line. so anyway yeah I know it works for water I don't know if it works for finding artifacts for whatever BS. it definitely does work though I had 2 other people try it and it also work for them. give it a try you'll see
MIKE HUNT, and, just like in the video, you give anecdotal evidence and excuses. Anecdotal evidence is the most unreliable form of 'evidence', which is why it is never used in scientific tests. Dowsers have never been able to replicate results under controlled tests.
Chris Moeller I use it to find water mains before excavations. Don’t knock it til you’ve tried it. It may look like an old fairy’s tale but being a skeptic myself-I tried it and was blown away. I use braising rods bent 90° with 3” handles inside an empty pen tube. Give it a go! 👍
I love the woman putting her foot on the bins... it is her sad attempt to cheat....
That's because dowsing will only work if the water reacts with the water in the dowsers own body so there must be contact. It rises through the ground, how can it do this if it's sealed in a plastic bottle? The experiment is invalid I'm afraid, Mr. Dawkins should know better than to de-bunk what is simply a scientific property of the magnetic forces of water, there is absolutely nothing mystical about it. If you have a higher water content in your body then the effects are stronger, if you have a lower content then it may not work at all, thats why it's controversial. Saying it does not work is as ridiculous as saying electricity does not exist.
@@richardpaling600
Water doesn't produce a magnetic field, and even if it did, why would it affect a neutral metal rod with no magnetic dipole?
@@richardpaling600 You are just as desperate as the losers making excuses for their failed attempts. haha fool
Magnetic forces would pass much more easily through plastic and air, than soil.
Equating what is at best unproven(dowsing) to electricity is pretty ridiculous. When I turn on the light, I don't need to believe it will work, for the light to turn on.
@@richardpaling600 By your pseudo logic, that would mean dowsers needed to be barefoot to make "contact" with the water in the ground. And if THAT were the case, the dowsers participating in the test should have reported NONE of the containers holding water, because they wouldn't register any.
This experiment is totally valid, as demonstrated by the dowsers thinking they were registering water in the bins they chose. Comparing dowsing to electricity is ridiculous because while electricity can be objectively proven to exist, dowsing cannot.
I was raised in a rural area where water was said to be scarce. At one time my father asked a contractor to drill a well. One of the employees dowsed the field and then pointed to a certain spot where he said there would be plenty of water, so they drilled and water there was, plenty of it. I was just a kid, and went like.. wow! this dowsing thing works. Years later I befriended a geologist who knew the area where I was born and he said that you could dig where ever you wanted to, at a certain depth there would always be an abundance of water. Faith lost! It's funny, and tragic in some cases, how all the drivel you pick up as an infant seems to stick with you, unless you develop a sense of scepticism as you grow older, and that counts for anything religious/supernatural
i was just about to say, thats because water is everywhere underneath but then i pressed read more and saw that you realised that!!!
I don't fully doubt but finding a bottle of water has nothing to do with finding water under ground.
I agree that it does not work. But to duplicate the typical environment dowsers work with. Set up a large open test field with a series of buried water lines that can be selected individually to have water flowing through them. Then repeat this test. I still think they will fail, but that would be the ultimate litmus test with almost perfect test conditions.
Maybe the tent or plastic containers affected their dowsing abilities. ;D
I work in a utility company it's not fake lol
@@lucascrandall5737
Then why can no one prove it works with blind testing?
@@lucascrandall5737 ya why can’t it ever be replicated in a fair setting. Without any knowledge of where something was buried or using other resources? For any person to even believe in this is so troubling to me. Any scientist or engineer or inventor that provided us with the life we live, would think this is a joke.
@@lucascrandall5737
That's kind of embarrassing for you, then.
I question the parameter's of this experiment. It would be better to find examples of where pipes, springs, water courses etc have been found by dowsing, and then try to find out what's really going on, in terms of perception of the terrain and other clues in a landscape as to the location of water. The parameters of such an experiment would be tricky to design, and there'd be a lot of loose variables around. My impression here is that people who use science as a crutch find it tricky to tolerate what science can't at once establish, deeming that what science cannot establish has to be 'rubbish'. Some of the time that's true. The sleep of reason brings forth monsters, so thank heavens for science. I would be far more interested in trying to understand why in so many cases 'dowsing' appears to 'work'. I have no doubt that in its first manifestations to the ancient Greeks 'static electricity' looked like magic. It took scientific research to invent ways of using discoveries about the potential of electricity that have such practical use now. There may yet be something larger to be discovered through studying 'dowsing'; not to prove that it's rubbish or its practitioners deluded, but to try and learn what is actually going on in a process that seems to have a certain practical staying power.
If you cannot explain with a proper reason....you're no expert.
"Everyone must give an answer"
@@solomonheppner except people have been brewing beer and baking bread for thousands of years without knowing what yeast actually is, giving all kinds of superstitious explanations, even though what they were doing worked remarkably well just based off experience. if you didn't know what yeast was, it would be quite silly to deny the existence beer because they couldn't get the yeast god to make their brew successful in a double-blind controlled environment
@@solomonheppner it's just strange why people who pride themselves on being scientifically minded are so vehemently opposed to researching this phenomenon
@@efenty6235 yet every double blind study about witching wells has not proven anything more than confirmation bias and the existence of fruads and the occasional intelligent person who falls for the scams.
@@efenty6235 it might suprise you to know that superstition was always nonsense. Beer wasn't superstition. It was a recipe that anyone could follow, the fact it was attempted to be kept such a secret made it a higher valued commodity.
Not a fair experiment. The power of dowsing allegedly comes from the energies of the Earth. Vast sources of water, held deep within the live, shifting crust of the Earth, would have a very different resonance (and 'magnetism') than a small plastic bottle of water sitting in a bucket.
I don't believe in dowsing. But if it did work .. it could probably argued that it takes a larger source of water for the effect to work. Either an underground river, lake, water pipe etc. I happen to believe it's chance, however. The successful dowser probably got lucky and hit an area full of water. It doesn't matter where he drills.
Dowsing is stupid. That’s why I use a seer stone like Joseph Smith. 100% accurate!!!
A joke obviously.
Tea leaves work great .. has to be chai tea
Really!!?u didn't have to explain.
Im a utility locator and all we use is a seer stone, lmao.
This otherwise completely reasonable security guard I work with was going on about this tripe earlier today.
He almost had me convinced, but with some credible sources and my man Dawkins came through.
So dowsing doesn't work over still water? Or is it the plastic that's the problem?
If you filled the bottles with spring water would that make a difference?
Why have so many dowsers agreed to do this, even signing agreements stating that this was a fair test of abilities in other similar experiments?
In which case, the dowsers should have said "If the water is still, it's not suitable for dowsing. It has to be moving. This is not a fair test so I will not take it."
Water is always moving.
“Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them"
-Thomas Jefferson
Mr Jefferson was a wise man.
The strange thing is it works.
@@anthonywillis7634
The not-so-strange thing is: It doesn't work.
It has failed every single double-blind test ever conducted.
Yet people still believe this crap...
Also the people who claim to be Christians and believe in this shit. It’s a form of divination and like fortune telling is a sin you the Bible says they will go to hell for. I’m not religious and even I could see the contradiction there.
well I dont believe in it...but neither do i believe evolutionary crap 'science' either.
@@KandiKlover I am Christian and you are correct, it is a form of witchcraft and should be avoided by Christians...but then again most professing Christians dont follow the bible anyway.
rusda2 it’s not witch craft. But it is real
@@aarondrake2748 mankind does not have supernatural powers...so who or what do you believe is locating the water for you?
One thing that blows my mind is when I went to the water festival as a child. They were teaching this as fact.
When there’s literally no scientific backing, for it
School was literally teaching me miss information
I can't think of anyway dowsing could work... But still, placing the water inside plastic bottles is a perfect way to "debunk" it.
I work for a utility company in southern California this 100% works we use it to find water and gas linds
@@lucascrandall5737 I work for a water utility company in the UK that uses dowsing to locate leaks and it's a constant source of amusement between my co-workers that the company still uses this medi-eval method.
@@lucascrandall5737
I don't doubt that you *think* it works. Try dowsing but instead cross your arms when you think there's water. If you really believe in it, you'll find it's just as effective as using copper rods.
People will swear a pyschic is above 90% accurate after a 30-minute reading. But when you watch their session as an observer, they'll be less than 10% accurate as they throw out a barrage of names in a span of 20 seconds. As soon as a name hits with you, perhaps a dead uncle or a friend, the next barrage of questions branch off from it. After being bombarded with so much information, all you really recall - because it was of interest to you - are the things that "hit". This is called 'cold reading' and is something literally anyone can do.
Remember that your senses are the lowest form of evidence and it's actually hilariously easy to fool the human brain. Doubly so when you already believe in something to begin with.
Legit question here: Why do people who believe in their paranormal abilities keep believing in them even when they face the truth? Why is it so difficult for them to admit that red is red and blue is blue?
Because they're old and got nothing left going for them in life.
:) because privately, it works 100% provided its not for malicious purposes. The space of which answers is your higher self. And the access to that self is down to the dowser. With their ability to surrender their egoic self.
Its called a dunning-kruger syndrome, when someone ignorant is ignorant of their own ignorance, they fall into a bubble of confidence that excludes any criticism or evidence of proof contrary to their beliefs. The key word here is "belief", someone ignorant has an absolute certainty of things they believe in, and belief is already not rooted in evidence or logic, its just that, a belief that they refuse to put up against evidence, otherwise it would not be a belief, it'd be fact. This also happens to very estabilished people, like a doctor who is very successful and gets praise for being knowledgeable, might become certain that because he is knowledgeable, then he must be right about things outside of his area of expertise too. You see it all the time. Celebrities might be amazing actors, but they will believe they know all about climate change, journalists who think they are experts on subjects just because they studied some of it for a report, cops who wrongly treat civillians without understanding the law they think they are following.
@@gwidao123 I think people who hate to think take on this model. Because you believe there is an authority that dictates reality. Then you can safely measure everything with that authority.
To say no, take on the world with your own eyes and perception is where it is at. It takes a lot more courage than an athiestic individual who's taken on scientism. Cowardace vs Courage.
Dowsing and divination works because on a quantum level, we are cocreating this world with our conciousness. It is all conciousness. There is no matter, it is all energy. Everyone is made of light. Every particle is made of light. Our perception causes things to materialise.
If you go and you get a bunch of dishes wit 1 droplet of water, you can repeatadly affect how the water crystalises from intentiality alone. Without uttering a word.
@@toothacheforever8437 I know you genuinely believe what you just said was deeply insightful and brilliant; I feel very sorry for you. To be trapped in a prison of ignorance, with no hope of ever realizing it, is a hell I wouldn't want for anyone.
Dowsing ou radiestesia em português,quem já assistiu isso no programa do ratinho ou no fantástico aqui no Brasil sabe o que é porém a explicação racional para o 'fenômeno' é simples: efeito ideomotor induzido pela crença da pessoa que sem querer vai mexendo no aparelho para dar o resultado que ela espera,como na antiga brincadeira do compasso.
i do a lot of home remodeling and what i don't understand is that i dowse WEEKLY to trace buried water and cable lines before digging footers or post holes (using 2 squared ferrous wires). i've done it for 25 years and it's always accurate to a fraction of an inch. i'm astounded that there's a controversy. i'm also as shocked as those people in the video. every building contractor i know does it. it's common knowledge, an aircraft mechanic showed it to me! apparently i'm deluded?
@OtagoMark
The objective of the test is not to create evidence against supernatural phenomena, but to find the first evidence in support of something for which none has been found previously. While the failure of a person to perform does nothing to validate their claims, it does not say anything else either.
However, if even a few of the hundreds tested did possess a supernatural ability, the overall statistics should have shown even a slight deviation from the predicted margins of chance.
I like how that one lady was using her foot to weigh the bucket. She thought they were all full, then when the researcher pulled out a bottle of sand, she IMMEDIATELY said, "then I can't do this".
Well duh, lady, you were cheating and they planned for that.
Dawkins new book: The Dowsing Delusion. ... It's actually quite a bit thinner than the God delusion. .... More of a pamphlet really....
I agree with much of Dawkins' work but I'm afraid in this case he is totally wrong, dowsing does work.
@@richardpaling600 Nope, there is not a single shred of evidence that points to that being the case, but a shit ton that proves it doesnt. You're delusional, please find help; you clearly have something wrong with your brain.
Radiesthesia, Dowsing - New techniques! czcams.com/video/cLwpGaZ4ddI/video.html
This isn't used to going bottles of water but big deposits, do not sure if the experiment hypothesis is even valid.
I dont buy into dowsing, but I think this experiment could have been carried out better. Dowsers claim to find underground streams, they could easily say that they need a flowing current to find, at least if we had a moving flow of water (the dowsers natural enviroment) we could flat out disprove it, as a tent with a bottle of evian is a bit cheap haha. They will only end up making excuses like they are picking up drain pipes under the ground beneath the tent. But who knows the budget lol
Totally Agree. The movement of ions in flowing water should technically cause some magnetic fields to be present. I don't necessarily believe Dowsing is real or true, but I'm also not sure it isn't. It seems like many people use it to find things like electrical and water lines, not just digging a well. In this case, you'd have to be interacting with something if you are at all successful in finding small utility lines like that in an unfamiliar area or an area where they would have no clue where the lines would run. I'm still trying to find some concrete evidence for either confirming or denying the legitimacy of this practice.
@@MrFishing2001whilst the movement of ions does *technically* create a magnetic field, it would be so weak as to be undetectable even if you were right above the stream. If it is 50m below you, then the wind probably generates a stronger magnetic field. Hell the movement of salt in your blood would probably be billions of times stronger compared to the underground water. It’s like saying you can find the exact location of a person in another country based on their smell, a ridiculous premise.
Also, something worth thinking about is that the placement of electrical wires, or the location of ground water isn’t random. If you’re an electrician you will intuitively know where wires will be placed underground. Similarly, if you have been digging wells for decades, you will learn from the geography what locations are better for wells. So it is entirely possible (and dare I say the it is the reason) that the only reason rousers are correct is that they already have some pre-existing knowledge. They aren’t sensing magnetic fields from water or whatever, but they are using their eyes to look at their surroundings, and their past successes and failures to figure out what location is best, and subconsciously moving the rods.
And finally, you will never hear about people who doused and failed, because it’s not worth mentioning. You wouldn’t go and tell everyone if you failed to find water when dousing. But if you were successful, then maybe you would, which is why you hear so much about successful dousers and rarely unsuccessful ones.
"'Tis better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool, than to open it and remove all doubt."
-Mark Twain
I suggest you take his advice.
He also said never argue with a fool onlookers might not be able to tell difference lol
I'm personally a huge doubter of dowsing.
However, could it be possible there is water underground creating a false negative in this experiment?... or at least tainting the results? Perhaps run this exact same experiment in several different locations to try and avoid any possible variables.
Then everyone should have been choosing the same box every time.
The grandfather of my wife thought me dowsing. It works.
it sounds more like dawkins is casting off the last guy's explanations also as "delusional denials", rather than investigating their reasoning and core knowledge.
If it can't be proven in a double blind trial then it doesn't exist.
People in general, me included, want to believe in something magic, something incredible, like a miracle. The problem is... it is indeed really cute when you are a kid but not really when you are lying to yourself as an adult...
Yes that is called being a man child
"In that case, I can't do this..." Yes, you are correct, you cannot do this...
I feel like the test wasn't good enough. Obviously the test that they did proves that this does not find still water. I think a more interesting one would be a plot of land covered as this was in a tent where a group of dowsers had to "detect" pipes in the ground would be a better test. Have it recorded and participants seperated from anyone going after them. If everyone hit the same spot, then change the hypothesis to "what does dowsing detect" and if they all get different results, add another check mark to the skeptic list. It should be a crime for licensed workers to use them if it doesn't work.
The test selected for people who were confident they could perform something they likely never practiced (or accomplished) before. I don't think dowsers can pick up on such small quantities of still water. You could say that they claim to be dowsing and that's enough, that's the standard, but I for one do not accept the premise of the experiment. I would not attempt it. So there is a selection process here. These dowsers made fools of themselves, but at least now they have a chance to think more critically about their own abilities. There are better experiments to set up.
"If it disagrees with experiment, its wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science. It doesn't make a difference how beautiful your guess is, it doesn't make a difference how smart you are, who made the guess or what his name is... if it disagrees with experiment, its wrong. Thats all there is to it."
-Richard Feynman
I challenge any of the magical dowsers posting here to post a video showing their magical abilities. All I EVER see is talk and talk is cheap my friend. Back it up with a controlled experiment. And of course we all have to agree on the experiment before you do it. Come on, where's the takers ? If you can truly find shit with your magic wands, you'll become the richest man on the planet. Come on, I dare ya. Make an unbiased, double blind scientific experiment showcasing your gawd-given talent. Also would like to read your peer-reviewed dowsing paper in a top scientific journal. Good luck magic men. LOL
Rusty Cuyler A video would prove nothing. If you SERIOUSLY want to see to work, come to South New Jersey in the USA and I will show YOU how to do it. I wouldn't even touch anything I would just tell you how to make the rods and you can do it all by yourself. As far as I know it has nothing to do with god or any supernatural power which I don't beleive in anyway.
You don't even have to come here. Just follow my instructions in the comments above. You video tape it and put it here on youtube. PS I didn't say I could find feces OR water, just pipes under ground, and they are not magic wands, just simple pieces of copper wire. To quote you ''Come on, I dare ya"
Shavian1 dowsing has been proved to be be BS in dozens of well designed experiments. Not even once has to been shown to be more effective than mean chance.
You win. I'm lying. I made it all up. :)
Shavian1 Done it many times myself...works great for finding underground water pipes.
Jim Snow
No it doesn't.
"The first principle(in science) is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool. - Richard Feynman
Debunking superstitious practices like dowsing isn't even worth scientists' time.
@OtagoMark
The bar for Randi's test is agreed upon by the person being tested. They are specifically asked whether they are comfortable with the conditions of the test and feel they can demonstrate the abilities they claim to have in the same way they "usually" would.
One such client claims to have found Madeleine McCann, but that the government covered it up. The test she was put through was on an incredibly smaller scale.
I remember a guy who used to do this job in my town he always found the best places to make a dwell always 100% this guy tells you to dig you find water, then i went to college and studied some geology and stuff and learned oh i live in a country where it rains a lot half of the year yes whathever you dig you will find subterranian water same happens everywhere this planet is 70% water and most of that water locates under the ground believe me no matter where you dig if you do it deep enough you will find water.
What you need is not a dowser, what you need is a book on punctuation.
My father used dowsing to find water pipes on the property. Shit worked, and I he told me that he used to do it in construction all the time to find water lines.
He described it as spooky. I believe this can be explained somehow scientifically, because dowsing works. Dowsing works very well, but only to find water in pipes.
If you keep looking for water by dowsing, then you are going to find it. If you look for water while chanting in Arabic, you will find water eventually if you keep looking. The Arabic didn't help you find water.
The thing that makes dowsing real or not real is not whether you can find water eventually (which can be done with any magic or ritual with enough tries).
@@Kitties_are_pretty I think you’re missing the point of his comment. What dowsing for water pipes does is eliminates the need to keep having tries. The wires cross where the water pipe is below
@@t-rex4211
Except it doesn't. You'd be just as accurate crossing your arms when you "felt" there was water.
You could even randomly point and be *just* as accurate as dowsing.
Non-distilled water conducts electricity. That's because it contains various unbound charged particles in the form of ions. So, if you have underground water that is flowing, you will inevitably also have movement of electrical charge, i.e. an electrical current, small as it may be. Around any electrical current a magnetic field is produced. So, if the dowsing apparatus is metallic, that magnetic field will exert a certain force on that apparatus. In the case where the dowsing apparatus consists of the two thin L-shaped metal sticks, it seems quite plausible that this force could suffice to actually move the two sticks. Also consider how those two sticks are being held in one's hands: The shorter part of the L-shape that's being held in the dowser's hands just provides the axis of rotation with minimal friction and the longer part provides leverage, both facilitating the movement of the two sticks, even due to a force that is relatively quite small.
Nothing supernatural involved whatsoever. The fact that they are trying to detect stationary water itself constitues a complete sabotage of the whole effort. The way this "experiment" was prepared and conducted at best shows a good deal of ignorance of the part of Dawkins and at worst - a good deal of intelectual dishonesty, which he arguably also exhibits in a number of other contexts. Like for example the way he deals with the fact that the originators of the Darwinian theory were basically all racist eugenicists, much more concerned with apologetics of ruthless social policy and british colonialism than the science itself - which he lightly brushes aside as being "a victorian mistake". Anyway, that's my non-expert take on the matter. Bad Dawkins, bad!
In conclusion, I'd say that this new religion of scientism that he's pushing so hard can be as fundamentalist, blatantly misleading and insane as any other.
Its not Religion its reason...doubt everything you see even science can be wrong but is not most of the time. Since we have all these advances in technology.
Kumkvatjezdrav Zelo You don't understand electricity. Running an experiment with controls is insane? I think you should keep your non-expert opinions to yourself until you have a chance to become more of an expert.
Kumkvatjezdrav Zelo "I'd say that this new religion of scientism " What ?!! LOL, oh man I've heard it all now, "religion of scietism". LOL
If what you say is true, every participant should have reported finding nothing. Instead, they claimed a result.
@@midwestcookcraft6261 Your answer: confounding variables. Poorly conducted experiment that did not hold all variables constant. Possibly they picked up on water currents below the ground or fields created by metal objects lying around in random locations, possibly buried or above ground...anywhere say within a quarter of a mile...or possibly once there as there may be a lingering magnetic field, as I've experienced after picking up a metal rod and removing it from a location. I douse correctly all the time and taught my repair guy, who also said he saw another repair guy use dousing to find buried water transport pipes. The rods only cross in certain locations and always cross in those locations, repeatedly, day after day
As with many people I have always been attracted by water divining and after a long life I decided last week to make a pair of divining rods and try it myself.
During making the rods my mind wondered over what I thought might be the science of the project and as I do not believe in the occult or magic I realised that when dowsing for water the water must be moving to produce an electrical current. One teacher of the process who was not having much success with pupils said, don't worry we will soon get to a hose pipe and by turning on and off the flow of water was able to demonstrate how successful they could be.
Rain drops have an electrical charge which can be collected, streams are the same but still water does not produce electricity.
Assuming that it is an electrical charge that dowsers pick up from moving water then naturally this shows that your test, no matter how good your intent and how well set up, was untenable and this should have been recognised by the dowsers themselves.
Only a few days have passed passed since I made the rods so I am still experimenting, at the moment with no success!
The reason I’m watching this is because I have 141 acres of land without trickling water. I have a spring house on the property, and there is plenty of water underneath, but 3.5 inches shy of the run off pipe. Water hasn’t been used on this property for over 35 years. Water tables have lowered due to both the globe warming, and population growth in the rural countryside. Don’t know what to do. I could always get a 2500 gallon storage tank, but there is no way to know how long it would take in order to replenish the tank, and by the time it does start refilling, it could be too wet to rent an excavator and dig a trench from the spring to the house for new pipe. I’m all kinds of frustrated.
What about the old fashioned windmill pump using virtually only a trickle of water from whatever source you can find to gradually fill, and keep full over 24 hrs a day, a standard high level water tank. As I am in England we could of course give you some water as it is coming out of our ears!!!!! I have always used the phrase 'The sins of parents, this has not been associated by me with water but it seems it should have been.@@NothingButSilicone
@@barryseaton3121 Well, I have every intention on having a windmill. I just didn’t plan on it being a functioning one, was just going to be for show, or perhaps a way I could later source power in addition to the solar that I already have. I already have a pump for the spring house. I don’t have a well, at least not yet. I have a spring house. You open the floor, and you have a big giant pool of spring water underneath. So pumping isn’t the problem. The problem is it isn’t filling up. Typically, water continues to flow and once it gets too high, it goes into a run off pipe into the creek. Right now it’s 3.5 inches under the pipe. I measured to keep an eye on it. I suppose I could dig the spring deeper, in hopes of it filling up faster, but that’s no guarantee. And that would suck. I already emptied out the water this past spring and cleaned it out, made repairs to the building above it.
I tried earlier to respond but the mail could not find an address let me try again.
I do like the way you think and your plans.
The first thing you could try is to pump some water out of the well and see if it rises to the level it was, in other words it may have found its own normal summer level or has found an overflow below the one you mention.
You will be aware that you need a fairly large windmill to gain any serious power output, batteries of course help but these are very expensive, an alternative would be to have a twelve volt generator on the windmill and put the power into your solar panel wiring. By chance I have just made a windmill, only small but it works a treat or should when I make a generator which will again only be small as all I aim for are lights in the garden, particularly as I have just fitted solar panels specifically to run a heat pump.
Doing anything with a spring, as you say, is risky and certainly not guaranteed to increase the flow..
Good luck with your plans
@@NothingButSilicone
My whole understanding is that it does work if your looking for a water supply. I always assumed that the moving water created a low level of electricity to be omitted which attracts the sticks.
The problem is that water is always moving.
@stephenvaldes
No, you're not deluded. I was sceptical about dowsing until I personally tried it,and found to my consternation that it actually worked.
My grandfather taught me about dowsing using the two bent coat hanger thing. I could have sworn I felt it pulling as I walked over underground piping. I never thought it was supernatural. I always thought there was something physical about it -- like water being attracted to a statically charged comb.
Just out of curiosity, have you ever dug for a well where your dowser didn't tell you there was water?
It probably does work..people have used it to find water, and it's not just by chance.
"The state of denial is extraordinary." Dawkins "They come up with all sorts of explanations." French (paraphrase)
we dug a well on our farm today and they walked around with an oak branch. it went down. then they dug 90 ft to water. explain to me how that's fake
One its farmland two its 90 feet so of course theres water there duh!
Garrett Campbell if there are trees, there is water ...
there may or may not be truth in dowsing (I have seen it done in our garden, convincingly), but if you are going to test it scientifically, you do need to make it reflective of the circumstances in which dowsers normally work, otherwise it isn't a proper trial of the method.
I hate that people mix dowsing for water with dowsing for buried pipes that do put off EMF… the same way compasses go wonky indoors and around ferrous materials, is the same thing that makes dowsing rods align themselves with pipes under ground, and cables and really anything that is ferrous and has quite a bit of mass to it.
Today's dowser is tomorrow's anti-vaxxer lol
“The dowsing rod is a simple instrument which shows the reaction of the human nervous system to certain factors which are unknown to us at this time.” - Albert Einstein
This experiment doesn't adequately represent conditions under which dowsing would normally be performed. I'm not suggesting that dowsing works, but I can see quite a few flaws in the experiment. For one, only a bottle of water is being used. What effect does volume have on the results? Also, the bottle is standing upright and the projected area under test only consists of a relatively small cross-sectional area.
Also, there is no mention of the composition of the water itself. This doesn't account for potential influences from dissolved salts. In groundwater, the concentration of dissolved salts is often quite high. Dissociated ionic compounds in aqueous solution allow for charge transfer. Electric current, in turn, produces magnetic fields. Is this a factor in real-world dowsing? In any case, it's not mentioned in this video.
For more subtle considerations, subjectivity could be explored in terms of inherited behavior. People have been finding water for thousands of years. If the physical properties aren't sufficient to move the dowsing rods, then the dowser him/herself could be moving the rods based on innate queues that aren't consciously registered (trees, topology, rock formations, sounds, smells etc).
In further exploration regarding potential influence of subjective factors, do the ritualistic acts (such as praying, asking the rods questions or just talking to the rods) have any effect? It could be ruled out without considering other indirect connections. For example, if instinct does play a part as mentioned previously, then the ritualistic behavior may serve to enhance perception. For example, asking the rods questions may naturally make the dowser more receptive as they open up their perception to receive the answer(s).
The only thing debunked in this video is the experiment.
the reason you so call believe that "people have been finding water through dowsing" is because you only hear about the cases where dousing has worked, do you really believe someone would tell you the countless times that dowsing hasn't worked? It's not hard to use your brain, we are meant to be the most evolved and intelligent species on the planet even in our solar system as far as we can tell, yet clearly a man like you proves otherwise. Whether you hold rods or not is irrelevant, the rods do not mean anything, that's why these people failed. Usually people subconsciously move their little rods due to them knowing of water beneath. As this experiment proves, the people's rods still moved therefore there was no "unfairness" simply some looney gullible old bats who are willing to believe anything. So overall I think what we have learnt from this video and further the comments, is that there is no science behind dowsing, there is no spiritual godly divine power, it's just a bunch of bullshit, a placebo effect, the human mind once again sending us into twisted subconscious delirium. You can act like you have considered all your facts, you can make up excuses about why the test wasn't fair, but really, your in denial my friend.
@@Harry-yp6oj I wrote "People have been finding water for thousands of years". I didn't include "through dowsing". My second sentence is "I'm not suggesting that dowsing works...", so how does "the reason you so call believe" make any sense?
Also, you stated "because you only hear about the cases where dowsing has worked"? How would you know what I've heard? In response to your question, "do you really believe someone would tell you the countless times that dowsing hasn't worked?" Yes, many times. I've heard people say it works and I've heard people say otherwise. If we wanted to be pedantic, proof of this is provided by the fact that I posted in the first place.
In regard to the rest of what you wrote, where's your proof? I raised questions, not answers. The only claim I made is that the experiment, as presented, is missing parameters; for which I listed along with why they may have an influence on the results. I didn't assert that they are factors, but said that there's no mention of them and therefore the experiment seems inconclusive.
You can lean on public sentiment all you like, but if 1000 people agree on something based on their opinions/comments, it's just that. What matters is what can back those opinions up. Most of the major breakthroughs in science have been achieved by an individual or small team going against 'group think'. If this wasn't the case, then it wouldn't be a breakthrough because everyone would already know about it; at least sufficiently enough to accept it. Look up the biographies of people like "James Hutton" if you haven't already. He even got knock-backs from people in his own game. He is also now known as the 'Father of Geology'.
Since, according to you, I've proven I'm not counted among the 'intelligent species', then please provide a scientific explanation as to why the points I've raised aren't valid. I'd like to learn ;)
I wonder if moving water makes a difference vs. stagnant water!
i always feel a bit bad for dowsers, they generally so genuinely believe and they do look a little silly when they fail every (properly controlled) time. Great video.
It works. You’ve got to try it yourself.
@@anthonywillis7634 No it doesn't
@@jimbeam8338the experiment is pretty conclusive however I have seen it done successfully. Can’t do it myself but have seen several other people do it. Locating water lines and electrical cables. Go to a farm where they have never been before, no plans, no prior knowledge, locate a spot in an otherwise featureless area, dig the hole and there it is. It works. Don’t know how, but it works.
I did dowse for water and electric current with the doubts that most would have. To my surprise it does work. I used coat hangers balanced on index fingers. Dont 'dis' what you haven't tried yourself. You may be amazed. :-)
Good for you Laurie. I’m sure you are having as much fun reading the comments from the people who can’t dowse trying to convince us that we can’t either. That reply you received from gjaddajg , “Yea, no”
was so profound that I questioned my ability to dowse. Alas, I can still dowse. I’m still waiting for him to give me the “Hard facts.” He thinks if I read and accept them, I won’t be able to dowse anymore.
Enjoy
gjaddajg Nice. Good collection for the 'chance' debate. I don't have anything to offer other than I honestly believe I can find underground water and electricity because I have physically done it. [on the "god" part - guess it all depends on what you would define 'god' as.] (-;
laurie watson Laurie - I doubt that anyone can win the million dollars because the challenge will be rigged, just like in the video.
Duplicate the experiment yourself by putting a jug of water inside a plastic container with a lid (I used my kitchen trash can) and see what happens. Then pour the water from the jug into the container and see what happens.
I am not sure where 'supernatural' comes into play with dowsing for water. All it is is natural telluric currents - nothing 'super' about that. And bummer about that prize; I wouldn't be able to win the cash 'cuz in my opinion supernatural isn't real. Won't catch me watching ghost hunters - lol.
K - so you are more than welcome to have the last word. Unfortunately for you I am one that will stick to what I know because I experienced it. If anyone else wants to give it a shot and try dowsing... they will. Who's to stop them - an article? Probably not. But yes, I enjoyed trying something new and it was really cool that something I had read about in the old Foxfire books actually worked [for me]. Kudos on you articles and studies - I'm sure there are a lot more for you to find. \m/ rock on
Rods don't respond to water, but to voids. Experiment is null
At last - someone who understands how dowsing works!
I want to preface my question with the fact that I am a skeptic and I do not believe in any of these supernatural claims. However...
...how would someone explain the claim made at 1:06, in comparison with something as scientifically provable as the double slit experiment?
This only works with flowing or moving water like pipelines or aquifers. It also works on live underground electrical cables. This "test" was set up to fail right from the start LOL
Oh and it has nothing to do with an imaginary god or having psychic abilities, that's all complete rubbish.
I find the water has to tumble...as what happens in a pipe with mineral build up on the walls.
+19Luke89 That was my immediate though also. Dowsing doesn't detect a 12 oz water bottle in a container. It responds to crevasses within the earth. That test was completely moronic.
+19Luke89 Not that it would have changed anything. Randi (and probably others) tested dowsers using running water with exactly the same result.
See my video DOWSING RESEARCH
I never dowsed water in a trashcan......
What?
Salvation Me neither
I'd like to see the double blind trials done with one setup of having water in ALL the spots and then another with NO water at all. For sure they will get roughly the same amount of "hits" as a test with 50/50 water / no water.
@SensibleStan Test have been done with running water with a similar outcome.
Dowsing only works with flowing water like a river or the sea, that is what creates the energy the dowsing rods pickup. So this experiment is invalid.
so dowsing is the art of discovering flowing rivers or the Ocean? basicly water out in the open and large in size? what's the point then?
***** if, in ancient times, or remote places where you don't know where to get water to survive, being able to find a river would be quite handy wouldn't it!
in ancient times they didn't have steel dowsing rods, whatever rods they used would have to be made out of a non-ferrous material, which would make them fairly impervious to the supposed magnetic Field streams of water produce.
and if it would be handy in ancient times, then what use do we have for this today?
What the hell are you talking about?
I was simply pointing out how these things actually work which makes the experiment void.
Whether you can see a practical use for them is irrelevant.
how is the test invalid when the participants themselves agreed to the terms of the test and would claim success beforehand?
4:13 I love Richard Dawkins, making stupid people cry since 1941 :-D
“I feel the whole test is wrong” - says it all really doesn’t it!
“Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.”
Mark Twain
Everything vibrates at a resonate frequency, dowsing is very similar to a metal detector for purposes of simple explanation. You send out the resonate frequency via tele-kentic capacitance of that which you seek and when you hit the same frequency of that you are searching for it creates an out of phase " Null " which gives the static capacitance in users hands and will move rods,or in metal detector a tone. Most effective way is to have that which you seek as part of the rod handle enclosed so the hands use it's frequency directly thru the body to ground.
Roby Roberts That makes no sense. Well it makes sense if it was true, but you would have to ignore all the other forces and vibrations on this planet. Mostly electromagnetic and gravitation.
Look! someone who barely passed their high school physics class!
I once saw two city workers (in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada) dowsing on the side of a street. One was walking with metal rods, the other was marking the ground with spray paint. Naturally, i walked over, and asked "WTF are you doing with my tax money???"
So the guy explained they are looking for a buried cable, and there was nothing magic about it. Walking over a conductor creates eddie currents in metal rods, causing them to cross. The rods cost less than a metal detector and work better.
I asked to try, and it was actually working! As the men explained, it only works when you walk over an elongated conductor, perpendicular to it, and best when there is a current in it (to create the magnetic field).
In the video here dowsing would not work, because container is round, small, and there is no flow to create the magnetic field. Also, fresh water is not a good conductor of electricity.
That makes sense, considering its an electric cable and magnetic rods.
bullshit. Not even a compass would be sensitive enough for that. Certainly not two metal rods held at weist hight.
BULLSHIT.
This would work if the current was flowing in one direction in a single conductor. With mains AC distribution however, the return path is bundled in the same cable, and these are twisted around each other, cancelling out the magnetic field.
"Walking over a conductor creates eddie currents in metal rods, causing them to cross"
I'm not a dowser but I know some people who use dowsing rods to detect water. They work for Scottish Water and will detect water sources for various local authorities. I know of one person in particular who uses the rods to the exclusion of high tech equipment because it is preferred method. Should I be telling him it doesn't work and that he is delusional?
+thunderrato I deliberately didn't make a point as,unlike some, I don't pretend to know the answer to this debate.
I would be interested to know what point you thought I was trying to make.
As for Richard Dawkin's, although I am an admirer, I find it incredible that someone as intelligent as he obviously is believes that everything has to be proven by science and studies before it is deemed credible.
How delusional.
+thunderrato You haven't understood my original post and you are off on a complete tangent as a result. I asked " Should I be telling him it doesn't work " as Dawkins is suggesting not as I am suggesting. Also I believe there are many things we can't explain with science.
+Liam Mac how is that delusional? if anything it's delusional to simply assume that X causes Y without ruling out A,B,C etc. that's what science does with testing, it gets to the truth of the matter, otherwise you may as well believe in anything,
+1wibble2 I am well aware of how wonderful science is and how well it works. Are you trying to tell me that every phenomena has a scientific explanation because if you are then, in my opinion, that is delusional.
State your reason as to why that is delusional. Think of everything we've learned in the last 100 years alone! People use to worship the Sun as a God because of how little we knew of the Universe.
...or perhaps try a long elevated platform walkway, and place empty and full 50 gallon drums at different distances underneath that are not visible from above.
..and try it in different locations.
They are in a neighborhood, could be water lines under site throwing off test. It also works better on ground water witch is moving in the water table. water isnt just trapped in pockets underground.
I like this, but let's up the ante regarding scientific reasoning. The water in these test were in containers, not moving. When searching for water that has movement such as plumbing or the water table could it possible give different results, especially when a human body is a part of the tool used in the process?
This experiment is useless, totally invalid. The dowsers body has to have some contact with the water. Water rises like damp and a proper experiment would involve the dowser actually standing above the ground beneath which the water was. The water in the ground reacts with the water contained in the dowsers own body, the higher the water content in the dowsers body, the stronger the effect, the lower, the less the effect. This is the only reason it works for some people and not others. Nothing mystical at all just pure science Mr. Dawkins.
Im not trying to start an argument here but any kind of charge developed by water running in an electric pipe would be dissipated through the water and metal pipe itself (they are both conductors of electricity)
The human body has its own electric charges in the nerves so I would think the dowsing rods would be affected by that. Humans are also about 60% water by mass.
If they did a test with a pipe buried in a field and people could accurately determine its orientation Id be sold.
There is nothing super natural about it. This experiment proves that for sure. However I believe humans can sense water underground through some detectable signs and dowsing rods just help them understand this. I tried some sort of dowsing myself. You may have seen people ask questions holding these rods, expecting an answer. I tried doing that and after a little practice I was able to move the rods unconciously. I would love to see an experiment like this on real fields where there is data about underground water and its depth.
exactly. I'd like to ask him "Well then EXPLAIN dowsing to me!"
1.) Again, even bottle water is still flowing.
2.) If all the things you say caused interference, then there would literally be no way to test for anything because there would literally be no way to get away from the interference.
"It does not prove or disprove jack."
Tests have been done for decades and none have ever found dowsing to be anything better than chance.
@OtagoMark It it stated that the "tester/scientist" does not know which containers contain the water either.
What if there is water under the ground?!
I don't know about dowsing for water in a tub, but I have seen my Dad find water on many properties that had dry wells on them. He would find the best spot to drill and could tell you how many feet down it was. He was always right within a couple feet. He even had a couple times that he would tell people to drill their dry well a few more feet to hit water and he was right. He himself is so spooked about his ability that he doesn't charge for his services.
Jeffren70 : Then it should be pretty easy to prove that he can do this.
Water is in the ground every where, and along with aquafers. Telling some to drill deaper to hit water then hitting water doesnt prove jack shit.
Better find another way to test, because it is impossible to dowse surface water like dowsing a lake or river water!
Even if, big emphasis on IF, dowsing works the rods can be easily manipulated by the holder
That's why the fake bomb detectors "worked" during the demonstrations, when the bomb was in user's plain sight.
I mean if you do it for years and you are always guessing the right location then there might be something else in play and not simply water detection. It could be magnetic for instance
Possibly, Though, It is somewhat surprising that the dowsers didn't seem to be aware that their dowsing abilities weren't working. Surely, they should have realised that they weren't picking up on any difference between the "vibes" coming from the sand canisters and the ones coming from the water cannister. Surely, they should have felt some difference between what happens when they are "succeeding" at dowsing and when they are failing to dowse.
You can bury a coin 15", run a metal detector over it within seconds and it will ppick it up. It does not need the halo effect. That is caused by rust/corrosion and this leeches into the ground making the object appear bigger then it is. Some cases, when you dig, you disturb the rust and nothing is there except rust/corrosion.
I hate that this is coming back on TicTok. We learned this was BS back then. How do people forget recent history so quickly?
@CoolGuuy23423 what are the other two parts of the documentary available on CZcams? I've been looking around trying to find them, and I've only found the ones on dowsing and psychic mediums.
Why did they perform the test on stationary water... The people that use this video to discredit dowsing are just as bad as the blind believers
Yet another empty excuse for why the test is wrong. If dowsing worked at all (and for whatever reason didn't work on stationary water), the dowsers would have said they couldn't detect anything. Instead, they ALL made blind guesses, which proves it;s fake.
I think the water in the bottles can’t be detected maybe flowing water has a better chance of the rods to work 🤷♂️
I saw FIVE guys work for TWO days once looking for an old tile drain with prods. We still could not find it in some areas. A dowser came in next day and found the WHOLE thing in two hours including the areas we could not figure out and found some errors in our work. When we began to put the new tile in and reconnect, evidence proved that in EVERY case the dowser was right and We prodders were wrong. You will NEVER convince me dowsing does now work.
What you don't see is how tightly they're holding the rods. I don't have an opinion one way or the other. But I plan to try it to find my water main before the city comes out and marks where it is. I'm having a driveway installed. I'll post my results. I'm not sure about the religious or paranormal aspect of it, but I'm curious to try it.
Drac, the point is that all dowsers that have subjected themselves to double blind tests fail every time. The Amazing Randi's Million Dollar Challenge will award one million dollars to anyone who shows this type of ability. It has to be a fair test agreed to by both sides. Dowsing is just another fairy tale. Why are you taking this personally?
The reality is that one in 5 people have the ability for it to work. It is a skill that needs developing, and over a long time.
I would like to have serious scientists look at this, but not in the manner I have seen tested before.
I fpound that I had the ability when I was 16 and developed the skill over many years. I have found many a lost bore site for land owners.
Debunks dowsing - turns out to be an actor. Debunks dowsing my ass!!
Who is the actor?
15 years later, and people still believe in this
@OtagoMark
Neither James Randi nor Dawkins are looking for god-like abilities. For example, applicants to Randi's challenge simply state what they supposedly know they can do and a test is conducted on the same scale, under controlled conditions to see if that claim is true.
Regarding the tester being present, there is no other choice if they are to ensure a fair experiment. The tester does not know which box the water is in, which should eliminate the problem you mentioned.