randi's test for dowsing
paulw...@my-dejanews.com
dowsers have tried the Randi Challenge. Does anyone
have a detailed description of the conditions laid
downn for the dowsers?
i.e. precautions, setup, witnesses, double-blind etc.
BugBear.
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
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twi...@worldnet.att.net
>Reading the backlog on dowsing it appears that several
>dowsers have tried the Randi Challenge. Does anyone
>have a detailed description of the conditions laid
>downn for the dowsers?
>
>i.e. precautions, setup, witnesses, double-blind etc.
>
IIRC, Randi describes the setup, etc. in Flim-Flam.
No doubt Jack the Ripper excused himself on the
grounds that it was human nature.
A.A. Milne
Tom James
photos and a diagram of the "playing field".
paulw...@my-dejanews.com wrote in message
<7942m6$luu$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>...
>Reading the backlog on dowsing it appears that several
>dowsers have tried the Randi Challenge. Does anyone
>have a detailed description of the conditions laid
>downn for the dowsers?
>
>i.e. precautions, setup, witnesses, double-blind etc.
>
Happy Dog
Wayne D. Hoxsie Jr.
In article <7942m6$luu$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>,
paulw...@my-dejanews.com wrote:
>Reading the backlog on dowsing it appears that several
>dowsers have tried the Randi Challenge. Does anyone
>have a detailed description of the conditions laid
>downn for the dowsers?
I don't know about any recent tests, but in /Flim Flam/ the setup for a
few of the tests is described in detail. The "Playing Field" was laid
out as a 10 x 9 meter rectangle with a water supply at the "North" end
of the rectangle (roughly the middle of the side). A "reservoir" (just
a box where several lines could drain) was placed on the "South" end
about 1/4 width from the "west" end. From the supply, 3 lines branched
away with separate valves to allow any combination of the three lines to
be pressurized. One line was pretty much a straight shot from the
supply to the reservoir. A second line made a straight "west" shot from
the supply, for about 3.5 meters then "south" to enter the playing
field. It proceeds almost due "south" ( a little toward "west") for
about 4 meters, then abruptly changes direction to almost due "east" (a
bit to the "south") for about 3 meters, then about "south" again (again
leaning a bit to the "west") for about another 3 meters. It then goes
due "west" an exits the "playing field" (then wraps around to the
reservoir). A third line proceeds a little "south" of due "east" to
enter the "playing field" about a meter from the "NE" corner on the
"north" edge. It makes a slow turn of just under 180 degrees with a
radius of about a meter to proceed due "west" then exits the playing
field on the west edge. It then loops around the outside of the playing
field to enter the reservoir.
Whew! (Someone once said, "A picture is worth a thousand words.")
Randi seems to cover his bases with this arrangement as there are abrupt
changes in direction, more rounded changes in direction, and straight
runs in both east-west and north-south. Difficult to come up with
excuses after the fact.
Incedently, now "Player" even came close (about 4 or 5 accounts in the
book IIRC).
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--
Wayne D. Hoxsie Jr. KG9ME | I plan to live forever!
postm...@hoxnet.com | (Or die trying.)
http://www.hoxnet.com | Me.
PGP Key ID 138BCEE1 |
Petteri Sulonen
<savag...@mindspring.com> wrote:
> Check out his book "Flim Flam" which details one set of tests and includes
> photos and a diagram of the "playing field".
How about Arthur C. Clarke's criticism of the experiment? IIRC, he pointed
out that for an experiment in Australia involving two tests (one for gold,
one for water in buried pipes), Randi combined the results of the two
experiments in a single table (and found nothing statistically
significant). However, when the experiments are examined separately, the
water-experiment _was_ on the order of 10...20% more successful than
expected. The odds against that were on the order of 1:10,000 against.
ACC even proposed a mechanism to explain the effect (should it exist). It
certainly intrigued me.
-- Petteri
--
"You know what? I'm happy." | BAAWA!
-- Droopy | a.a # pending
twi...@worldnet.att.net
wrote:
>In article <794oh7$ia4$1...@camel25.mindspring.com>, "Tom James"
><savag...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>
>> Check out his book "Flim Flam" which details one set of tests and includes
>> photos and a diagram of the "playing field".
>
>How about Arthur C. Clarke's criticism of the experiment?
Ah, Flim-Flam doesn't have such tests as you are describing.
<snip>
> However, when the experiments are examined separately, the
>water-experiment _was_ on the order of 10...20% more successful than
>expected. The odds against that were on the order of 1:10,000 against.
In the Flim-Flam test, none got any right at all. None were
even close.
Randi has stated that of the people who believe in the
paranormal, dowsers seem to be the most honest in their
beliefs. They are ready to take his tests.
He believes that they are honest in their beliefs, just
deluded.
Mike Hutchinson
is no 'one test' of dowsers. The test will depend upon the claim being
made, the test procedure agreed with the dowser, and the money available
to conduct the test. (Laying of pipes with a water supply can be too
expensive for a one-off test.)
In article <Petteri.Sulonen-...@liri.in.helsinki.fi>,
Petteri Sulonen <Petteri...@helsinki.DIE.SPAM.DIE.fi> writes
>In article <794oh7$ia4$1...@camel25.mindspring.com>, "Tom James"
><savag...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>
>> Check out his book "Flim Flam" which details one set of tests and includes
>> photos and a diagram of the "playing field".
>
>How about Arthur C. Clarke's criticism of the experiment?
How about it? I'm assuming you are referring to the TV series and book
called 'Arthur C. Clarke's World of Strange Powers'. I don't know how
much of the book can be attributed to Clarke and how much to the
producers/writers John Fairley and Simon Welfare. I have both book and a
video of the series from which I quote below.
> IIRC, he pointed
>out that for an experiment in Australia involving two tests (one for gold,
>one for water in buried pipes), Randi combined the results of the two
>experiments in a single table (and found nothing statistically
>significant).
That reads as though Randi was at fault in combining the data. Surely
there was nothing wrong in combining the results to ascertain the
average.
> However, when the experiments are examined separately, the
>water-experiment _was_ on the order of 10...20% more successful than
>expected. The odds against that were on the order of 1:10,000 against.
Not quite. The book of the TV series says:
"Randi ostentatiously folded up the $50,000 cheque and left. The dowsers
went off to the bar, already speculating about what adverse situation
had stymied the tests - perhaps it was the walkie-talkie radios or the
television crews. They had already gone back to the townships of the
outback when an extraordinary fact emerged from the analysis of the
results. Taking only the search for water, and ignoring the search for
the gold nugget, the diviners had scored 22% success - more than twice
as good as mere chance would suggest. Not good enough to part The
Amazing Randi from his money. But good enough...?"
My comments:
I could ignore the suggestion that Randi 'ostentatiously' folded the
cheque and that the dowsers went to the bar. I wonder how
Clarke/Fairley/Welfare know.
They are wrong in suggesting that it was only after the dowsers left
that the water results were analysed. They weren't. They were announced
separately at the end of the tests and in the presence of the dowsers.
There was also a test of dowsing for brass, which isn't mentioned by
CFW.
No, the results were not good enough for the money. The test wasn't to
achieve better than chance results. The dowsers had claimed that they
would achieve between 80% and 100% and a pass of 80% was agreed _with
the dowsers_.
In the television programme, Clarke said:
"What are we to make of Randi's test for dowsing? The experiment was
well-designed but I don't quite agree with his conclusions. The test for
water and the test for metal were entirely separate experiments. He
shouldn't have combined the results. The dowsers were hopeless at
finding metals. They'd have done much better if they'd merely guessed.
"But the results for water are rather impressive. By chance alone the
dowsers should have been right ten percent of the time. Their actual
score was twenty-two percent. The odds are one hundred to one against
that happening by chance. So the dowsers were quite good at locating
water. They weren't as infallible as they claimed to be but they were
distinctly better than Randi admits."
My comments:
I don't see anything wrong with combing the results to see what the
average was. After all:
The dowsers may have been hopeless at dowsing for metal, but they had
claimed otherwise. They weren't FORCED to do the metal dowsing test.
If this had been a one-off test then perhaps results of 100-1 against
chance would be impressive. But there is also a history of dowsing
failure which has to be taken into consideration. It's as though CFW are
ignorant of that.
Yes, they _weren't_ as infallible as some of them had claimed. And they
weren't even anywhere close to the lower 80% figure.
"...distinctly better than Randi admits"? What's that supposed to mean?
The 22% result was announced in front of Randi and the dowsers. Randi
doesn't dispute that figure.
Even with the 22% average, no one did well enough to take the money.
I have just checked a video I have of the test and can report the
following figures:
There were 26 attempts to dowse for brass with none successful
There were 35 attempts to dowse for gold, with four successful
Fifty tries at water dowsing achieved eleven successes.
>ACC even proposed a mechanism to explain the effect (should it exist).
>It certainly intrigued me.
I haven't bothered with Clarke's proposed mechanism. A waste of time,
methinks.
--
Mike Hutchinson
www.hutch.demon.co.uk for details of my book 'Bizarre Beliefs'
Please remove "no.rubbish" from reply to address
Avital Pilpel
>"Randi ostentatiously folded up the $50,000 cheque and left. The dowsers
>went off to the bar, already speculating about what adverse situation
>had stymied the tests - perhaps it was the walkie-talkie radios or the
>television crews. They had already gone back to the townships of the
>outback when an extraordinary fact emerged from the analysis of the
>results. Taking only the search for water, and ignoring the search for
>the gold nugget, the diviners had scored 22% success - more than twice
>as good as mere chance would suggest. Not good enough to part The
>Amazing Randi from his money. But good enough...?"
Wait a minute... THIS is the big dowser's claim for "singnificance"????
It is nothing but after-the-fact reasoning. It is (amost) always possible,
given any sort of data, to "cut it" in some way so that the two or more
"portions" it is cut into seem in retrospect statistically significant.
Try it yourself: Flip a coin 20 times and guess if it will land heads or
tails. Record details about the circumstances of each guess. Now, look at
the guesses you got correct. There will almost certainly be *something* -
e.g., all the correct guesses were those of even numbers, or numbers
divisible by three, or primes, or the guesses you have done with your eyes
closed, or those you used your left hand to toss the coin, or whatnot. Does
this mean you have "amazing powers" which happen to work just in those
cases?
Of course not!
EXACTLY the same thing at work here. If it wasn't that they got the water
tests better than chance, they would have kept looking until they would have
found SOME such group: maybe they did REALLY WELL on the tests they did with
their eyes closed, or the ones when the walkie-talkies were less active, or
when Randi was physically farther away, or something.
But it is just a case of a posteriori rationalization which is ALWAYS
possible, nothing more.
Petteri Sulonen
<ap...@columbia.edu> wrote:
> Mike Hutchinson wrote in message ...
>
> >"Randi ostentatiously folded up the $50,000 cheque and left. The dowsers
> >went off to the bar, already speculating about what adverse situation
> >had stymied the tests - perhaps it was the walkie-talkie radios or the
> >television crews. They had already gone back to the townships of the
> >outback when an extraordinary fact emerged from the analysis of the
> >results. Taking only the search for water, and ignoring the search for
> >the gold nugget, the diviners had scored 22% success - more than twice
> >as good as mere chance would suggest. Not good enough to part The
> >Amazing Randi from his money. But good enough...?"
>
> Wait a minute... THIS is the big dowser's claim for "singnificance"????
>
> It is nothing but after-the-fact reasoning. It is (amost) always possible,
> given any sort of data, to "cut it" in some way so that the two or more
> "portions" it is cut into seem in retrospect statistically significant.
>
> Try it yourself: Flip a coin 20 times and guess if it will land heads or
> tails. Record details about the circumstances of each guess. Now, look at
> the guesses you got correct. There will almost certainly be *something* -
> e.g., all the correct guesses were those of even numbers, or numbers
> divisible by three, or primes, or the guesses you have done with your eyes
> closed, or those you used your left hand to toss the coin, or whatnot. Does
> this mean you have "amazing powers" which happen to work just in those
> cases?
>
> Of course not!
>
> EXACTLY the same thing at work here. If it wasn't that they got the water
> tests better than chance, they would have kept looking until they would have
> found SOME such group: maybe they did REALLY WELL on the tests they did with
> their eyes closed, or the ones when the walkie-talkies were less active, or
> when Randi was physically farther away, or something.
>
> But it is just a case of a posteriori rationalization which is ALWAYS
> possible, nothing more.
No it isn't. It's a case of Randi being a top-notch debunker and magician,
but not a scientist. A good experimenter would *not* have averaged the
data from the gold and the water in the first place. The test for water
and the test for gold were two _different_ experiments, not the same
experiment with random variation like you're talking about.
Varying the circumstances of an experiment to look for sources for error
is the whole point of the variation. Suppose I was trying to synthethize a
compound, and did two experiments along two possible paths using, say, two
different solvents, and then analyzed the yield. I'd most definitely
consider the experiments separately -- if I was doing it as a part of my
studies, I'd certainly have been flunked if I "averaged" the yield in my
report.
The results are far from conclusive, but in my opinion, it's certainly
suggestive enough for another run -- only for water, this time. Dowsing,
IMO, is an interesting 'paranormal' claim in that it's pretty easily
investigated, it's not "impossible" based on what we know about physics
and physiology (unlike TK etc.), *and* if the phenomenon is demonstrated,
it has great significance.
IIRC, the Arthur C. Clarke documentary with the above story also featured
a Texan who had become a millionaire through dowsing for oil -- he had
something like a 75% hit rate for oil wells; a lot better than that of
geologists.
Again, anecdotal and far from conclusive, but, IMHO, suggestive. In my
book, the case on dowsing is not quite closed yet.
Mike Hutchinson
Your last posting strongly suggested that _I_ had written the words in
quotes.
For the record, I didn't write those words. I made it clear that they
were from the book 'Arthur C. Clarke's World of Strange Powers' which
was why I used quote marks.
The rest of your response reads as though you were lecturing to me on
account of the paragraph in quotes. I am keeping the quoted words in
this article but also have a comment or two to make...
In article <798ijv$a3c$1...@newsmaster.cc.columbia.edu>, Avital Pilpel
<ap...@columbia.edu> writes
>Mike Hutchinson wrote in message ...
>
>>"Randi ostentatiously folded up the $50,000 cheque and left. The dowsers
>>went off to the bar, already speculating about what adverse situation
>>had stymied the tests - perhaps it was the walkie-talkie radios or the
>>television crews. They had already gone back to the townships of the
>>outback when an extraordinary fact emerged from the analysis of the
>>results. Taking only the search for water, and ignoring the search for
>>the gold nugget, the diviners had scored 22% success - more than twice
>>as good as mere chance would suggest. Not good enough to part The
>>Amazing Randi from his money. But good enough...?"
>
>Wait a minute... THIS is the big dowser's claim for "singnificance"????
No. It is Arthur C. Clarke/John Fairley/Simon Welfare's claim.
>
>It is nothing but after-the-fact reasoning. It is (amost) always possible,
>given any sort of data, to "cut it" in some way so that the two or more
>"portions" it is cut into seem in retrospect statistically significant.
To clarify, as I said in my last posting, the results for the three
different dowsing tests were announced to the dowsers at the time.
snip.
Mike Hutchinson
Petteri Sulonen <Petteri...@helsinki.DIE.SPAM.DIE.fi> writes
No I didn't. I was quoting from a book.
SNIP of quote from 'Arthur C. Clarke's World of Strange Powers'
Another snip of Avital Pilpel's reply until we reach his last paragraph:
>>
>> But it is just a case of a posteriori rationalization which is ALWAYS
>> possible, nothing more.
>
>No it isn't. It's a case of Randi being a top-notch debunker and magician,
>but not a scientist.
Randi may not be an accredited scientist but he does use scientific
methodology.
> A good experimenter would *not* have averaged the
>data from the gold and the water in the first place.
I thought I had made it clear that it wasn't done in the 'first place'.
The results of the brass, gold, and water dowsing were announced first
for all to see and understand.
> The test for water
>and the test for gold were two _different_ experiments, not the same
>experiment with random variation like you're talking about.
There were THREE different experiments and they were ALL a test of
_dowsing_. If you are checking on the reliability of a railway company's
arrival times it would be reasonable to average them out, athough it
wouldn't be reasonable to include the arrival times of an airline.
>
Snip
>
>The results are far from conclusive, but in my opinion, it's certainly
>suggestive enough for another run -- only for water, this time.
It's not as though this is the first dowsing test ever done. If it was
I'd agree with you. But how many trials of dowsing do you want before
you'll accept that it doesn't work?
> Dowsing, IMO, is an interesting 'paranormal' claim in that it's pretty
>easily investigated,
True. And it has been, probably hundreds of times with negative results
in proper experiments.
>it's not "impossible" based on what we know about physics
>and physiology (unlike TK etc.),
I leave that part of the discussion to those who know more than me about
physics and physiology. The consistent negative results of proper
dowsing tests means more to me than speculation.
>*and* if the phenomenon is demonstrated, it has great significance.
Not if it's as fragile as tests have shown.
>
>IIRC,
The trouble with "IIRC" is that your recollection has gone on record and
may become an accepted 'fact' by some. Your "IIRC" figures were wrong
about the Australian dowsing tests - the results of the water dowsing
experiment were not "on the order of 10...20% more successful than
expected" and your recollection that the "odds against that were on the
order of 1:10,000 against" would also appear to be wrong. Arthur C.
Clarke put it at 100:1.
>the Arthur C. Clarke documentary with the above story also featured
>a Texan who had become a millionaire through dowsing for oil -- he had
>something like a 75% hit rate for oil wells;
I've checked the video and I am pleased to report that your recollection
here is a little better than previously. I don't know if the dowser -
Clayton McDowell - is a Texan because I couldn't recognize his accent.
He works in Illinois.
A geologist (Paul Mullinax) said on the programme: "The results speak
for themselves. He has a better success ratio than almost anyone that I
know of in this area. About 75% of all the wells they drill have been
commercial producers."
> a lot better than that of geologists.
We aren't told whether the 'anyone that I know of in this area' refers
to other dowsers or geologists. Nor are we told what the results for
geology are. McDowell, however, is said to claim 90% success.
We are also told by the narrator that McDowell's dowsing rod has bought
him a stud of fine trotting horses. That doesn't prove that dowsing
works but I'm sure the producers were impressed.
>Again, anecdotal and far from conclusive, but, IMHO, suggestive. In my
>book, the case on dowsing is not quite closed yet.
And what _would_ close it for you? Don't you consider the history of
failure in properly controlled trials? Do you put anecdotal evidence
above those failures?
plden...@ameritech.net
paulw...@my-dejanews.com wrote:
> Reading the backlog on dowsing it appears that several
> dowsers have tried the Randi Challenge. Does anyone
> have a detailed description of the conditions laid
> downn for the dowsers?
>
>
I don't know about how Randi has addressed it, but the last issue of
"Skeptical Inquirer" has a lengthy article on a German dowsing study which
was purported to have shown real ability by some of the dowsers. In fact,
strenuous study of the data showed exactly the opposite. More to your
question, however, the designers of the study bent over backwards to
accommodate the testees. They first selected from a much larger pool, only
accepting those who passed some preliminary tests, so as to winnow out the
outright frauds. They allowed the dowsers to help set up the conditions,
each was tested multiple times, and if they didn't "feel right" on a certain
test date they could reschedule the test.
-------------------
Phil Dennison
Cleveland, Ohio
David Hanley
> No it isn't. It's a case of Randi being a top-notch debunker and magician,
> but not a scientist.
His merits as a scientist should be determined by his use of the scientific
method, which appears to be pretty good in this case.
> A good experimenter would *not* have averaged the
> data from the gold and the water in the first place.
And why not?
> The test for water
> and the test for gold were two _different_ experiments,
How so? The dowsers claimed that they could find water and
metal buried beneath the ground. This tested that claim.
> Varying the circumstances of an experiment to look for sources for error
> is the whole point of the variation. Suppose I was trying to synthethize a
> compound, and did two experiments along two possible paths using, say, two
> different solvents, and then analyzed the yield. I'd most definitely
> consider the experiments separately -- if I was doing it as a part of my
> studies, I'd certainly have been flunked if I "averaged" the yield in my
> report.
If your goal was to find the difference, yes, tht's true.
However, the test was to determine the accuracy
of the dowsers as per their claims. period. If your test was to determine
if any solvent would work at all, and there was some statistical element,
you'd be valid in doing so, but in chemistry there are billions of events
so stoichastically you get vastly more valid results. Randi was 100% valid
in averaging the results because:
1) It was a test of the dowser's claims.
2) It gave him a bigger sample size, and helped to remove
experimaental error.
> The results are far from conclusive, but in my opinion, it's certainly
> suggestive enough for another run -- only for water, this time. Dowsing,
> IMO, is an interesting 'paranormal' claim in that it's pretty easily
> investigated, it's not "impossible" based on what we know about physics
> and physiology (unlike TK etc.), *and* if the phenomenon is demonstrated,
> it has great significance.
I agree that it could be tried again, but there have been many dowsing
studies
already, and certianly not because of the aforementioned test.
>
>
> IIRC, the Arthur C. Clarke documentary with the above story also featured
> a Texan who had become a millionaire through dowsing for oil -- he had
> something like a 75% hit rate for oil wells; a lot better than that of
> geologists.
I would like to see actual documentation on this. Did a disinterested third
party verify all of his guesses, or is this merely his claim? I think the
economic motive to lie here is obvious.
dave
Mike Hutchinson
writes
>Petteri Sulonen wrote:
>> IIRC, the Arthur C. Clarke documentary with the above story also featured
>> a Texan who had become a millionaire through dowsing for oil -- he had
>> something like a 75% hit rate for oil wells; a lot better than that of
>> geologists.
>
> I would like to see actual documentation on this. Did a disinterested third
>party verify all of his guesses, or is this merely his claim? I think the
>economic motive to lie here is obvious.
Dave, I responded to Petteri yesterday. Perhaps you can pick up my
reply. If not, let me know and I'll e-mail it to you.
Petteri Sulonen
<mi...@hutch.demon.no.rubbish.co.uk> wrote:
> > The test for water
> >and the test for gold were two _different_ experiments, not the same
> >experiment with random variation like you're talking about.
>
> There were THREE different experiments and they were ALL a test of
> _dowsing_. If you are checking on the reliability of a railway company's
> arrival times it would be reasonable to average them out, athough it
> wouldn't be reasonable to include the arrival times of an airline.
Ah, but what if dowsing only works for water, not for metals? I consider
Randi's test to demonstrate pretty conclusively that it *doesn't* work for
metals. As I know of no other trials either way, it left the "water"
question open for me.
> >The results are far from conclusive, but in my opinion, it's certainly
> >suggestive enough for another run -- only for water, this time.
>
> It's not as though this is the first dowsing test ever done. If it was
> I'd agree with you. But how many trials of dowsing do you want before
> you'll accept that it doesn't work?
Just one more, with the same test circumstances, using only water. If you
can point to such a trial being done and coming up with zip, I'll be happy
to accept that it doesn't work.
> True. And it has been, probably hundreds of times with negative results
> in proper experiments.
Name one more, and I'm satisfied.
[snip]
> >*and* if the phenomenon is demonstrated, it has great significance.
>
> Not if it's as fragile as tests have shown.
Well who peed on your Wheaties? Of _course_ it's not significant if it
doesn't work. Duh.
> >IIRC,
>
> The trouble with "IIRC" is that your recollection has gone on record and
> may become an accepted 'fact' by some. Your "IIRC" figures were wrong
> about the Australian dowsing tests - the results of the water dowsing
> experiment were not "on the order of 10...20% more successful than
> expected" and your recollection that the "odds against that were on the
> order of 1:10,000 against" would also appear to be wrong. Arthur C.
> Clarke put it at 100:1.
Well, gee I'm sorry about that! If I can only talk about stuff I have a
100% certain reference for I won't have much to talk about -- and neither
have you. That's the whole point of the AFAIKs and the IIRCs.
As to "spreading disinformation", I think that people who are willing to
believe anything they see on the Internet won't be any worse off after
that.
[snip]
> >Again, anecdotal and far from conclusive, but, IMHO, suggestive. In my
> >book, the case on dowsing is not quite closed yet.
>
> And what _would_ close it for you? Don't you consider the history of
> failure in properly controlled trials? Do you put anecdotal evidence
> above those failures?
For the last time: point me towards *ONE* experiment with the same
arrangements as Randi's, with *ONLY* water, and show it comes up with zip,
and I'll consider the case closed. All those IIRC's etc. are there to
point out that *I*DON'T*KNOW* about this stuff, and am willing to be
enlightened by those who do.
While you're at it, do you know of any controlled experiments done with
oil? The "anecdote" above also seems suggestive enough to warrant *doing*
such an experiment.
You've talked about "hundreds of experiments" but have failed to provide a
single reference, while slapping my wrist about having incorrect data
after an IIRC. And insinuating that I put anecdotal evidence above results
of experiments which I don't agree with -- which I consider a serious
insult. Show me where I've done *that* or shut the fuck up about it.
twi...@worldnet.att.net
wrote:
>In article <hdQQxAAP...@hutch.demon.co.uk>, Mike Hutchinson
><mi...@hutch.demon.no.rubbish.co.uk> wrote:
>
<snip>
>> It's not as though this is the first dowsing test ever done. If it was
>> I'd agree with you. But how many trials of dowsing do you want before
>> you'll accept that it doesn't work?
>
>Just one more, with the same test circumstances, using only water. If you
>can point to such a trial being done and coming up with zip, I'll be happy
>to accept that it doesn't work.
>
The test is described in Flim-Flam by James Randi
Promtheus books copyright 1982, my copy is the 8th printing.
A detailed description starts on page 308 and goes on for
quite a few pages.
The dowsers thought that they could do close to 100%
accuracy, some only claimed 98%. They did 0%.
<snip>
Mike Combs
>
> Petteri...@helsinki.DIE.SPAM.DIE.fi (Petteri Sulonen)
> wrote:
>
> >In article <hdQQxAAP...@hutch.demon.co.uk>, Mike Hutchinson
> ><mi...@hutch.demon.no.rubbish.co.uk> wrote:
> <snip>
> >> you'll accept that it doesn't work?
> >
> >Just one more, with the same test circumstances, using only water. If you
> >can point to such a trial being done and coming up with zip, I'll be happy
> >to accept that it doesn't work.
> >
>
> The test is described in Flim-Flam by James Randi
> Promtheus books copyright 1982, my copy is the 8th printing.
>
> A detailed description starts on page 308 and goes on for
> quite a few pages.
>
> The dowsers thought that they could do close to 100%
> accuracy, some only claimed 98%. They did 0%.
Now comes the moment of drama! Will anybody actually modify their
world-view? Drum-roll please...
--
Regards,
Mike Combs
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Hey, where's the moonbase? Where're the Eagles? What a rip...
Mike Hutchinson
Petteri Sulonen <Petteri...@helsinki.DIE.SPAM.DIE.fi> writes
>In article <hdQQxAAP...@hutch.demon.co.uk>, Mike Hutchinson
><mi...@hutch.demon.no.rubbish.co.uk> wrote:
>
>Ah, but what if dowsing only works for water, not for metals?
Because dowsers claim otherwise. Should their claims to be able to dowse
for _anything_ other than water be ignored? (In view of the four letter
word at the end of your last posting perhaps I shouldn't ask questions
of you.)
> I consider Randi's test to demonstrate pretty conclusively that it
>*doesn't* work for metals.
I am surprised how you are so content to reach a conclusion based on two
experiments of 61 runs. I don't think that this one occasion
demonstrates _anything_ "pretty conclusively".
>As I know of no other trials either way, it left the "water"
>question open for me.
>Just one more, with the same test circumstances, using only water. If you
>can point to such a trial being done and coming up with zip, I'll be happy
>to accept that it doesn't work.
Randi's tests in Italy have been mentioned a number of times on this NG.
You can read all about them in 'Flim-Flam!' (Prometheus Books)
>> True. And it has been, probably hundreds of times with negative results
>> in proper experiments.
>
>Name one more, and I'm satisfied.
Randi's Italian test also involved buried pipes, although the protocol
was somewhat different from the Australian one. The pipes in Italy were
not straight and the dowsers were supposed to be able to locate their
routes.
>
>[snip]
>
>> >*and* if the phenomenon is demonstrated, it has great significance.
>>
>> Not if it's as fragile as tests have shown.
>
>Well who peed on your Wheaties?
There _is_ an answer to that but I can afford to be magnanimous.
> Of _course_ it's not significant if it
>doesn't work. Duh.
But you weren't prepared to accept that it doesn't work, preferring
instead to take note of Arthur C. Clarke's comments.
>> >IIRC,
>>
>> The trouble with "IIRC" is that your recollection has gone on record and
>> may become an accepted 'fact' by some. Your "IIRC" figures were wrong
>> about the Australian dowsing tests - the results of the water dowsing
>> experiment were not "on the order of 10...20% more successful than
>> expected" and your recollection that the "odds against that were on the
>> order of 1:10,000 against" would also appear to be wrong. Arthur C.
>> Clarke put it at 100:1.
>
>Well, gee I'm sorry about that!
I'm pleased you see the error of your ways. :-)
> If I can only talk about stuff I have a 100% certain reference for I
>won't have much to talk about...
It's your quoting percentages without checking that I find discouraging.
You could have just claimed that "the water-experiment _was_ more
successful than expected. The odds against that were very high", or
similar.
Anyway, how are we to know how much of your paragraph or article the
"IIRC" covers?
>-- and neither have you.
Much of the stuff that I post to the Internet is researched. I
_wouldn't_ quote percentages if I wasn't sure of them. I have the Arthur
C. Clarke book and a video of the series, PLUS a video of 'Randi in
Australia'. I thought it better to check them before posting. OK, so you
either don't have any of these or you didn't want to check them.
>That's the whole point of the AFAIKs and the IIRCs.
As general recollections they are fine, but 'recollecting' that a result
of 1:100 was 1:10,000 against doesn't help the reader. They may not
believe that someone's 'recollection' could be that wrong. It's
fortunate that not only do I have the video but I bothered to check so
that folks reading this thread can be better informed.
>As to "spreading disinformation", I think that people who are willing to
>believe anything they see on the Internet won't be any worse off after
>that.
I don't think that is a good excuse for being cavalier with the content
of postings.
I find that my acceptance of stuff on the Internet depends upon the
source. I hope that the discerning ones out there will learn who and
what is reliable. Whenever possible I don't supply philosophy so much as
quotes from referenced sources or information about my own experiences.
That lets people make up their minds based on more evidence than they
would otherwise have.
I'm sure that there are many people who would love to jump all over
Randi on the basis of your recollections. They just KNOW that Randi is
that wrong.
>
>[snip]
>
>> >Again, anecdotal and far from conclusive, but, IMHO, suggestive. In my
>> >book, the case on dowsing is not quite closed yet.
>>
>> And what _would_ close it for you? Don't you consider the history of
>> failure in properly controlled trials? Do you put anecdotal evidence
>> above those failures?
>
>For the last time: point me towards *ONE* experiment with the same
>arrangements as Randi's, with *ONLY* water, and show it comes up with zip,
>and I'll consider the case closed.
As far as I know [:-)] the only two experiments with more than one
dowser and buried pipes were both carried out by Randi. As I said above,
they had different protocols. Perhaps you wouldn't accept anything less
than another _identical_ experiment carried out by someone other than
Randi. Unfortunately for dowsing proponents the failure of dowsing
doesn't rely solely on Randi's experiments.
> All those IIRC's etc. are there to
>point out that *I*DON'T*KNOW* about this stuff, and am willing to be
>enlightened by those who do.
You didn't say 'I don't know'. You said 'if I recall correctly' - and
recollected _incorrectly_. Sometimes a question would be better than an
"IIRC". And the cases in point are two such instances.
>
>While you're at it, do you know of any controlled experiments done with
>oil? The "anecdote" above also seems suggestive enough to warrant *doing*
>such an experiment.
No I do not know of any experiments done just with oil. If there aren't
any, perhaps the only thing dowsing works with _is_ oil. :-)
A letter written to 'The Independent' newspaper in the UK (23.9.88) by a
petroleum economist who supported water dowsing said: "...it is a big
step from that (dowsing rods moving) to divining for oil. Many an oil
company has been taken in by such claims from inventors with 'little
black boxes'. None of them has ever worked."
>You've talked about "hundreds of experiments" but have failed to provide a
>single reference, while slapping my wrist about having incorrect data
>after an IIRC.
I spoke about 'probably' hundreds of experiments. I didn't consider that
a list of references was required. But since you ask here are some more
recent ones:
The Skeptic (Australia) 9.4:11 The 1989 Australian Skeptics Divining
Tests (Ian Bryce)
Skeptical Inquirer 8.2:138 A New Controlled Dowsing Experiment (Michael
Martin)
Skeptical Inquirer 8.2:138 The Great $110,000 Dowsing Challenge (James
Randi)
Skeptical Inquirer 12.3:234 Failure of Avalanche Dowsing in Controlled
Tests in Norway (Rolf Manne)
New Scientist 22 October 1981
Journal of the Society for Psychical Research Vol 40 No. 699 March, 1959
Examination of a Dowser (Denys Parsons)
Skeptical Inquirer 23.1:39 (Jan/Feb 1999) Testing Dowsing: The Failure
of the Munich Experiments J. T. Enright
I also have a chapter on dowsing from a book called 'Popular Fallacies'
published in 1950 which mentions a lot of dowsing reports going back
over a hundred years which do not support dowsing.
(Petteri, I can send the chapter from 'Popular Fallacies' to you by e-
mail if you'll let me know what sort of text file you have software to
read (i.e. html, WordPerfect, etc.). I'd rather send it to you formatted
with names of journals and magazines in italics than plain text.)
But it appears that no one ever learns. The main reason for that is
probably because dowsing _appears_ to work because the rods/pendulums
_do_ move. But there is evidence to show that they move because dowsers
either KNOW the answer, or THINK they know the answer. In the former
case the rod moves with 100% accuracy and in the latter only as much as
chance.
While researching this response I was looking at the above mentioned
article in the 'Journal of the Society for Psychical Research' in which
Denys Parsons tested a dowser who claimed that he could detect even a
drop of oil on the sole of someone's shoe. Denys left the room and put a
drop of oil on the left sole of one of a pair of shoes (determined at
random by the toss of a coin). The dowser subsequently got the dowsing
reaction on the right shoe but nothing on the left. When told that the
oil was on the left sole he was able to get the dowsing reaction over
that shoe. The experiment was repeated a second time with a pair of
wellingtons. The oil was on the left sole; the dowser got the dowsing
reaction on the right shoe until told that the oil was on the left. Then
he was able to get the reaction he wanted.
There are other cases too in which dowsers have got a dowsing reaction
when falsely believing they knew the answer. One of these concerned a
dowser who saw a bar of gold being placed in a cardboard box. He was
expected to test the box to see if cardboard interfered with the dowsing
reaction. Instead of going straight to the box with the gold in it he
went along the line of boxes which were to be used in the experiment and
got the dowsing reaction over an _empty_ box. He had forgotten which box
contained the gold.
> And insinuating that I put anecdotal evidence above results
>of experiments which I don't agree with -- which I consider a serious
>insult.
If asking you the question: "Do you put anecdotal evidence
above those failures?" is an insult then I plead guilty. After all _you_
had deemed the story of the millionaire oil dowser to have some
importance. Why else would you have mentioned it.
> Show me where I've done *that* or shut the fuck up about it.
As English isn't your first language I will overlook your crudity.
Having written all the above I am, nevertheless, sorry that you feel so
insulted by my criticism. I hope you can accept the point I made.
Petteri Sulonen
twi...@worldnet.att.net wrote:
> <snip>
> >> It's not as though this is the first dowsing test ever done. If it was
> >> you'll accept that it doesn't work?
> >
> >Just one more, with the same test circumstances, using only water. If you
> >can point to such a trial being done and coming up with zip, I'll be happy
> >to accept that it doesn't work.
> >
> Promtheus books copyright 1982, my copy is the 8th printing.
>
> A detailed description starts on page 308 and goes on for
> quite a few pages.
>
> The dowsers thought that they could do close to 100%
> accuracy, some only claimed 98%. They did 0%.
OK. As long as no-one challenges the source (that is, if that _is_ a
different test that's being described and not the sameone), I'll consider
the case closed. Thanks for enlightening me. Still, 0% would be pretty
unlikely too -- they ought to get a _few_ right by chance!
Paul G. Wenthold
Depends on the protocol. In the Italian experiments, Randi ran pipe
underground in various directions, and the dowsers were to determine
the direction of the pipe underground when there was water running trough
them. They had to lay a path of little flags, and they had to be within 10 cm
or so of a pipe in order to classify as a hit. Some may have actually
done so if they crossed over one of the water lines. If they laid 100 flags,
there might have be 1 or 2 within the specs. Nobody even came close to
following one of the pipes for even 1 ft length.
All the details are in Flim-Flam.
paul
--
The average American is 35.2 years old, makes $18,136 a year,
and is half-male and half-female.
twi...@worldnet.att.net
wrote:
>In article <36bb0e79...@netnews.worldnet.att.net>,
>twi...@worldnet.att.net wrote:
>> <snip>
>> >> It's not as though this is the first dowsing test ever done. If it was
>> >> I'd agree with you. But how many trials of dowsing do you want before
>> >> you'll accept that it doesn't work?
>> >
>> >Just one more, with the same test circumstances, using only water. If you
>> >can point to such a trial being done and coming up with zip, I'll be happy
>> >to accept that it doesn't work.
>> >
>> The test is described in Flim-Flam by James Randi
>> Promtheus books copyright 1982, my copy is the 8th printing.
>>
>> A detailed description starts on page 308 and goes on for
>> quite a few pages.
>>
>> The dowsers thought that they could do close to 100%
>> accuracy, some only claimed 98%. They did 0%.
>
>OK. As long as no-one challenges the source (that is, if that _is_ a
>different test that's being described and not the sameone), I'll consider
>the case closed. Thanks for enlightening me. Still, 0% would be pretty
>unlikely too -- they ought to get a _few_ right by chance!
>
This was the test of the Italian dowsers. They laid pipes
under the ground and arranged by a series of valves that
would allow water to run through them.
The dowsers all agreed ahead of time and thought that they
could do it with an accuracy of at least the high 90%. The
test was set up so that if they could really do it, they
could reach the much lower percentage required to pass the
challenge. (Randi didn't want to be accused of making it
too difficult so didn't accept their word for the high 90%
or 100% depending on the dowser.)
But, if they couldn't do it, the odds were low that they
would get any hits at all. Or why the 0% isn't that
suprising.
Randi has frequently stated that dowsers seem to be honest
and truly believe that they have this power.
Petteri Sulonen
<mi...@hutch.demon.no.rubbish.co.uk> wrote:
> In article <Petteri.Sulonen-...@trim.in.helsinki.fi>,
> Petteri Sulonen <Petteri...@helsinki.DIE.SPAM.DIE.fi> writes
>
> >In article <hdQQxAAP...@hutch.demon.co.uk>, Mike Hutchinson
> ><mi...@hutch.demon.no.rubbish.co.uk> wrote:
> >
> >Ah, but what if dowsing only works for water, not for metals?
>
> Because dowsers claim otherwise. Should their claims to be able to dowse
> for _anything_ other than water be ignored? (In view of the four letter
> word at the end of your last posting perhaps I shouldn't ask questions
> of you.)
They should be tested. They might be wrong about the metals, right about
water. Besides, there are plenty of dowsers around who only claim success
for water.
I'm sorry if the "four-letter word" offended your sensibilities. However,
*I* was miffed by your assuming things about the way I reach my
conclusions. That was rather personal -- and offensive.
> > I consider Randi's test to demonstrate pretty conclusively that it
> >*doesn't* work for metals.
>
> I am surprised how you are so content to reach a conclusion based on two
> experiments of 61 runs. I don't think that this one occasion
> demonstrates _anything_ "pretty conclusively".
Let me explain.
Dowsing is a 'paranormal claim' that's easily investigated. My "starting
assumption" is that it doesn't work -- like most of the other claims of
the paranormal. Therefore, if someone conducts a careful experiment that
comes up with zip, I consider that it's been demonstrated that it, indeed,
doesn't work. Case closed, pretty much.
However, if an experiment comes up with even *something* -- like Randi's
Australian one with water -- I think that further investigation is
necessary. Even if dowsing only works at 20% higher than random chance, it
would be very significant. At the very least we might learn something
about how humans perceive their surroundings. Therefore, I'd consider it
pretty imperative that additional trials be conducted -- was it a fluke,
post-hoc rationalization, or a genuine phenomenon?
Therefore, I conclude that Randi demonstrated "pretty conclusively" that
dowsing doesn't work for metals. However, that experiment left the
question open for water. Ergo, I'd like to know of further experiments.
[snip]
> Randi's tests in Italy have been mentioned a number of times on this NG.
> You can read all about them in 'Flim-Flam!' (Prometheus Books)
But the circumstances were different -- it doesn't qualify as a 'repeat
experiment'. (See below for more.)
> >> True. And it has been, probably hundreds of times with negative results
> >> in proper experiments.
> >
> >Name one more, and I'm satisfied.
>
> Randi's Italian test also involved buried pipes, although the protocol
> was somewhat different from the Australian one. The pipes in Italy were
> not straight and the dowsers were supposed to be able to locate their
> routes.
If there are 'hundreds' of such experiments, would you care to mention
_one_ with a setup like the one in Australia? The Italian one was more
difficult. If dowsing only works at ca 20% efficiency, I wouldn't _expect_
the dowser to be able to track a water pipe below ground. Say dowsing
works about as well as a toddler walks. I wouldn't make the toddler walk a
tightrope to test his/her walking ability!
[snip]
> > Of _course_ it's not significant if it
> >doesn't work. Duh.
>
> But you weren't prepared to accept that it doesn't work, preferring
> instead to take note of Arthur C. Clarke's comments.
How many times do I have to say this? I was and am *PERFECTLY* ready to
accept that it doesn't work -- if it's demonstrated not to work, with a
repeat experiment!!!
(Do you really wonder I used the f-word?)
At best, I think there's a small chance that it might work at ca 20%
effectiveness -- which would be very interesting and require some serious
thinking about the explanation! Definitely interesting enough to run a
repeat experiment.
> >> >IIRC,
> >>
> >> The trouble with "IIRC" is that your recollection has gone on record and
> >> may become an accepted 'fact' by some. Your "IIRC" figures were wrong
> >> about the Australian dowsing tests - the results of the water dowsing
> >> experiment were not "on the order of 10...20% more successful than
> >> expected" and your recollection that the "odds against that were on the
> >> order of 1:10,000 against" would also appear to be wrong. Arthur C.
> >> Clarke put it at 100:1.
> >
> >Well, gee I'm sorry about that!
>
> I'm pleased you see the error of your ways. :-)
*Some* of us can learn. Maybe you'll learn not to jump to conclusions
regarding the things people believe -- or not, or are ready to believe (or
not). Reading your msg, though, it doesn't look too good.
> > If I can only talk about stuff I have a 100% certain reference for I
> >won't have much to talk about...
>
> It's your quoting percentages without checking that I find discouraging.
> You could have just claimed that "the water-experiment _was_ more
> successful than expected. The odds against that were very high", or
> similar.
I stand corrected. I'll do something like that the next time around.
However, you may recall that my "percentages" included a whole bunch of
qualifiers -- I never portrayed them as exact.
> Anyway, how are we to know how much of your paragraph or article the
> "IIRC" covers?
>
> >-- and neither have you.
>
> Much of the stuff that I post to the Internet is researched. I
> _wouldn't_ quote percentages if I wasn't sure of them. I have the Arthur
> C. Clarke book and a video of the series, PLUS a video of 'Randi in
> Australia'. I thought it better to check them before posting. OK, so you
> either don't have any of these or you didn't want to check them.
I don't have either. That's why I asked -- I was interested to hear from
those who know better.
> >That's the whole point of the AFAIKs and the IIRCs.
>
> As general recollections they are fine, but 'recollecting' that a result
> of 1:100 was 1:10,000 against doesn't help the reader. They may not
> believe that someone's 'recollection' could be that wrong. It's
> fortunate that not only do I have the video but I bothered to check so
> that folks reading this thread can be better informed.
Much appreciated. As stated, next time I won't quote numbers from money.
[snip]
> As far as I know [:-)] the only two experiments with more than one
> dowser and buried pipes were both carried out by Randi. As I said above,
> they had different protocols. Perhaps you wouldn't accept anything less
> than another _identical_ experiment carried out by someone other than
> Randi. Unfortunately for dowsing proponents the failure of dowsing
> doesn't rely solely on Randi's experiments.
I'd accept another _identical_ experiment even if it was carried out by
Randi. I trust him not to diddle the figures.
> You didn't say 'I don't know'. You said 'if I recall correctly' - and
> recollected _incorrectly_. Sometimes a question would be better than an
> "IIRC". And the cases in point are two such instances.
Point taken.
> >While you're at it, do you know of any controlled experiments done with
> >oil? The "anecdote" above also seems suggestive enough to warrant *doing*
> >such an experiment.
>
> No I do not know of any experiments done just with oil. If there aren't
> any, perhaps the only thing dowsing works with _is_ oil. :-)
>
> A letter written to 'The Independent' newspaper in the UK (23.9.88) by a
> petroleum economist who supported water dowsing said: "...it is a big
> step from that (dowsing rods moving) to divining for oil. Many an oil
> company has been taken in by such claims from inventors with 'little
> black boxes'. None of them has ever worked."
>
> >You've talked about "hundreds of experiments" but have failed to provide a
> >single reference, while slapping my wrist about having incorrect data
> >after an IIRC.
>
> I spoke about 'probably' hundreds of experiments. I didn't consider that
> a list of references was required. But since you ask here are some more
> recent ones:
[references snipped]
OK, I'll take your word for it that all those experiments came up with
zip. In which case there's probably nothing to it. <sigh>
[snip]
[bigger snip re dowsing and "knowing the answer"]
> > And insinuating that I put anecdotal evidence above results
> >of experiments which I don't agree with -- which I consider a serious
> >insult.
>
> If asking you the question: "Do you put anecdotal evidence
> above those failures?" is an insult then I plead guilty. After all _you_
> had deemed the story of the millionaire oil dowser to have some
> importance. Why else would you have mentioned it.
Your post was pretty hostile, and that kind of a question is a leading
one. "Do you give blowjobs to goats?" is asking a question, but a very
offensive one. Similarly, I was offended by your "question".
> > Show me where I've done *that* or shut the fuck up about it.
>
> As English isn't your first language I will overlook your crudity.
Incidentally, that's the second time I've used profanity over the Usenet
in something like six years or so. I'm perfectly familiar with the word
and its usage -- no need to make allowances for my "English as a second
language" status.
> Having written all the above I am, nevertheless, sorry that you feel so
> insulted by my criticism. I hope you can accept the point I made.
It wasn't the criticism -- it was the assumptions you made about my
character. Your point is taken. Now, if you'll apologise for the
insinuations you made, I'll apologise for the profanity. Deal?
Mike Hutchinson
Petteri Sulonen <Petteri...@helsinki.DIE.SPAM.DIE.fi> writes
>In article <CqiocAAH...@hutch.demon.co.uk>, Mike Hutchinson
><mi...@hutch.demon.no.rubbish.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> In article <Petteri.Sulonen-...@trim.in.helsinki.fi>,
>> Petteri Sulonen <Petteri...@helsinki.DIE.SPAM.DIE.fi> writes
>>
>> >In article <hdQQxAAP...@hutch.demon.co.uk>, Mike Hutchinson
>> ><mi...@hutch.demon.no.rubbish.co.uk> wrote:
>> >
>> >Ah, but what if dowsing only works for water, not for metals?
>>
>> Because dowsers claim otherwise. Should their claims to be able to dowse
>> for _anything_ other than water be ignored? (In view of the four letter
>> word at the end of your last posting perhaps I shouldn't ask questions
>> of you.)
>
>They should be tested. They might be wrong about the metals, right about
>water.
This thread could go on forever. As I have already said there are
'probably hundreds' of tests of dowsers which have been negative. Does
the one blip from the Australian tests change all that? I think not.
> Besides, there are plenty of dowsers around who only claim success
>for water.
If I had written this you would be asking for references. I won't. But I
would ask you whether those water dowsers would claim that _other_
dowsers can find metal?
>
>I'm sorry if the "four-letter word" offended your sensibilities.
It doesn't offend my sensibilities but it does reduce the level of
debate.
> However,
>*I* was miffed by your assuming things about the way I reach my
>conclusions. That was rather personal -- and offensive.
The points you made raised questions about your conclusions. Using
Arthur C. Clarke as an expert for example. I'd say that Randi knows more
about dowsers and dowsing than he does.
>> > I consider Randi's test to demonstrate pretty conclusively that it
>> >*doesn't* work for metals.
>>
>> I am surprised how you are so content to reach a conclusion based on two
>> experiments of 61 runs. I don't think that this one occasion
>> demonstrates _anything_ "pretty conclusively".
>
>Let me explain.
>
>Dowsing is a 'paranormal claim' that's easily investigated.
It is easily investigated. And it has been well investigated. With many
negative results.
> My "starting
>assumption" is that it doesn't work -- like most of the other claims of
>the paranormal. Therefore, if someone conducts a careful experiment that
>comes up with zip, I consider that it's been demonstrated that it, indeed,
>doesn't work. Case closed, pretty much.
>
>However, if an experiment comes up with even *something* -- like Randi's
>Australian one with water -- I think that further investigation is
>necessary. Even if dowsing only works at 20% higher than random chance, it
>would be very significant. At the very least we might learn something
>about how humans perceive their surroundings.
How would we learn that? What is there for them to perceive? If there's
something for them to perceive in a controlled double-blind experiment
then the experiment is faulty.
> Therefore, I'd consider it
>pretty imperative that additional trials be conducted -- was it a fluke,
>post-hoc rationalization, or a genuine phenomenon?
Other results in properly controlled tests suggest it was a fluke. So
following every fluke we should forget all the previous negative results
and do more experiments? In that way, the claims of dowsers will
continue to be tested for the rest of humanity's existence.
>Therefore, I conclude that Randi demonstrated "pretty conclusively" that
>dowsing doesn't work for metals. However, that experiment left the
>question open for water. Ergo, I'd like to know of further experiments.
Does the experiment leave the question open for water? If it does, then
NO EXPERIMENT or collection of experiments will ever resolve the
question. Or are you suggesting that it leaves the question open _under
those conditions_. Maybe dowsing works with those _pipes_ at that depth,
in that part of the world, on that day of the week and with those people
present. Under other test conditions it fails.
>
>[snip]
>
>> Randi's tests in Italy have been mentioned a number of times on this NG.
>> You can read all about them in 'Flim-Flam!' (Prometheus Books)
>
>But the circumstances were different -- it doesn't qualify as a 'repeat
>experiment'. (See below for more.)
I didn't think you'd accept it as a repeat - or even relevant - which is
why I described how different it was.
>
>> >> True. And it has been, probably hundreds of times with negative results
>> >> in proper experiments.
>> >
>> >Name one more, and I'm satisfied.
>>
>> Randi's Italian test also involved buried pipes, although the protocol
>> was somewhat different from the Australian one. The pipes in Italy were
>> not straight and the dowsers were supposed to be able to locate their
>> routes.
>
>If there are 'hundreds' of such experiments, would you care to mention
>_one_ with a setup like the one in Australia?
I thought my last posting made it clear that there isn't another
experiment _exactly_ the same as the Australian one.
So the only protocol you will accept is one _exactly_ the same as the
one in Australia? What's wrong with the other protocols?
> The Italian one was more
>difficult. If dowsing only works at ca 20% efficiency, I wouldn't _expect_
>the dowser to be able to track a water pipe below ground.
But the dowsers were confident that they _could_. That was the whole
point of the test.
> Say dowsing
>works about as well as a toddler walks. I wouldn't make the toddler walk a
>tightrope to test his/her walking ability!
I thought we were testing the success of the "walk", not the quality.
>[snip]
>
>> > Of _course_ it's not significant if it
>> >doesn't work. Duh.
>>
>> But you weren't prepared to accept that it doesn't work, preferring
>> instead to take note of Arthur C. Clarke's comments.
>
>How many times do I have to say this? I was and am *PERFECTLY* ready to
>accept that it doesn't work -- if it's demonstrated not to work, with a
>repeat experiment!!!
So, after all the experiments which dowsers have failed, you won't be
satisfied until this _exact_ experiment has been repeated? How many
times will it have to be repeated? If they get chance results next time
will you argue that isn't conclusive if combining the results of both
experiments still left an above chance result? In other words, in order
to convince you that water dowsing doesn't work _under those
conditions_, would the next experimental result have to be a negative
one of 1:100 against?
>
>(Do you really wonder I used the f-word?)
Not at all. But I hope you don't feel another one coming on about now.
:-)
>
>At best, I think there's a small chance that it might work at ca 20%
>effectiveness -- which would be very interesting and require some serious
>thinking about the explanation! Definitely interesting enough to run a
>repeat experiment.
Yes? And if there was then a negative result of 1:100 against, somebody
at some stage would obtain another result above chance in totally
different circumstances and somebody would say that _that_ experiment
would have to be repeated. It never ends.
>
>> >> >IIRC,
>> >>
>> >> The trouble with "IIRC" is that your recollection has gone on record and
>> >> may become an accepted 'fact' by some. Your "IIRC" figures were wrong
>> >> about the Australian dowsing tests - the results of the water dowsing
>> >> experiment were not "on the order of 10...20% more successful than
>> >> expected" and your recollection that the "odds against that were on the
>> >> order of 1:10,000 against" would also appear to be wrong. Arthur C.
>> >> Clarke put it at 100:1.
>> >
>> >Well, gee I'm sorry about that!
>>
>> I'm pleased you see the error of your ways. :-)
>
>*Some* of us can learn. Maybe you'll learn not to jump to conclusions
>regarding the things people believe -- or not, or are ready to believe (or
>not). Reading your msg, though, it doesn't look too good.
I didn't assume a thing. I recall asking you some questions. I thought
then, and I still think, that they were valid questions to clarify your
position, which still isn't clear, as the question marks in this posting
show.
>
>> > If I can only talk about stuff I have a 100% certain reference for I
>> >won't have much to talk about...
>>
>> It's your quoting percentages without checking that I find discouraging.
>> You could have just claimed that "the water-experiment _was_ more
>> successful than expected. The odds against that were very high", or
>> similar.
>
>I stand corrected. I'll do something like that the next time around.
>However, you may recall that my "percentages" included a whole bunch of
>qualifiers -- I never portrayed them as exact.
But of course you didn't. I never said you did.
Snip
>[references snipped]
>
>OK, I'll take your word for it that all those experiments came up with
>zip.
The references are there for anyone to check.
> In which case there's probably nothing to it. <sigh>
I'm confused. Earlier you were asking for an experiment _identical_ to
the one in Australia and now you seem to be accepting previous work.
>
>[snip]
>
>[bigger snip re dowsing and "knowing the answer"]
Don't you think that the information you snipped is at least as
interesting and relevant (perhaps even more so) as the potential for
"learning something about how humans perceive their surroundings"?
>
>> > And insinuating that I put anecdotal evidence above results
>> >of experiments which I don't agree with -- which I consider a serious
>> >insult.
>>
>> If asking you the question: "Do you put anecdotal evidence
>> above those failures?" is an insult then I plead guilty. After all _you_
>> had deemed the story of the millionaire oil dowser to have some
>> importance. Why else would you have mentioned it.
>
>Your post was pretty hostile, and that kind of a question is a leading
>one. "Do you give blowjobs to goats?" is asking a question, but a very
>offensive one. Similarly, I was offended by your "question".
I don't recall you mentioning goats or blowjobs. Such a question would
therefore be quite gratuitous.
But you _had_ brought up some anecdotal evidence and I believe it was
reasonable to ask if you put it above failures in proper experiments?
>
>> > Show me where I've done *that* or shut the fuck up about it.
>>
>> As English isn't your first language I will overlook your crudity.
>
>Incidentally, that's the second time I've used profanity over the Usenet
>in something like six years or so.
I am sorry that my questions have caused you such upset. That certainly
wasn't the intention.
>> Having written all the above I am, nevertheless, sorry that you feel so
>> insulted by my criticism. I hope you can accept the point I made.
>
>It wasn't the criticism -- it was the assumptions you made about my
>character. Your point is taken. Now, if you'll apologise for the
>insinuations you made, I'll apologise for the profanity. Deal?
I've left in the paragraph to which you are responding because it
contains an apology. I didn't assume anything about your character or
about anything at all. I simply asked some relevant questions.
Petteri Sulonen
<mi...@hutch.demon.no.rubbish.co.uk> wrote:
> >> Because dowsers claim otherwise. Should their claims to be able to dowse
> >> for _anything_ other than water be ignored? (In view of the four letter
> >> word at the end of your last posting perhaps I shouldn't ask questions
> >> of you.)
> >
> >They should be tested. They might be wrong about the metals, right about
> >water.
>
> This thread could go on forever. As I have already said there are
> 'probably hundreds' of tests of dowsers which have been negative. Does
> the one blip from the Australian tests change all that? I think not.
After looking through your references, I think we can safely wrap up this
thread. Consider me convinced that dowsing had been conclusively
demonstrated not to work. I never considered it very likely to work anyway
-- and, repeating once more, only asked because _I_ knew of no other
controlled experiments besides Randi's -- and based my ideas on those.
> The points you made raised questions about your conclusions. Using
> Arthur C. Clarke as an expert for example. I'd say that Randi knows more
> about dowsers and dowsing than he does.
But I hadn't _drawn_ any conclusions! I didn't know nearly enough about
the subject -- all I _do_ know about it is a general respect towards Randi
and some kind of familiarity with the things he does, ibidem for A.C.
Clarke, and the latter having pointed out a clear oddity in an experiment
he had done.
Now, I'm going to snip the stuff to which I don't have anything to say,
other than "read and duly noted":
[snip]
> How would we learn that? What is there for them to perceive? If there's
> something for them to perceive in a controlled double-blind experiment
> then the experiment is faulty.
Well, for the sake of the argument, *if* dowsing worked, there would have
to be a mechanism for it to work -- sensitivity to magnetic fields,
vibration, humidity, brain waves of the paramecia swimming in it,
whatever. *That* would certainly be worth examining. The point of the
experiment is to rule out "conventional means" of detecting the water,
isn't it?
My view is that the point of "debunking" experiments is _not_ to try to
demonstrate that a claim is false. It's to try to find out if it _could_
be true by eliminating all "conventional" ways for it to work -- removing
the "bunk". I'm not too optimistic about the possibility of ever finding
out anything important through experiments on the paranormal -- but the
experiments are comparatively simple and inexpensive, so I think it's
worth the trouble anyway.
> > Therefore, I'd consider it
> >pretty imperative that additional trials be conducted -- was it a fluke,
> >post-hoc rationalization, or a genuine phenomenon?
>
> Other results in properly controlled tests suggest it was a fluke. So
> following every fluke we should forget all the previous negative results
> and do more experiments? In that way, the claims of dowsers will
> continue to be tested for the rest of humanity's existence.
They probably will anyway. Still, what would be the harm in doing a second
trial and dispelling the doubts about such a high-profile experiment due
to the fluke result?
> >Therefore, I conclude that Randi demonstrated "pretty conclusively" that
> >dowsing doesn't work for metals. However, that experiment left the
> >question open for water. Ergo, I'd like to know of further experiments.
>
> Does the experiment leave the question open for water? If it does, then
> NO EXPERIMENT or collection of experiments will ever resolve the
> question. Or are you suggesting that it leaves the question open _under
> those conditions_. Maybe dowsing works with those _pipes_ at that depth,
> in that part of the world, on that day of the week and with those people
> present. Under other test conditions it fails.
Nah. The only thing I _was_ suggesting (am not anymore, as your references
have convinced me otherwise) was that based on the Australian experiment,
dowsing _could_ have worked under those experimental conditions (including
the quantity of water in the pipes, the depth of the pipes, and the
surrounding humidity; and those dowsers). If a second trial had produced a
similar result, it would have been necessary to modify the setup -- change
the amount of water, depth of pipes, etc., as well as to conduct separate
trials for each dowser.
Based on your references, I'd assume that the second trial would've come
up with zip, and the case would have been closed. It still _does_ bother
me slightly that such a second trial wasn't performed, though. Everybody
would've come out wiser.
> I thought my last posting made it clear that there isn't another
> experiment _exactly_ the same as the Australian one.
>
> So the only protocol you will accept is one _exactly_ the same as the
> one in Australia? What's wrong with the other protocols?
Nothing. Just (one ... more ... time) that the Australian experiment came
up with an anomalous result. The proper thing to do would've been to
repeat the experiment and see if the anomalous result would've come up.
Do you have any idea why this wasn't done? Why wouldn't _you_ have done
it? If it's because of all the hundreds of experiments already done, why
do the experiment in the first place?
> > The Italian one was more
> >difficult. If dowsing only works at ca 20% efficiency, I wouldn't _expect_
> >the dowser to be able to track a water pipe below ground.
>
> But the dowsers were confident that they _could_. That was the whole
> point of the test.
A fairly sterile one, IMO.
> So, after all the experiments which dowsers have failed, you won't be
> satisfied until this _exact_ experiment has been repeated? How many
> times will it have to be repeated? If they get chance results next time
> will you argue that isn't conclusive if combining the results of both
> experiments still left an above chance result? In other words, in order
> to convince you that water dowsing doesn't work _under those
> conditions_, would the next experimental result have to be a negative
> one of 1:100 against?
Oh please.
To dispel any doubts on this point: if a second trial would've come up
with a negative 1:100 against, I'd consider that something's seriously
wrong with the experiment. If it had come up with a result at less than
1:15 or so against, plus or minus, I'd consider the case closed.
How do you mean you don't "assume" things about my character if you even
*ask* a question like that? I *know* what post-hoc rationalization is. If
I do it, I can understand my mistake if someone points it out for me.
Sheesh...
> Yes? And if there was then a negative result of 1:100 against, somebody
> at some stage would obtain another result above chance in totally
> different circumstances and somebody would say that _that_ experiment
> would have to be repeated. It never ends.
Do you expect it to?
> I didn't assume a thing. I recall asking you some questions. I thought
> then, and I still think, that they were valid questions to clarify your
> position, which still isn't clear, as the question marks in this posting
> show.
What's unclear about my position? My position is simply the following.
Read it very carefully, because it's the ONLY thing I've been trying to
get across in this thread.
Ahem.
"If an experiment comes up with an anomalous result, it should be repeated
to see if the anomaly was a fluke or something different."
> > In which case there's probably nothing to it. <sigh>
>
> I'm confused. Earlier you were asking for an experiment _identical_ to
> the one in Australia and now you seem to be accepting previous work.
See above.
> >[snip]
> >
> >[bigger snip re dowsing and "knowing the answer"]
>
> Don't you think that the information you snipped is at least as
> interesting and relevant (perhaps even more so) as the potential for
> "learning something about how humans perceive their surroundings"?
I read it. I already knew about it. I didn't have anything to add or to
comment on. Therefore, as per Usenet etiquette of only quoting that part
of an article to which you're responding, I snipped it. Do you have a
problem with that?
[snip]
> I don't recall you mentioning goats or blowjobs. Such a question would
> therefore be quite gratuitous.
>
> But you _had_ brought up some anecdotal evidence and I believe it was
> reasonable to ask if you put it above failures in proper experiments?
If you had asked in a more civil spirit, I would've answered likewise.
Maybe I misunderstood your tone. If I did, allow me to answer you now.
I do not put anecdotal evidence above failures in proper experiments.
However, I do consider anecdotal evidence _suggestive_ -- in that it can
suggest a possibility that can be investigated through proper experiments.
> >> Having written all the above I am, nevertheless, sorry that you feel so
> >> insulted by my criticism. I hope you can accept the point I made.
> >
> >It wasn't the criticism -- it was the assumptions you made about my
> >character. Your point is taken. Now, if you'll apologise for the
> >insinuations you made, I'll apologise for the profanity. Deal?
>
> I've left in the paragraph to which you are responding because it
> contains an apology. I didn't assume anything about your character or
> about anything at all. I simply asked some relevant questions.
Yeah, right.
Your apology is about as good as mine -- you're not apologizing for what
you wrote, you're saying you're sorry your 'criticism' upset me. Once
more, I wasn't upset by your 'criticism', I _was_ upset by your willigness
to lump me in with the "believers" on very slim evidence. Sort of reminds
me of the time I was lumped in with the Fundies for daring to raise the
possibility that a certain Yeshua ben Yusuf Ha-Notsri may have been a
historical character.
No apologies for the "fuck", then.
Mike Hutchinson
I should start by saying that nothing below should suggest that I have
any antagonism towards you or that I ever thought you were a believer.
You are assuming more about me than I ever did about you.
I think we can gently close this debate with a few clarifications.
Please respond if you think there is something left to be said,
including your feelings as to whether the debate has ended in a
friendlier manner.
In article <Petteri.Sulonen-...@keiju.in.helsinki.fi>,
Petteri Sulonen <Petteri...@helsinki.DIE.SPAM.DIE.fi> writes
>In article <vx6TaCAiz$v2E...@hutch.demon.co.uk>, Mike Hutchinson
><mi...@hutch.demon.no.rubbish.co.uk> wrote:
Snip
>> This thread could go on forever. As I have already said there are
>> 'probably hundreds' of tests of dowsers which have been negative. Does
>> the one blip from the Australian tests change all that? I think not.
>
>After looking through your references, I think we can safely wrap up this
>thread. Consider me convinced that dowsing had been conclusively
>demonstrated not to work.
If my additional information has helped you and you are happy with that
conclusion, fine. I did not set out to change your mind or that of
anyone reading this thread. I just wanted to supply more information
which I have to hand. (Well, relatively to hand. It wasn't easy to find
the A. C. Clarke programme on videotape or to transcribe from it.)
> I never considered it very likely to work anyway
>-- and, repeating once more, only asked because _I_ knew of no other
>controlled experiments besides Randi's -- and based my ideas on those.
>
>> The points you made raised questions about your conclusions. Using
>> Arthur C. Clarke as an expert for example. I'd say that Randi knows more
>> about dowsers and dowsing than he does.
>
>But I hadn't _drawn_ any conclusions!
OK. Even with English as my first language I sometimes choose the wrong
words. Conclusion is too strong. Perhaps 'doubt' would have been a
better choice.
> I didn't know nearly enough about
>the subject -- all I _do_ know about it is a general respect towards Randi
>and some kind of familiarity with the things he does, ibidem for A.C.
>Clarke, and the latter having pointed out a clear oddity in an experiment
>he had done.
>
>> How would we learn that? What is there for them to perceive? If there's
>> something for them to perceive in a controlled double-blind experiment
>> then the experiment is faulty.
>
>Well, for the sake of the argument, *if* dowsing worked, there would have
>to be a mechanism for it to work -- sensitivity to magnetic fields,
>vibration, humidity, brain waves of the paramecia swimming in it,
>whatever. *That* would certainly be worth examining. The point of the
>experiment is to rule out "conventional means" of detecting the water,
>isn't it?
And to rule out subjectivity.
>
>My view is that the point of "debunking" experiments is _not_ to try to
>demonstrate that a claim is false. It's to try to find out if it _could_
>be true by eliminating all "conventional" ways for it to work -- removing
>the "bunk".
Well, my view is slightly different. The point of an experiment is to
find out the truth, regardless of the outcome. Any negative result in an
experiment of a "paranormal" claim may - just may - make the supporters
of that claim think again, especially if they can understand the
difference between an objective test and a subjective demonstration.
> I'm not too optimistic about the possibility of ever finding
>out anything important through experiments on the paranormal -- but the
>experiments are comparatively simple and inexpensive, so I think it's
>worth the trouble anyway.
Depends upon what you call important I suppose. Certainly there are
"interesting" things to learn: The unreliability of reaching conclusions
based on subjective experiences. For example, the dowsing reaction - as
I mentioned four articles ago - and the illusion of the psychic reading,
which affects the reader as well as the subject.
Snip
>> Other results in properly controlled tests suggest it was a fluke. So
>> following every fluke we should forget all the previous negative results
>> and do more experiments? In that way, the claims of dowsers will
>> continue to be tested for the rest of humanity's existence.
>
>They probably will anyway. Still, what would be the harm in doing a second
>trial and dispelling the doubts about such a high-profile experiment due
>to the fluke result?
No harm at all, except for the expense and the possibility that the
believers will subsequently raise the objections I posted last time.
Snip
>> Does the experiment leave the question open for water? If it does, then
>> NO EXPERIMENT or collection of experiments will ever resolve the
>> question. Or are you suggesting that it leaves the question open _under
>> those conditions_. Maybe dowsing works with those _pipes_ at that depth,
>> in that part of the world, on that day of the week and with those people
>> present. Under other test conditions it fails.
>
>Nah. The only thing I _was_ suggesting (am not anymore, as your references
>have convinced me otherwise) was that based on the Australian experiment,
>dowsing _could_ have worked under those experimental conditions (including
>the quantity of water in the pipes, the depth of the pipes, and the
>surrounding humidity; and those dowsers). If a second trial had produced a
>similar result, it would have been necessary to modify the setup -- change
>the amount of water, depth of pipes, etc., as well as to conduct separate
>trials for each dowser.
And if the second trial had produced chance results the dowsing
supporters still wouldn't leave it alone.
You may be interested in the following from the Australian 'The Skeptic'
magazine October 1982, two years after the dowsing tests which are the
main subject of this thread. It is from an article written by Dick
Smith:
"Following the dowsing tests that James Randi and I had made in Sydney,
there had been an outcry from diviners in Perth. They claimed they could
easily divine metal hidden in a box with 100 percent accuracy."
Dick describes how twenty-five Western Australian dowsers were tested in
a less than perfect protocol by a Perth radio station. They achieved 18%
on average from an expected 20%. The excuses for failure ranged from a
large aluminium deposit to jewellery worn by onlookers.
The diviner with the highest score went on to be tested separately for
A$40,000. The dowser's wife was the 'chief judge'. At the conclusion of
the test the dowser thought that he'd achieved 80% or higher success.
His wife announced the result: one hit in eleven tries. Entirely
consistent with chance.
>
>Based on your references, I'd assume that the second trial would've come
>up with zip, and the case would have been closed. It still _does_ bother
>me slightly that such a second trial wasn't performed, though. Everybody
>would've come out wiser.
Nah, it never happens with dowsers.
>
>> I thought my last posting made it clear that there isn't another
>> experiment _exactly_ the same as the Australian one.
>>
>> So the only protocol you will accept is one _exactly_ the same as the
>> one in Australia? What's wrong with the other protocols?
>
>Nothing. Just (one ... more ... time) that the Australian experiment came
>up with an anomalous result. The proper thing to do would've been to
>repeat the experiment and see if the anomalous result would've come up.
>
>Do you have any idea why this wasn't done? Why wouldn't _you_ have done
>it?
I have little or no idea why it wasn't done. Expense is one possibility.
Previous results another. They would be my reasons for not doing it
again, plus the fact that the dowsers and general believers wouldn't
change one iota.
> If it's because of all the hundreds of experiments already done, why
>do the experiment in the first place?
If false beliefs persist then it is sometimes best to put them to the
test. Some people might claim that the dowsing failures of long ago only
show that _those_ dowsers couldn't do what they claim, "But, hey, look
at these present day dowsers who earn their livings at it. They're
different." And on it goes. Like this thread. [Nothing personal Petteri,
just trying to lighten things up. I'm as responsible as you for
breathing new life into it. :-)]
snip
>>
>> But the dowsers were confident that they _could_. That was the whole
>> point of the test.
>
>A fairly sterile one, IMO.
But is it one which should be dealt with from time to time if the whole
dowsing belief continues? And who knows, perhaps one day someone will
come along who really _can_ do it. Not that I'm holding my breath.
>
>> So, after all the experiments which dowsers have failed, you won't be
>> satisfied until this _exact_ experiment has been repeated? How many
>> times will it have to be repeated? If they get chance results next time
>> will you argue that isn't conclusive if combining the results of both
>> experiments still left an above chance result? In other words, in order
>> to convince you that water dowsing doesn't work _under those
>> conditions_, would the next experimental result have to be a negative
>> one of 1:100 against?
>
>Oh please.
>
>To dispel any doubts on this point: if a second trial would've come up
>with a negative 1:100 against, I'd consider that something's seriously
>wrong with the experiment. If it had come up with a result at less than
>1:15 or so against, plus or minus, I'd consider the case closed.
>
>How do you mean you don't "assume" things about my character if you even
>*ask* a question like that? I *know* what post-hoc rationalization is. If
>I do it, I can understand my mistake if someone points it out for me.
>Sheesh...
Sorry Petteri, but mine was a general question which applies more to
believers, but since you seemed to be writing from a 'maybe' point of
view I thought I'd ask it. Thanks for the clarification. Still doesn't
mean that dowsers wouldn't make the very claim that I proposed.
>
>> Yes? And if there was then a negative result of 1:100 against, somebody
>> at some stage would obtain another result above chance in totally
>> different circumstances and somebody would say that _that_ experiment
>> would have to be repeated. It never ends.
>
>Do you expect it to?
No.
>
>> I didn't assume a thing. I recall asking you some questions. I thought
>> then, and I still think, that they were valid questions to clarify your
>> position, which still isn't clear, as the question marks in this posting
>> show.
>
>What's unclear about my position? My position is simply the following.
>Read it very carefully, because it's the ONLY thing I've been trying to
>get across in this thread.
>
>Ahem.
>
>"If an experiment comes up with an anomalous result, it should be repeated
>to see if the anomaly was a fluke or something different."
snip
>>
>> I'm confused. Earlier you were asking for an experiment _identical_ to
>> the one in Australia and now you seem to be accepting previous work.
>
>See above.
Snip
>>
>> Don't you think that the information you snipped is at least as
>> interesting and relevant (perhaps even more so) as the potential for
>> "learning something about how humans perceive their surroundings"?
>
>I read it. I already knew about it.
That surprises me, especially since you said in your last posting:
"because _I_ knew of no other controlled experiments besides Randi's".
Yet you are more widely read on the subject than that.
> I didn't have anything to add or to
>comment on. Therefore, as per Usenet etiquette of only quoting that part
>of an article to which you're responding, I snipped it. Do you have a
>problem with that?
It's your prerogative I suppose. I generally wondered if you considered
it relevant and "interesting" (if not "important" as defined in your
last posting).
>
>[snip]
>> I don't recall you mentioning goats or blowjobs. Such a question would
>> therefore be quite gratuitous.
>>
>> But you _had_ brought up some anecdotal evidence and I believe it was
>> reasonable to ask if you put it above failures in proper experiments?
>
>If you had asked in a more civil spirit, I would've answered likewise.
>Maybe I misunderstood your tone. If I did, allow me to answer you now.
I guess you did misunderstand my tone. That's a problem with Usenet,
except for the occasional smiley, tone is difficult to put across. I
don't know that smilies are necessary alongside every question mark.
My comments about your recollections were a little harsher. I could
probably have been a lot gentler and asked questions as I have
subsequently suggested to you. Sorry about that.
>
>I do not put anecdotal evidence above failures in proper experiments.
>However, I do consider anecdotal evidence _suggestive_ -- in that it can
>suggest a possibility that can be investigated through proper experiments.
>
Snip
>>
>> I've left in the paragraph to which you are responding because it
>> contains an apology. I didn't assume anything about your character or
>> about anything at all. I simply asked some relevant questions.
>
>Yeah, right.
>
>Your apology is about as good as mine -- you're not apologizing for
>what you wrote, you're saying you're sorry your 'criticism' upset me.
>Once more, I wasn't upset by your 'criticism', I _was_ upset by your
>willingness to lump me in with the "believers" on very slim evidence.
Here I will have to be careful in my choice of words so as not to upset
believers:
Petteri, I didn't lump you in with believers at all. There was nothing
in your original posting - or subsequent postings (see how careful I
am?) which suggests you are a believer.
Not that there's anything wrong with being a believer, providing your
belief is based on a look at both sides of the evidence.
>Sort of reminds me of the time I was lumped in with the Fundies for
>daring to raise the possibility that a certain Yeshua ben Yusuf Ha-
>Notsri may have been a historical character.
Yes, I remember that thread. My own belief about that is.....
No, better not open another hornet's nest. One this week is enough. :-)
>
>No apologies for the "fuck", then.
I've never had to apologise for one either. :-)
Mike
PZ Myers
<mi...@hutch.demon.no.rubbish.co.uk> wrote:
[snip]
>
>You may be interested in the following from the Australian 'The Skeptic'
>magazine October 1982, two years after the dowsing tests which are the
>main subject of this thread. It is from an article written by Dick
>Smith:
>
>"Following the dowsing tests that James Randi and I had made in Sydney,
>there had been an outcry from diviners in Perth. They claimed they could
>easily divine metal hidden in a box with 100 percent accuracy."
>
>Dick describes how twenty-five Western Australian dowsers were tested in
>a less than perfect protocol by a Perth radio station. They achieved 18%
>on average from an expected 20%. The excuses for failure ranged from a
>large aluminium deposit to jewellery worn by onlookers.
>
>The diviner with the highest score went on to be tested separately for
>A$40,000. The dowser's wife was the 'chief judge'. At the conclusion of
>the test the dowser thought that he'd achieved 80% or higher success.
>His wife announced the result: one hit in eleven tries. Entirely
>consistent with chance.
[snip]
Has anyone in this thread yet mentioned the very nice article in the
latest issue of the Skeptical Inquirer on dowsing? It rather thoroughly
demolishes the claims of weak significance in a test by a German group.
--
PZ Myers
Douglas S. Caprette
In a previous article, mi...@hutch.demon.co.uk (Mike Hutchinson) says:
>Petteri, (and anyone else still reading this thread)
>
>>
>>My view is that the point of "debunking" experiments is _not_ to try to
>>demonstrate that a claim is false. It's to try to find out if it _could_
>>be true by eliminating all "conventional" ways for it to work -- removing
>>the "bunk".
>
>Well, my view is slightly different. The point of an experiment is to
>find out the truth, regardless of the outcome. Any negative result in an
>experiment of a "paranormal" claim may - just may - make the supporters
>of that claim think again, especially if they can understand the
>difference between an objective test and a subjective demonstration.
For many pheonmema (or alleged phenomena) being studied practical or
ethical considerations are an impediment to the implimentation of an
ideal protocol. But let's neglect that consideration for the moment.
(Imagine the cow is a sphere.)
A properly designed experiment tests an hypothesthis. An hypothesis is
a statement of (proposed) fact that is predicted by a theory. It is a
statment as to the existance of an observable phenomenum typically a
causual relationship. The alternative view, called the null hypothesis
is simply a statement that the primary hypothesis is wrong. That
is that the predicted effect does not result from the indicated cause.
In the classic experimental paradigm, the experiment is an attempt to
disprove the null hypothesis. It is an attempt to disprove the statement
that the claim is false. (e.g. in a dowsing experiment the null
hypothesis is that the dowser will not 'detect' water any more
successfully than chance would allow.) Any other (statistically
significant) result would disprove that null hypothesis.
The formal way to report the result of a dowsing experiment is to say
that the null hypothesis was not disproved. (Or at any rate this is the
formal way to express the result of any valid dowsing experiment I
ever personally encountered--I am not familiar with the Australia
result.)
So, formally stated, the _point_ to any experiment is to disprove the
null hypothesis.
The rationale for performing the experiment is a differrent issue.
--
Douglas S Caprette
"A discussion is an exchange of knowledge, as opposed to an argument
which is an exchange of ignorance."