|
Welcome to the International Skeptics Forum, where we discuss skepticism, critical thinking, the paranormal and science in a friendly but lively way. You are currently viewing the forum as a guest, which means you are missing out on discussing matters that are of interest to you. Please consider registering so you can gain full use of the forum features and interact with other Members. Registration is simple, fast and free! Click here to register today. |
13th June 2021, 08:46 PM | #1 |
Observer of Phenomena
Pronouns: he/him Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Ngunnawal Country
Posts: 87,214
|
Dowsing claims
|
__________________
So take that quantum equation and recalculate the wave by a factor of hoopty doo! The answer is not my problem, it's yours. Three Word Story Wisdom |
|
14th June 2021, 12:04 AM | #2 |
Banned
Join Date: Feb 2013
Location: USA
Posts: 7,583
|
|
14th June 2021, 08:30 PM | #3 |
Muse
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: Kingston, ON
Posts: 737
|
I worked in the hydrology field for ~20 years and dealt with plenty of dowsers. I challenged them regularly to find a dry hole. Here in Southern Ontario it's near impossible to not find water. Nobody took the challenge.
Some idiots took the dowsers word over the hydrogeologists recommendation and had to redrill at their own expense. Those people actually believed that the guy found a fast flowing underground river. Utter stupidity in a moraine area but I still got paid. |
14th June 2021, 08:34 PM | #4 |
Observer of Phenomena
Pronouns: he/him Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Ngunnawal Country
Posts: 87,214
|
|
__________________
So take that quantum equation and recalculate the wave by a factor of hoopty doo! The answer is not my problem, it's yours. Three Word Story Wisdom |
|
14th June 2021, 08:51 PM | #5 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: The Antimemetics Division
Posts: 69,914
|
|
14th June 2021, 11:52 PM | #6 |
Banned
Join Date: Feb 2013
Location: USA
Posts: 7,583
|
|
15th June 2021, 09:04 AM | #7 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Jul 2006
Posts: 24,923
|
|
__________________
"Reality is what's left when you cease to believe." Philip K. Dick |
|
15th June 2021, 09:08 AM | #8 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: Republic of Ireland
Posts: 23,499
|
|
__________________
Who is General Failure? And why is he reading my hard drive? ...love and buttercakes... |
|
15th June 2021, 03:00 PM | #9 |
Banned
Join Date: Feb 2013
Location: USA
Posts: 7,583
|
|
15th June 2021, 05:41 PM | #10 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: The Antimemetics Division
Posts: 69,914
|
You actually make a living off of people paying you to find water in places where water is literally pooling on the ground?
Don't you feel the least bit guilty, taking money from people who are both desperate and incredibly stupid? Have you spent so much time fleecing them that you've come to think that everyone you meet is that stupid? And when I say "incredibly stupid", I mean that literally. I don't believe anyone is that stupid. Which sets off a chain reaction of disbelief. I don't believe you've dowsed a single water source in your entire life. Not for money, anyway. |
15th June 2021, 06:21 PM | #11 |
Banned
Join Date: Feb 2013
Location: USA
Posts: 7,583
|
|
15th June 2021, 11:08 PM | #12 |
Schrödinger's cat
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Malmesbury, UK
Posts: 16,140
|
|
__________________
"If you trust in yourself ... and believe in your dreams ... and follow your star ... you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things" - Terry Pratchett |
|
16th June 2021, 01:03 AM | #13 |
Banned
Join Date: Feb 2013
Location: USA
Posts: 7,583
|
|
16th June 2021, 08:01 PM | #14 |
Banned
Join Date: Feb 2013
Location: USA
Posts: 7,583
|
Let me sum this up: There are no claims. Just blindingly obvious sarcasm.
|
16th June 2021, 08:06 PM | #15 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Nov 2006
Posts: 14,185
|
Yeah, similar experience here, they pick the number to believable. I ran in to dowsers who claimed an 80% success rate in an area where 95+ would be due to chance. If their claim was true it would mean that dowsing was successful, but they'd be successfully avoiding water.
|
16th June 2021, 08:48 PM | #16 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Way way north of Diddy Wah Diddy
Posts: 36,114
|
At a place I worked at long ago (a community of largish households) the people running it were very pro-dowser, and because they regularly needed new water sources they hired dowsers. For one well, they managed to get a bad hole in the edge of a swamp. The flow was surprisingly poor, and unsurprisingly murky, requiring that the entire system it fed into be chlorinated. For another they drilled and drilled, hitting a rock ledge that took days to get through, before the drill broke through, losing its very expensive rock head forever. The only up side of that was that it fell into a pool of water. Full of sulphur, but at least it was wet.
But faith is faith, and some people's answer to dowsing failures is to hire a different dowser. |
__________________
Like many humorless and indignant people, he is hard on everybody but himself, and does not perceive it when he fails his own ideal (Molière) A pedant is a man who studies a vacuum through instruments that allow him to draw cross-sections of the details (John Ciardi) |
|
16th June 2021, 09:12 PM | #17 |
Banned
Join Date: Feb 2013
Location: USA
Posts: 7,583
|
|
18th June 2021, 11:46 AM | #18 |
Muse
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: Kingston, ON
Posts: 737
|
We had dowsers hit a good flow occasionally but most of the time the water was not potable due to the composition of the soil. It tasted like iron and/or Sulphur. The engineer would go deeper underground until good water was found. Dowser claimed success.
A dowser in Sudbury ontario was present at a drill site for the town water supply. He claimed up and down water was where he said it was when the engineers decided elsewhere after some small test bores and using geological maps. His site turned up nothing down to 500 feet in the test hole. That hole was coincidentally where he said there's plenty of water. Eventually they went down to between 795 and 1100 feet to get the required flow at the site the engineers chose. The wells were 18 inch cases too so they wanted a LOT of water. Dowser made a complaint with my company name included to town council about how he was ignored and his reputation was sullied. Lastly since I know water can be found everywhere here, I used to ask dowsers what the flow would be and how deep? Their answer? Enough and that summed up their vagueness. Oh and one claimed to have found a fast moving underground river in the moraine section of Southern Ontario. I nodded my head and moved on. |
Thread Tools | |
|
|