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A [[1982]] review of the literature concluded that "considerably more experimental work is required to support the case that dowsing is a [[psi]] process."<ref name=Hansen>{{cite journal| last=Hansen | first=George P. | year=1982 | journal=Journal of the Society for Psychical Research | volume=51 | issue=792 | pages=343-367 | url=http://www.tricksterbook.com/ArticlesOnline/Dowsing.htm| title=Dowsing: A Review Of Experimental Research}}</ref>
A [[1982]] review of the literature concluded that "considerably more experimental work is required to support the case that dowsing is a [[psi]] process."<ref name=Hansen>{{cite journal| last=Hansen | first=George P. | year=1982 | journal=Journal of the Society for Psychical Research | volume=51 | issue=792 | pages=343-367 | url=http://www.tricksterbook.com/ArticlesOnline/Dowsing.htm| title=Dowsing: A Review Of Experimental Research}}</ref>


In a scientific study in Munich Five hundred dowsers were initially tested for their "skill", and the experimenters selected the best 43 among them. These 43 were then tested in the following way. On the ground floor of a two-story barn, water was pumped through a pipe; before each test, this pipe was moved in a direction perpendicular to the water flow. On the upper floor, each dowser was asked to determine the position of the pipe. Over two years, the 43 dowsers performed 843 such tests. Of the 43 pre-selected and extensively tested candidates, at least 37 of them showed no dowsing ability. The results from the remaining 6 were said to be better than chance, resulting in the experimenters' conclusion that some dowsers "in particular tasks, showed an extraordinarily high rate of success, which can scarcely if at all be explained as due to chance ... a real core of dowser-phenomena can be regarded as empirically proven"<ref name=munich_study_quote>Wagner, H., H.-D. Betz, and H. L. König, 1990. Schlußbericht 01 KB8602, Bundesministerium für Forschung und Technologie. As quoted by Enright in ''Skeptical Enquirer'' </ref> "
In a scientific study in Munich, five hundred dowsers were initially tested for their "skill", and the experimenters selected the best 43 among them. These 43 were then tested in the following way. On the ground floor of a two-story barn, water was pumped through a pipe; before each test, this pipe was moved in a direction perpendicular to the water flow. On the upper floor, each dowser was asked to determine the position of the pipe. Over two years, the 43 dowsers performed 843 such tests. Of the 43 pre-selected and extensively tested candidates, at least 37 of them showed no dowsing ability. The results from the remaining 6 were said to be better than chance, resulting in the experimenters' conclusion that some dowsers "in particular tasks, showed an extraordinarily high rate of success, which can scarcely if at all be explained as due to chance ... a real core of dowser-phenomena can be regarded as empirically proven"<ref name=munich_study_quote>Wagner, H., H.-D. Betz, and H. L. König, 1990. Schlußbericht 01 KB8602, Bundesministerium für Forschung und Technologie. As quoted by Enright in ''Skeptical Enquirer'' </ref> "


Five years after the Munich study was published, scientist and skeptic [[Jim T. Enright]] contended that these results are merely consistent with statistical fluctuations and do not demonstrate any real ability.<ref name=enright1995>Enright, J. T. 1995. [http://www.springerlink.com/content/n43h56431w17j5v7/?p=87fa35b761de4e7dbf1cdcd4d317f48b&pi=4 Water dowsing: The Scheunen experiments]. ''Naturwissenschaften'' 82: 360-369.</ref> He noted that the ''best'' tester was on average 4 millimeters out of 10 meters closer to a mid-line guess, an advantage of 0.0004% advantage. The study's authors responded<ref name=betz1995>Betz, H.-D., H. L. König, R. Kulzer, R. Trischler, and J. Wagner. 1996. [http://www.springerlink.com/content/x5p4458g31777814/?p=87fa35b761de4e7dbf1cdcd4d317f48b&pi=5 Dowsing reviewed &mdash; the effect persists]. ''Naturwissenschaften'' 83: 272-275.</ref> but Enright remains unconvinced.<ref name=enright1996>Enright, J. T. 1996. Dowsers lost in a barn. ''Naturwissenschaften'' 83: 275-277.</ref>
Five years after the Munich study was published, scientist and skeptic [[Jim T. Enright]] contended that these results are merely consistent with statistical fluctuations and do not demonstrate any real ability.<ref name=enright1995>Enright, J. T. 1995. [http://www.springerlink.com/content/n43h56431w17j5v7/?p=87fa35b761de4e7dbf1cdcd4d317f48b&pi=4 Water dowsing: The Scheunen experiments]. ''Naturwissenschaften'' 82: 360-369.</ref> He noted that the ''best'' tester was on average 4 millimeters out of 10 meters closer to a mid-line guess, an advantage of 0.0004% advantage. The study's authors responded<ref name=betz1995>Betz, H.-D., H. L. König, R. Kulzer, R. Trischler, and J. Wagner. 1996. [http://www.springerlink.com/content/x5p4458g31777814/?p=87fa35b761de4e7dbf1cdcd4d317f48b&pi=5 Dowsing reviewed &mdash; the effect persists]. ''Naturwissenschaften'' 83: 272-275.</ref> but Enright remains unconvinced.<ref name=enright1996>Enright, J. T. 1996. Dowsers lost in a barn. ''Naturwissenschaften'' 83: 275-277.</ref>

Revision as of 16:44, 19 November 2007

For the English iconoclast, see William Dowsing.
A dowser, from an 18th century French book about superstitions.

Dowsing, sometimes called divining or water witching, refers to the practice of detecting hidden or buried water, metals, gemstones, or other such objects without the use of scientific apparatus. Dowsers generally make use of a Y- or L-shaped twig or rod to assist with detection, however some dowsers use other equipment or no equipment at all.

Dowsing is widely practiced[1] despite a lack of scientific evidence for its efficacy[2].

History of dowsing

Dowsing has existed in various forms for thousands of years.[3] The original may have been for divination purposes — to divine the will of the gods, to foretell the future and divine guilt in trials. Dowsing as practiced today probably originated in Germany during the 15th century, when it was used to find metals. The technique spread to England with German miners who came to England to work in the coal mines. During the Middle Ages dowsing was associated with the Devil. In 1659 dowsing was declared Satanic by the Jesuit Gaspar Schott.[citation needed] In 1701 the Inquisition stopped using the dowsing rod in trials. In the late 1960s during the Vietnam War, U.S. Marines may have used dowsing to attempt to locate weapons and tunnels.[4] An extensive book on the history of dowsing was published by Christopher Bird in 1979 under the title of The Divining Hand.

Dowsing equipment

Many dowsers use simple brass rods bent in an "L" shape known as divining rods; others use wooden Y-rods and/or even bent wire coat hangers. According to some dowsers who use divining rods, brass allows the rod to attune to magnetic fields emanated by the target without the earth's EM field interfering, as would be the case with a metal such as steel.[citation needed] The end of the rod to be held by the dowser is often encased in a material that provides a constant electrical impedance, to prevent the dowser's own conductivity from interfering with the dowsing process.[citation needed]

Pendulums such as a crystal suspended on a chain, or a metal weight are sometimes used in divination and dowsing. In one approach the user first determines which direction (left-right, up-down) will indicate "yes" and which "no," before proceeding to ask the pendulum specific questions. In another form of divination, the pendulum is used with a pad or cloth that has "yes" and "no" written on it, and perhaps other words, written in a circle in the latter case. The person holding the pendulum aims to hold it as steadily as possible over the center. An interviewer may pose questions to the person holding the pendulum, and it swings by minute unconscious bodily movement in the direction of the answer. In the practice of radiesthesia a pendulum is used for medical diagnosis.

Possible explanations

Both skeptics of dowsing and many of dowsing's supporters believe that dowsing apparatus have no special powers, but merely amplify small imperceptible movements of the hands arising from the expectations of the dowser. This psychological phenomenon is known as the ideomotor effect. Some supporters agree with this explanation, but maintain that the dowser has a subliminal sensitivity to the environment, perhaps via electroception, magnetoception, or telluric currents. These explanations give rise to the classification of dowsing as pseudoscience. Other dowsers say their powers are paranormal.

A belief in dowsing may arise because witnesses to a "successful" dowsing severely underestimate the probability of finding water at a given location (see Confirmation bias). A dowser could tell his listeners that water runs underground in narrow streams, when in fact it is contained in strata of porous rock at various depths (hence the name "water table"). Therefore a dowser who has an apparently high success rate at finding water may not be any better than someone merely guessing. On the other hand, in some areas underlain by hard rocks, a substantial flow of water might only be obtained if the well intersects a fracture in the otherwise impermeable rock.

Evidence

In 1982 the department for geophysical studies at Lund University tested different methods for karst water channels on Gotland. The test included three geophysical techniques (slingram, VLF and ground radar) and one biophysical (dowsing). About a third of the dowsers had reliable and statistically significant reactions.[5]

A 1982 review of the literature concluded that "considerably more experimental work is required to support the case that dowsing is a psi process."[6]

In a scientific study in Munich, five hundred dowsers were initially tested for their "skill", and the experimenters selected the best 43 among them. These 43 were then tested in the following way. On the ground floor of a two-story barn, water was pumped through a pipe; before each test, this pipe was moved in a direction perpendicular to the water flow. On the upper floor, each dowser was asked to determine the position of the pipe. Over two years, the 43 dowsers performed 843 such tests. Of the 43 pre-selected and extensively tested candidates, at least 37 of them showed no dowsing ability. The results from the remaining 6 were said to be better than chance, resulting in the experimenters' conclusion that some dowsers "in particular tasks, showed an extraordinarily high rate of success, which can scarcely if at all be explained as due to chance ... a real core of dowser-phenomena can be regarded as empirically proven"[7] "

Five years after the Munich study was published, scientist and skeptic Jim T. Enright contended that these results are merely consistent with statistical fluctuations and do not demonstrate any real ability.[8] He noted that the best tester was on average 4 millimeters out of 10 meters closer to a mid-line guess, an advantage of 0.0004% advantage. The study's authors responded[9] but Enright remains unconvinced.[10]

More recently, a study[11] was undertaken in Kassel, Germany, under the direction of the Gesellschaft zur wissenschaftlichen Untersuchung von Parawissenschaften (GWUP) [Society for the Scientific Investigation of the Parasciences]. The three-day test of some 30 dowsers involved plastic pipes through which a large flow of water could be controlled and directed. The pipes were buried 50 centimeters under a level field. On the surface, the position of each pipe was marked with a colored stripe, so all the dowsers had to do was tell whether there was water running through the pipe. All the dowsers signed a statement agreeing this was a fair test of their abilities and that they expected a 100 percent success rate. However, the results were no better than what would have been expected by chance.

Some researchers have investigated possible physical or geophysical explanations for dowsing abilities. For example, Soviet geologists have made claims for the abilities of dowsers,[12] which are difficult to account for in terms of the reception of normal sensory cues. Some authors suggest that these abilities may be explained by postulating human sensitivity to small magnetic field gradient changes.[13][14][15]

One study concludes that dowsers "respond"[citation needed] to a 60 Hz electromagnetic field, but this response does not occur if the kidney area or head are shielded.[16]

Well-known dowsers

Some well-known dowsers include:

See also

Dowsing organizations

Skeptics

(2007)

References

  1. ^ As translated from a preface of the Kassel experiments, "roughly 10,000 active dowsers in Germany alone can generate a conservatively-estimated annual revenue of more than 100 million DM (US$50 million)". See Kassel references.
  2. ^ Enright, Jim T. (1999). "The Failure of the Munich Experiments". Skeptical Inquirer. Paul Kurtz. Retrieved 2006-11-14. The researchers themselves concluded that the outcome unquestionably demonstrated successful dowsing abilities, but a thoughtful re-examination of the data indicates that such an interpretation can only be regarded as the result of wishful thinking. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |work= (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  3. ^ "the earliest sign of its usage dates from a 4500-5000 year old grave inscription in Brittany." Ramsus, Jansson (1999-01-27 (revised)). "Dowsing: Science or Humbug?". {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  4. ^ FIX ME (could not access entire article) Claudia Sandlin (1989-11-30). "Divining Ways; Dowsers Use Ancient Art in Many Kinds of Searches". Washington Post. [Louis Matacia] worked as a Marine Corps analyst at Quantico during The Vietnam War teaching Marines how to dowse...
  5. ^ "Unconventional Water Detection" page 14
  6. ^ Hansen, George P. (1982). "Dowsing: A Review Of Experimental Research". Journal of the Society for Psychical Research. 51 (792): 343–367.
  7. ^ Wagner, H., H.-D. Betz, and H. L. König, 1990. Schlußbericht 01 KB8602, Bundesministerium für Forschung und Technologie. As quoted by Enright in Skeptical Enquirer
  8. ^ Enright, J. T. 1995. Water dowsing: The Scheunen experiments. Naturwissenschaften 82: 360-369.
  9. ^ Betz, H.-D., H. L. König, R. Kulzer, R. Trischler, and J. Wagner. 1996. Dowsing reviewed — the effect persists. Naturwissenschaften 83: 272-275.
  10. ^ Enright, J. T. 1996. Dowsers lost in a barn. Naturwissenschaften 83: 275-277.
  11. ^ GWUP-Psi-Tests 2004: Keine Million Dollar für PSI-Fähigkeiten (in German) and English version.
  12. ^ Williamson, T. New Scientist 81, 371 (1979)
  13. ^ Rocard, Y. La Recherche 12, 792 (1981)
  14. ^ Presti, D. & Pettgrew, J. Nature 285, 99 (1980)
  15. ^ Baker, R. Nature 301, 78 (1983)
  16. ^ Harvalik ZV (1978). "Anatomical localization of human detection of weak electromagnetic radiation: experiments with dowsers". Physiol Chem Phys. 10 (6): 525–34.
  17. ^ Tom Lethbridge's dowsing measurments
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