Challenge applications

[DowserDon]

Why does your link to Challenge Applications show that the last person to challenge for the $1 million, applied on 22nd August 2009?
I am awaiting testing for my ability to dowse and I'd feel comforted to know that the $1 million is still available.
Thanks
DowserDon

[IMST]

I don't think anyone's maintaining that section anymore.
Have you applied for the challenge? Do you meet the requirements?

[Pixel42]

AIUI the JREF staff member who used to keep the challenge application subforum updated left and none of the current staff have the time/motivation to do so. Note that this forum and JREF are two seperate entities. There have certainly been applicants tested since August 2009.

Can I ask what self tests you have done of your dowsing ability? In particular, have you done any blind tests?

[Startz]

To add to what others have said...
JREF posts a copy of the financial statement showing that the money is available.

You say you are "awaiting testing." If you're willing to share, could you post your application or other information?

[Pantaz]

...
I am awaiting testing for my ability to dowse and I'd feel comforted to know that the $1 million is still available.
As of 31-Oct-2011, the balance of the MDC account (http://www.randi.org/site/images/stories/evercore.pdf) was $1,201,219.64

[Gr8wight]

Why does your link to Challenge Applications show that the last person to challenge for the $1 million, applied on 22nd August 2009?
I am awaiting testing for my ability to dowse and I'd feel comforted to know that the $1 million is still available.
Thanks
DowserDon

I'm pretty sure James Randi has said that he's done testing dowsers. He's tested literally hundreds of them, and is tired of that particular self-delusion.

[gnome]

If that's official, is it noted on the Challenge page? Worth a write up.

[wardenclyffe]

DowserDon,

I don't know how long your application has been "in the hopper" at JREF, but you should know that JREF is not the only place offering a cash prize if you can prove your ability to dowse. I don't know where you live, but you might find one of these other organizations easier to get to and easier to work with locally. Their prizes are all less than a million dollars, but passing any one of these tests will get you some money and it would force the JREF to take you very seriously.

Here's a list of places you could try:

There's the Australian Skeptics' AU$100,000 Prize
http://www.skeptics.com.au/features/prize/
They also offer AU$20,000 as a "Spotter's Fee"

There's the IIG's US$50,000 Challenge in California, USA
They now have affiliates in Atlanta, GA and Washington, DC and are developing affiliates in Denver, CO, Calgary, Canada and probably other places as well.
http://www.iigwest.org/challenge.html
They also offer US$5,000 as a "Finder's Fee"

There's the North Texas Skeptic's US$12,000 Challenge in the USA
http://www.ntskeptics.org/challenge/challenge.htm

There's Prabir Ghosh's 2,000,000 Rupee Challenge in India
http://rationalistprabir.bravehost.com/

There's the Swedish 100,000SeK prize offered by Humanisterna
http://www.humanisterna.se/index.php...d=27&Itemid=49

The Tampa Bay Skeptics offers a US$1000 prize in Florida, USA
http://www.tampabayskeptics.org/challenges.html

In Canada there's the CAN$10,000 from the Quebec Skeptics
http://www.sceptiques.qc.ca/activites/defi

In the UK, the ASKE organization offers £14,000
http://www.aske-skeptics.org.uk/challenge_rules.htm

Tony Youens in the UK offers £5,000
http://www.tonyyouens.com/challenge.htm

In Finland, Skepsis offers 10,000 Euros
http://www.skepsis.fi/haaste/

The Fayetteville Freethinkers in Arkansas, USA offer a US$1000 prize
http://fayfreethinkers.com/

There's a 1,000,000 Yuan prize in China offered by Sima Nan. This is his blog: http://blog.sina.com.cn/simanan

The Belgian SKEPP organization offers a 10,500 Euro prize
http://www.skepp.be/prijzen/de-sisyphus-prijs/

If you find any broken links, or know of any tests not on this list, please notify me in this thread.

Good Luck,

Ward

[maggot9779]

I'm pretty confident that the prize will never be claimed. Unless someone finds a way to get around the protocol, which is highly unlikely.

[SkepticScott]

Unless someone finds a way to get around the protocol, which is highly unlikely.Right. The JREF very tightly guards against cheating, and doesn't let anyone deviate from the negotiated protocol. If someone could do what they claimed, they'd be able to do it even when following the protocol they helped design.

DowserDon,
As others have said, the JREF staff who used to maintain the log here (Kramer, Jeff Wagg, and RemieV) have moved on. AFAIK the challenge is still open and the money is still waiting to be won. This page http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/1m-challenge.html is the JREF's official $1M challenge page (I'm not affiliated with the JREF so anything I say is my own opinion, not the JREF's, and I may be wrong).

Banachek is the challenge administrator, and his contact page has an email address that you can use if you have any questions.
http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/contact-the-jref/12-contacts/6-challenge-administrator.html

You wrote that you're "awaiting testing". How long has it been? Do you remember when you applied?

Pixel42 mentioned blind tests. I suggest that you do test your own abilities before applying lest you find out that you've be misleading yourself or can't perform in test conditions. People on the forum have helped work out informal self-tests before. If you tell us what you can do, perhaps we can help you devise a way to test yourself. A blind test would require help from a friend during the test.

[rjh01]

As for practice, you need heaps. Failure to practice using the protocols agreed to leaves one looking rather foolish after the test.

Hi Steenkh, and thank you. About winning the challenge, people can think what they want to think, I actually don`t care,:).We`ll see.
Thank`s for your advice, but as I wrote before, I do not have to practice, and I don`t have problems at all, :). And GzuzKryzt, I do know, that the criticising here on the forum it`s not about me personal, but people come further, if it`s "friendly" criticising, :D!
This is what one person wrote before she was tested by JREF. After the test she made unsubstantiated accusations of cheating. If only she had practised until she could do what she claimed. Then she would not have failed the test. Google her name and the main results are that she failed.

[Akhenaten]

As for practice, you need heaps. Failure to practice using the protocols agreed to leaves one looking rather foolish after the test.


This is what one person wrote before she was tested by JREF. After the test she made unsubstantiated accusations of cheating. If only she had practised until she could do what she claimed. Then she would not have failed the test. Google her name and the main results are that she failed.



my bolding

One can develop psychic powers simply by practising???

Stop the presses!

[DowserDon]

Thank you all for your helpful replies, particularly Wardenclyffe. I didn't know there were so many prizes on offer.
Yes, my application has been received and registered by Banachek. I was merely wondering why my name was not listed under Challenge Applications and was worried by an earlier note that the Challenge was due to end in 2010. I understand that it is difficult to keep such information up to date.
I live in the UK and am awaiting assessment but have yet to agree a testing protocol. I have designed a suitable double blind test that is different from those previously used by Randi and others to test dowsers and am awaiting discussion on it. The appointed academic assessor is very busy.
When that has been agreed I will be willing to publish details.
To get to the States for a final assessment would be expensive and so a local test prize would be very useful. However would a small prize here invalidate my claim at JREF?

[wardenclyffe]

DowserDon,

Before I write anything, please realize that I do not represent the JREF in any way. That being said, I've followed this kind of stuff for years (as have many others around here) and have a pretty good idea about how things work. But the Million Dollar Challenge is evolving and its status is currently in flux, so as a recent applicant, you might know more than any regular poster here about what's going on with the Challenge.

You mentioned an "appointed academic assessor." Is this because you are being asked by the JREF to produce an affidavit from someone involved in academics? This used to be a requirement. It's been suggested in the past that this requirement might be going away. But it seems like maybe it's still in place. Is that what you were talking about or is it something else?

If you are struggling in that area, that's all the more reason to check out the ASKE or Tony Youens challenges. Passing either of those would pretty much guarantee that you would get all the media and academic attention you would need to qualify for the MDC.

As far as I can tell, winning a local prize would only enhance your standing with the JREF MDC as opposed to invalidating it.

Even if it were to disqualify you (and again, it shouldn't), winning the local prize would likely insure that you would have a very, very lucrative career for the rest of your life, especially if you dowse for things that people actually want, like water or gold. If you can only dowse for fingernail clippings, then winning the prizes is the best you can hope for.

Good luck,
Ward

P.S. When did you submit your application? You really are in a unique position to let us know your experience as an applicant with the prize being under new administration and (perhaps) new rules.

[Pixel42]

Far from invalidating it, winning one of the smaller prizes listed by wardencliffe would advance your JREF application considerably. I'm pretty sure JREF has said that such a win would be sufficient for them to waive the publicity and academic qualifications they usually require. You would have far greater credibility than any previous applicant, JREF would be very eager indeed to test you.

Is there any particular way in which you think the standard blinded test protocol is deficient? I'm curious as to why you think you need a different one.

[rjh01]

my bolding

One can develop psychic powers simply by practising???

Stop the presses!

I never said that. LOL. She might still be practising.

[DowserDon]

My application was in May 2011. I did submit two affidavits from academically qualified people. Professor French was appointed to agree a testing protocol with me in September 2011. Although I have communicated with him by e-mail and despite promises to "get back to me before Christmas", I am still awaiting his comments on my suggestions. He is "extremely busy". I have contacted ASKE and Tony Youens and both replied quickly asking for details.
When an agreement has been reached on the testing protocol (or if no agreement is reached) I will post details. Until then I think it prudent to wait.
Thanks for your help.
DowserDon

[SkepticScott]

Thanks for the update DowserDon

[wardenclyffe]

Thanks DowserDon,

I'm glad the links worked. I think that might be the first time anyone's used them.

Ward

P.S. Who's Professor French?

[Ladewig]

My application was in May 2011. I did submit two affidavits from academically qualified people. Professor French was appointed to agree a testing protocol with me in September 2011. Although I have communicated with him by e-mail and despite promises to "get back to me before Christmas", I am still awaiting his comments on my suggestions. He is "extremely busy". I have contacted ASKE and Tony Youens and both replied quickly asking for details.
When an agreement has been reached on the testing protocol (or if no agreement is reached) I will post details. Until then I think it prudent to wait.
Thanks for your help.
DowserDon

Can you at least tell us if your protocol involves going out to the field and dowsing an area that hasn't been dowsed and actually digging in the location you select?

[Professor Yaffle]

Thanks DowserDon,

I'm glad the links worked. I think that might be the first time anyone's used them.

Ward

P.S. Who's Professor French?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_French

[wardenclyffe]

Thank you.

Ward

[DowserDon]

Reply to Pixel42. I'll give you an example of why I think the protocol is deficient.
Some people can tell the difference between an 1893 and an 1896 vintage wine. Most people can tell the difference between tea and petrol. Now try putting those liquids into sealed plastic bottles beneath upturned buckets and ask the same people to discriminate between them. They cannot do it because the testing protocol is stopping the test applicants from their using the senses that they would normally use in order to be able to tell one from the other.
No one really knows how a dowser detects water but just suppose it is a question of smell. The standard protocol immediately puts a competent dowser at a disadvantage.
Imagine it is an electrical field generated by flow of water through the earth. The dowser would not experience this if the water were stationary in a bottle.
All in all, the present protocol is an example of a poorly designed biassed experiment.
Don't blame Randi - he is only an ex stage magician. You need an experienced scientist to design an improved protocol.
When Prof. Chris French (Prof of Psychology) at Goldsmiths College, University of London, gets around to agreeing my proposal for a different protocol and when he gets around to testing me, we'll see whether I have managed to design an experiment that is not biassed towards either party. He was given the job of agreeing a test protocol with me last September - we have still not met.

[Pixel42]

No one really knows how a dowser detects water but just suppose it is a question of smell. The standard protocol immediately puts a competent dowser at a disadvantage.
Why? Are you saying that a smell that isn't masked by metres of earth and stone can be masked by an upturned bucket?

Often the water is put in barrels and buried, and the dowser is asked to tell the buried barrels full of water from buried barrels full of sand, say. The barrel can be made of anything you like. Wood, perhaps. Or just placed in a bowl and a stone arch placed above it and covered in earth. Earth, wood and stone are all things dowsers can presumably dowse through without difficulty.

Imagine it is an electrical field generated by flow of water through the earth. The dowser would not experience this if the water were stationary in a bottle.
Test have been done with the water flowing through pipes rather than stationary. Most dowsers claim to be able to detect water pipes, so the substances they're made of (plastic, metal) don't seem to mask whatever it is dowsers are detecting.

All in all, the present protocol is an example of a poorly designed biassed experiment.
You seem to be under the impression that there is only one "present protocol". Many different variations have been tried, usually as a result of dowsers making the same objections you are. None have resulted in the dowser doing significantly better than chance.

When Prof. Chris French (Prof of Psychology) at Goldsmiths College, University of London, gets around to agreeing my proposal for a different protocol and when he gets around to testing me, we'll see whether I have managed to design an experiment that is not biassed towards either party.
How do you expect to be able to determine that?

He was given the job of agreeing a test protocol with me last September - we have still not met.
I hope he finds the time soon.

[Lamuella]

Reply to Pixel42. I'll give you an example of why I think the protocol is deficient.
Some people can tell the difference between an 1893 and an 1896 vintage wine. Most people can tell the difference between tea and petrol. Now try putting those liquids into sealed plastic bottles beneath upturned buckets and ask the same people to discriminate between them. They cannot do it because the testing protocol is stopping the test applicants from their using the senses that they would normally use in order to be able to tell one from the other.
No one really knows how a dowser detects water but just suppose it is a question of smell. The standard protocol immediately puts a competent dowser at a disadvantage.
Imagine it is an electrical field generated by flow of water through the earth. The dowser would not experience this if the water were stationary in a bottle.
All in all, the present protocol is an example of a poorly designed biassed experiment.
Don't blame Randi - he is only an ex stage magician. You need an experienced scientist to design an improved protocol.
When Prof. Chris French (Prof of Psychology) at Goldsmiths College, University of London, gets around to agreeing my proposal for a different protocol and when he gets around to testing me, we'll see whether I have managed to design an experiment that is not biassed towards either party. He was given the job of agreeing a test protocol with me last September - we have still not met.

if someone is smelling water, they aren't displaying a paranormal ability.

This is a challenge for people who display paranormal abilities. Your objection seems to be "This protocol doesn't let me cheat"

[wardenclyffe]

DowserDon,

If you believe you have come up with a different type of protocol, and if Prof. French is slow in communicating with you, you might want to try it out with us, first.

While we cannot speak for the JREF nor Prof. French, many of us have been looking at the problems of protocol development for some time. It might save you some time and aggravation if you were to spell out your ideas here, where there's nothing at stake. You'll run in to people who are probably much more cautious than Prof. French who would not accept any protocol, but you might run into people who are more imaginative than Prof. French (or even yourself) who might find ways to simplify the protocol and make your life easier. You never know, but these are puzzles that we like to work on here.

Now, to your examples. The protocols you describe for differentiating wines or even tea and petrol would would not be fair to the applicant. You are correct. However, in those cases we do know what mechanism's at work. It's a combination of sight, smell, mouth-feel, taste and so on. We can figure out how much of a role each of the senses plays by experimenting. We can eliminate one sense at a time.

In the case of wine tasting, more than one experiment has been done (I'm too lazy right now to look for examples, but I'm expecting someone here has a couple of handy links to post) where simply by blinding the taster as well as the person conducting the test, the results are that the wine-taster's accuracy goes way, way down. Knowing the answer ahead of time makes getting the answer correct very, very easy. Not knowing the answer and going on pure taste makes the correct answer very difficult to get.

We see this in cases of dowsing all the time. When the dowser is shown where the target (water, gold, whatever) is, his or her stick or pendulum or wires or whatever will react just as they are supposed to, and the dowser says everything is working properly. But then the bucket is put over the target and the dowser is completely confounded.

As you say, no one knows the exact mechanism that seems to make dowsing work. But it appears to be a keen ability to read the landscape based on years of experience of knowing where targets are likely to appear. This is a combination of intelligence, experience, cleverness, some lucky guesses and the fact that most targets that dowsers successfully find are not necessarily all that rare to begin with. It's not a regulated field, so we have no way of knowing the success rate of dowsers in general nor of specific dowsers nor of dowsers of specific things.

An automobile mechanic could easily claim to be a dowser. If I'm not mechanically minded, but I take my car in because it's having trouble, my mechanic could hold a pendulum over the engine and then tell me it's the water pump. I'd be in no position to deny that. But it was years of experience that taught the mechanic what the symptoms of a broken fuel pump were. The mechanic might convince him or herself that it was dowsing, but it was actually just their own intelligence and experience that gave them the answer.

This is already way longer than I want it to be. You understand what I'm saying.

Continued luck,
Ward

[Pixel42]

if someone is smelling water, they aren't displaying a paranormal ability.
This is a good point.

When agreeing a protocol for testing a paranormal ability the main concern is to eliminate all the mundane effects which the applicant could have misinterpreted as indications of something paranormal. In the case of dowsing these are generally assumed to be confirmation bias, the ability to pick up clues from the landscape and the fact that most people vastly underestimate how likely it is to hit water by digging almost anywhere. All these effects will be eliminated by a standard double blind test. But anything that allowed the applicant to use their normal senses to identify where water is most likely to be - hearing and smell as well as sight - also needs to be eliminated in order to conclude that a paranormal ability is being displayed. So JREF is unlikely to agree to any test protocol which left such possibilities open.

[jojonete]

An automobile mechanic could easily claim to be a dowser. If I'm not mechanically minded, but I take my car in because it's having trouble, my mechanic could hold a pendulum over the engine and then tell me it's the water pump. I'd be in no position to deny that. But it was years of experience that taught the mechanic what the symptoms of a broken fuel pump were. The mechanic might convince him or herself that it was dowsing, but it was actually just their own intelligence and experience that gave them the answer.Gotcha! :)

[SkepticScott]

The standard protocol immediately puts a competent dowser at a disadvantage.That's why there's an open test before the test. That is, the dowser would know where the target is being placed, and if the dowser can't detect it then the test is postponed and the protocol is redesigned. There is no "standard test" since each has to be designed by two parties to meet the specific claim being tested. [Exception: in some mass tests, like the recent TV show, there is one protocol and people are invited to participate if they think they can do what the protocol is testing.

The JREF has done dowsing tests with running water.

Remember, the protocol is designed together based on what is claimed. Your hypothetical wine tester would claim "I can distinguish between wine X and wine Y by taste", so (if accepted) the JREF would never propose a protocol that didn't let the claimant taste the wine.

On the other hand, if a claimant claims "I can detect water buried beneath several meters of earth", it would be reasonable to propose "can you find a glass of water under a cardboard box?" or "can you detect water flowing in a pipe buried 0.5 meters down?"

[gnome]

True--the dowser is not at a disadvantage if they are well aware of their capabilities and only agree to a test that works around any limitations they are aware of. Sadly, these limitations are often only claimed after failure. Each test is designed to put a faker or someone mistaken about their abilities at an extreme disadvantage while giving a genuine performer a standard that should be fairly easy to achieve if the power works as claimed.

[Almo]

Fact is, in the test in Australia, the dowsers said that it would be a cakewalk because the test would be so easy. When asked what would happen if they failed, they said they would admit dowsing didn't work.

When they failed, the excuses came out.

It's very simple to see what's going on here.

[Almo]

:( Double post.

[Ladewig]

That's why there's an open test before the test. That is, the dowser would know where the target is being placed, and if the dowser can't detect it then the test is postponed and the protocol is redesigned.

I want to quote this aspect of the protocol as it is especially important.

[MRC_Hans]

Reply to Pixel42. I'll give you an example of why I think the protocol is deficient.
Some people can tell the difference between an 1893 and an 1896 vintage wine.

I doubt that. However such old wines must be very rare, so those that exist may be different for a lot of reasons.

No one really knows how a dowser detects water but just suppose it is a question of smell. The standard protocol immediately puts a competent dowser at a disadvantage.

That can be easily tested. Just have someone place a row of glasses, randomly filled or empty, and cover each with a small cardboard box. Then see of you can smell which ones have water in them. If you can't, then it aint smell. (I recommend you leave the water for about one hour before testing, as freshly poured water may have some scent).

Imagine it is an electrical field generated by flow of water through the earth. The dowser would not experience this if the water were stationary in a bottle.

It is not. Electrical fields can be detected with measuring instruments. If flowing water generated a field strong enough to be felt above the surface, it would be known. Also, flow meters are used many places in industry. None of them use an electric field, because there isn't any.

All in all, the present protocol is an example of a poorly designed biassed experiment.

If it is, it is because dowsers have consistently failed to define what really constitutes their ability.

Don't blame Randi - he is only an ex stage magician. You need an experienced scientist to design an improved protocol.

Don't worry, James Randi does not design the protocols alone. He consults relevant scientists.

When Prof. Chris French (Prof of Psychology) at Goldsmiths College, University of London, gets around to agreeing my proposal for a different protocol and when he gets around to testing me, we'll see whether I have managed to design an experiment that is not biassed towards either party. He was given the job of agreeing a test protocol with me last September - we have still not met.

Prof of Psychology? What makes you think he is particularly qualified to design a dowsing experiment?

Hans

[Professor Yaffle]

Prof of Psychology? What makes you think he is particularly qualified to design a dowsing experiment?


Why wouldn't he be? Do you think the JREF would ask someone unsuited and unqualified to work on this?

He is currently Professor of psychology at Goldsmiths College, University of London, is head of their Anomalistic psychology Research Unit which he founded in the year 2000, and is the Editor-in-Chief of The Skeptic (UK) magazine.
He teaches a course entitled Psychology, Parapsychology and Pseudoscience as part of the BSc (Hons) Psychology programmes at both Goldsmiths College and Birkbeck College. He is a Chartered Psychologist and a Fellow of the British Psychological Society. He has published over 60 articles and chapters covering a wide range of topics within psychology, including publications in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology, the Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, the British Journal of Psychology and the British Journal of Clinical Psychology.
His main current area of research is the psychology of paranormal beliefs and anomalous experiences. In addition to academic activities, such as conference presentations and invited talks in other departments, he frequently appears on radio and television casting a sceptical eye over paranormal claims. He has taken part in programmes dealing with a wide range of such claims including psychic predictions, telepathy, faith healing, hypnotic past life regression, ghosts, UFO abductions, out-of-body experiences, astrological claims and so on.[1][2][3] He has appeared on various science programmes (e.g. Equinox, Science Now, All in the Mind) and documentaries (e.g. Heart of the Matter, Everyman) as well as numerous discussion programmes (e.g. Esther; The Time, The Place; Kilroy; This Morning).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_French

[MRC_Hans]

This is a good point.

When agreeing a protocol for testing a paranormal ability the main concern is to eliminate all the mundane effects which the applicant could have misinterpreted as indications of something paranormal.

Yes, a very important point, indeed. If a dowser works by smelling water, then it would be a remarkable feat, and that person might go down in history as the keenest nose of all mankind, BUT it would not be paranormal, and hence not eligible for the MDC.

The MDC is for supernatural performance. So it is not unfair that smell is eliminated.

DowserDon, you mentioned tea and petrol (assuming they look alike), and most people will readily be able to distinguish them by small (and taste :boggled:), so obviously, doing that is not eligible for the MDC. However, if you could distinguish between then, in sealed containers black containers, it might be supernatural (unless there are other, mundane clues, like weight).

Hans

[Ladewig]

Reply to Pixel42. I'll give you an example of why I think the protocol is deficient.

[snip]

All in all, the present protocol is an example of a poorly designed biased experiment.


Well if you don't like the proposed protocol can you tell us what you think is a fair and valid protocol for testing dowsing? I know you said you wanted to wait, but is there any useful reason for waiting to reveal your proposed testing procedure?

[gnome]

In fact, we can help point out any flaws (if there are any) and give ideas for refining it into a test procedure that will likely be agreeable.

[sadhatter]

Yes, a very important point, indeed. If a dowser works by smelling water, then it would be a remarkable feat, and that person might go down in history as the keenest nose of all mankind, BUT it would not be paranormal, and hence not eligible for the MDC.

The MDC is for supernatural performance. So it is not unfair that smell is eliminated.

DowserDon, you mentioned tea and petrol (assuming they look alike), and most people will readily be able to distinguish them by small (and taste :boggled:), so obviously, doing that is not eligible for the MDC. However, if you could distinguish between then, in sealed containers black containers, it might be supernatural (unless there are other, mundane clues, like weight).

Hans

I have always found this premise very intriguing. At what point does an ability become supernatural, and even within the supernatural realm, what grades of supernatural are there?

So much so i am currently writing series of stories ( it is taking more of a novel feel as of late, all posted online, anyone interested can pm me, as i don't want to just needlessly pimp out my media.) , around this concept.

At what point would an ability that is otherwise normal, be able to apply for the MDC ( if at all.). I mean a gent lifting a fully loaded tank with one arm would seem on the very borderline, for example. But what if said gent did not have the amount of muscle required to do this? By this i mean, some biologists sit down and make an informed decision on the approximate amount of muscle, and the structure it would need to be able to lift a tank one handed. And the gent in question does not meet these requirements, but still is lifting the tank.

Not that i think this will ever happen, mind you, but it is an interesting premise.

[Ladewig]

At what point would an ability that is otherwise normal, be able to apply for the MDC ( if at all.). I mean a gent lifting a fully loaded tank with one arm would seem on the very borderline, for example.

In what sense would lifting 136,000 pounds (62,000 kg) be "borderline"?

[Jim_MDP]

He did say "with one arm".

:)

[Ladewig]

He did say "with one arm".

:)

well played.

[DowserDon]

I think it worth noting what the MDC FAQ says:-
2.2 What is the definition of “paranormal” in regards to the Challenge?
"Webster’s Online Dictionary defines “paranormal” as “not scientifically explainable; supernatural.”
Within the Challenge, this means that at the time your application is submitted and approved, your claim will be considered paranormal for the duration. If, after testing, it is decided that your ability is either scientifically explainable or will be someday, you needn’t worry. If the JREF has agreed to test you, then your claim is paranormal."

So it is worth looking for routes that scientists can take to examine dowsing. It might be scientifically explicable some time even if not now. This is not cheating.
Paranormal does not mean that there has to be a "supernatural spiritual" component involved.

[Pixel42]

True, but you still shouldn't expect JREF to agree to a protocol which would allow your ordinary senses - smell, sound, sight - to be used to pass the test. You need to be doing something that can't be explained by current science, even if there's a possibility future science might find an explanation.

Of course if JREF agree to a protocol which doesn't successfully exclude the use of ordinary senses that would be their problem. That's what that clause says - once JREF agree to a test protocol they're classing any ability that allows someone to pass that test as paranormal and it would win the million, even if they later realised they hadn't fully excluded all currently scientifically explainable possibilities.

[Ladewig]

I think it worth noting what the MDC FAQ says:-
2.2 What is the definition of “paranormal” in regards to the Challenge?
"Webster’s Online Dictionary defines “paranormal” as “not scientifically explainable; supernatural.”
Within the Challenge, this means that at the time your application is submitted and approved, your claim will be considered paranormal for the duration. If, after testing, it is decided that your ability is either scientifically explainable or will be someday, you needn’t worry. If the JREF has agreed to test you, then your claim is paranormal."

So it is worth looking for routes that scientists can take to examine dowsing. It might be scientifically explicable some time even if not now. This is not cheating.
Paranormal does not mean that there has to be a "supernatural spiritual" component involved.


This whole discussion would move much faster if you just told us what your idea of a fair and valid test is.

[Jim_MDP]

No offense Don (well... that's not going to hold up) but, I thought the MDC had stopped testing dowsing because it's such a huge failing pile of fail.

I may be mistaken.

[SkepticScott]

In what sense would lifting 136,000 pounds (62,000 kg) be "borderline"?Anyone who can life 60+ tons gets to call their ability anything they want! :p

[Dr.Sid]

Give me a fixed point ..

[kblood]

I think it worth noting what the MDC FAQ says:-
2.2 What is the definition of “paranormal” in regards to the Challenge?
"Webster’s Online Dictionary defines “paranormal” as “not scientifically explainable; supernatural.”
Within the Challenge, this means that at the time your application is submitted and approved, your claim will be considered paranormal for the duration. If, after testing, it is decided that your ability is either scientifically explainable or will be someday, you needn’t worry. If the JREF has agreed to test you, then your claim is paranormal."

So it is worth looking for routes that scientists can take to examine dowsing. It might be scientifically explicable some time even if not now. This is not cheating.
Paranormal does not mean that there has to be a "supernatural spiritual" component involved.

I have been pointing this out in another thread for quite a while now. As I see it, if any of the paranormal abilites do exist, then proving it in such a scientific test through sheer willpower alone should not be possible. Otherwise it would be very strange why something like this had not gotten proven earlier.

As I see it, there can only be two possible explanations for this, that I can think of as somewhat likely. Firstly that nothing paranormal exists at all, and that it is just make belief. Which seems to be what most users here has come to believe, strengthen by this "challenge" having been around for so long.

Lets say dowsing is possible, or telepathy. Or that we have a soul with a consciousness that can be separated from its physical body, or that somehow God exists, karma and so many other phenomenon that seems unlikely given the discoveries of science so far.

Any of that would then also say that science has missed something fundamental about reality and how or why it exists.

Some believe that we are here to evolve spiritually on an individual basis. I like the thought of that. If there is nothing besides what science so far has proven to exist, then that could also be said what is happening all the same. Pure chance and randomness might be making it so. Seems here on Earth, evolution and advancement is a very likely outcome, given enough time and under the right conditions. Makes you wonder how many Planets got through the first 20.000 years of life going through evolution, but before an animal gets to breathe air on the planet, the whole thing is hit by a colliding solar system or galaxy. Or a meteor show rips the planet apart, you get the idea.

But if there is a spiritual side to all of it, then we are going to have hidden factors that science has not discovered yet, and might not be able to discover. Because it would ruin the whole purpose. Individual spiritual evolution. That is what most religions seems to be about. If you believe, you might be able to see the signs in the major events happening, but if you do not believe you will have much opportunity to find a reason to dismiss such a connection. And while miracles might happen, then it seems simple enough to make sure that they do not become something science can prove to everyone beyond doubt that it really was a miracle. The fact that it is most likely not something that can be forced to happen again would be reason enough for science to dismiss it as not being a miracle.

See my point? So as I see it, the only thing the challenges are good for, is to expose frauds. And I doubt anyone truly gifted, if that truly exists, would fall for trying to misuse paranormal abilities for monetary gain and fame in the name of science.

But there are many who disagree with me, who cannot see any logic in this. I have tried to explain it in many ways. Seems to me that its just how its meant to be. A mystery and a paranormal mystery to all who aren't willing to truly investigate it with an open mind. And even then evidence or answers might still be years away. Death might bring the answers needed, but either we wont exist anymore, or the knowledge would be rather useless at that point.

[Ladewig]

See my point? So as I see it, the only thing the challenges are good for, is to expose frauds. And I doubt anyone truly gifted, if that truly exists, would fall for trying to misuse paranormal abilities for monetary gain and fame in the name of science.


So does that mean every faith healer, every after-death communicator, and every channeller who charges money (or ask for "donations") is a fraud?

[kblood]

So does that mean every faith healer, every after-death communicator, and every channeller who charges money (or ask for "donations") is a fraud?

I do not trust them much, but no. Because they are not doing it for the sole reason of proving it possible. They might actually be trying to help something good happen, whether it is in a paranormal way or not. Whether it helps or not would have to be up to each individuals personal experience about it to decide.

My point is the number of unknown factors that never seems to be taken into consideration when investigating these things, and how unwise it might be to believe it possible to provide scientific evidence for or against such a thing.

But I already explained that in my post, so I guess I have to assume you stopped reading at some point or skipped parts. Or just missed that detail, because I was not writing it this clear. But should have become evident from what I wrote after the part you quoted. Sorry if it was not.

[Pixel42]

And while miracles might happen, then it seems simple enough to make sure that they do not become something science can prove to everyone beyond doubt that it really was a miracle. The fact that it is most likely not something that can be forced to happen again would be reason enough for science to dismiss it as not being a miracle.
The fact that such events happen no more often than would be expected by chance is reason enough for any rational person to dismiss them as not being miracles.

[DowserDon]

No offense Don (well... that's not going to hold up) but, I thought the MDC had stopped testing dowsing because it's such a huge failing pile of fail.

I may be mistaken.

My claim has been accepted by Banachek. I am awaiting acceptance of my testing protocol by Prof French of Goldsmiths College, University of London who was appointed by Banachek. I wonder what is considered to be a "reasonable time" for a response as he was asked by Banachek last September. His only response so far has been to reply (once) that he is extremely busy and doesn't even acknowledge e-mails or recorded-delivery postal mail.
So yes. you are mistaken.:)

[Dumb All Over]

My claim has been accepted by Banachek. I am awaiting acceptance of my testing protocol by Prof French of Goldsmiths College, University of London who was appointed by Banachek. I wonder what is considered to be a "reasonable time" for a response as he was asked by Banachek last September. His only response so far has been to reply (once) that he is extremely busy and doesn't even acknowledge e-mails or recorded-delivery postal mail.
So yes. you are mistaken.:)
If what you say is true, DowserDon, then I, too, owe you an apology. I didn't think you were a serious applicant. Congratulations on your acceptance from Banachek.

Would it be possible for you to share the correspondences between yourself and JREF officials here with us so that we might discuss in more detail?

[Pixel42]

I am awaiting acceptance of my testing protocol by Prof French
Then it might well be worth your posting it here, so we can advise you as the to the kind of objections (if any) Prof French is likely to raise to it. You could then practise your counterarguments on us and/or we could help you tweak it into something French/JREF would be more likely to accept. That should speed up the negotiation phase once French does eventually respond.

Can I ask what kind of success rate you have achieved with the test protocol you are proposing?

[SkepticScott]

Then it might well be worth your posting it here, so we can advise you as the to the kind of objections (if any) Prof French is likely to raise to it. You could then practise your counterarguments on us and/or we could help you tweak it into something French/JREF would be more likely to accept. That should speed up the negotiation phase once French does eventually respond.That's a good idea, Pixel42. Anything we say isn't official, but it might help. Also, I'd find it interesting to learn about how a testing protocol is negotiated.

[Almo]

Grats on the acceptance from Banachek! I look forward to seeing the results of the test. I've always found the claim of dowsing an interesting one.

[Ladewig]

I do not trust them much, but no. Because they are not doing it for the sole reason of proving it possible. They might actually be trying to help something good happen, whether it is in a paranormal way or not. Whether it helps or not would have to be up to each individuals personal experience about it to decide.

My point is the number of unknown factors that never seems to be taken into consideration when investigating these things, and how unwise it might be to believe it possible to provide scientific evidence for or against such a thing.

But I already explained that in my post, so I guess I have to assume you stopped reading at some point or skipped parts. Or just missed that detail, because I was not writing it this clear. But should have become evident from what I wrote after the part you quoted. Sorry if it was not.

Despite the snark, you are correct. It was my misreading that lead to my confusion; it was not your writing.

Would you consider moving this discussion to a new thread? Or point me to one of your old threads where you have already put forth these ideas?

I have a more detailed question regarding this statement

And I doubt anyone truly gifted, if that truly exists, would fall for trying to misuse paranormal abilities for monetary gain and fame in the name of science.

Imagine that there is a person with some ability that science has grossly underestimated or completely missed. He uses this ability to humbly help others and does not seek fame or fortune with this power - in fact he knows that nothing good will come of trying to use this power to seek fame or fortune. Then one day he says to himself, "if I were to pass the JREF challenge then tens or hundreds of millions of people will become aware of the source of my power1. Their enlightenment could then improve virtually all aspects of society. Of course, I will be cursed or condemned for my actions, but I am willing to lose my soul to help all these other people - the sacrifice will be worth it." If someone said all that, then could he demonstrate the power to open-minded, scientific minds?





(1) that source could be God, universal consciousness, universal karma, or some other power - but the person with the ability knows what it is.

[Pixel42]

point me to one of your old threads where you have already put forth these ideas
Here's kblood's thread: http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=217492

[Akhenaten]

Here's kblood's thread: http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=217492





If this causes a black hole to form you're going to get in so much trouble.

;)

[Ladewig]

Here's kblood's thread: http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=217492

Thank you. Your advice on the matter is appreciated. I will bow out of this discussion.

[DowserDon]

What seems apparent from the replies and side-tracks resulting from my original query is that the world of sceptics is as riven as that of Christianity with its Catholics vs. Protestants and Islam with its Sunnis vs. Shias. So my slightly different approach will not please everyone. I do not expect it to.

A little of my history:- I worked for 27 years as a research chemist for the UK Electricity Generating Board, mainly working on water problems (scale deposition, demineralisation, trouble shooting). I had a rig with a lot of water flowing around it and someone had left a bent welding rod near it. I picked it up and found it did not quite balance properly (oh no, not water divining, I thought. I’m supposed to be a scientist). At home I bent two rods and walked over the known route of my sewer and found that the rods swung as I crossed its line – ah, water, I thought (plus a few expletives).
I walked around my house and found that the rods crossed elsewhere. This turned out to be the line of my underground electricity and gas supplies. I rationalised this by remembering that most underground services are bedded on sand and gravel, so water could be seeping along the service routes.

My wife attended a conference on the coast and having got bored with reading whilst waiting for her, I remembered that the rods were still in my car. I went for a walk along the cliffs and found two areas of very strong response – probably the remains of service ducts to wartime gun sites, I thought. The next day I walked the same route but at coast level. The rods were not influenced by the sea water but on looking up I found that there were waterfalls coming out of the cliffs where I had walked the day before. Oh dear, more links to water divining.

I visited a local park where there were two lakes, joined by a stream over which was a bridge. Standing on the bridge produced no response from my rods – so the effect was not from flowing water after all? I was perplexed.

I heard of Randi’s $1million challenge and, at that time read that he was moving trucks of water or soil on tracks at ground level whilst the dowser under test was on the floor above. I decided that I could not possibly pass that test, so forgot about the Challenge for many years. During that time I taught many friends including scientists how to dowse. I did not consider the ability to dowse particularly unusual although inexplicable. Later I heard that Randi was using copper pipes, some with water flowing others not and again decided that I would not pass that test either as I would detect the soil disturbed where all of the pipes were buried.

I was given a link to Randi’s YouTube video where he had a dowser on stage who claimed that he could detect an ore with dowsing rods. The ore was in plastic bottles beneath upturned buckets. My reaction was “what a poor simulation” of the conditions under which the dowser would normally operate (presumably a mine underground). I was annoyed. On following links I found that Randi had used the same test for testing water dowsers. I was even more annoyed. Dowsing is not a spectator sport. It is not a theatrical entertainment. It cannot be tested on a theatre stage. However, as I did not understand what mechanism drove dowsing to work I could not suggest a different test.

One property I dowsed for my son who was considering buying a house to live in produced a strange pattern of responses. I detected the route of the water supply but then detected a square of about 7 metres per side. Inexplicable until old plans of the area showed that the building had been a school with a buried air raid shelter. So perhaps I could detect the difference between soil and concrete or was the concrete covered in water. I was still mystified.

I attended a meeting of about 60 dowsers (strange lot – I did not join their society) and visited a site of archaeological interest. The site was divided up into small walkways that dowsers could traverse. They detected the hidden outline of the medieval church and this was confirmed by reference to documents deposited with the Archaeological Department of the local University. Personally I was able to detect the outline of a hut (minus the doorway) in the corner of the field. So perhaps a heavy building compresses the soil so much that its location can be discerned many years after. I did not subscribe to the idea that the “spirit” of the church lived on.

Finally in 2009 I thought of a more realistic testing protocol and submitted it to JREF. This was accepted in an e-mail acknowledgement of 22 April 2009. I waited for a date to be arranged and waited. I’d been told it would take a long time to find someone to assess me. In May 2011 I contacted JREF again when Banachek advised me that there was no trace of my application despite my copying him the acceptance e-mails. I was advised to apply again. That was acknowledged on 12th July 2011. Quite quickly Prof French was appointed to be my UK assessor (a Professor of Psychology). That was in September 2011. He drew my attention to this link, at YouTube /watch?v=i4MPz8h9gYY. This is a good example of what I consider to be a poor simulation of dowsing in the field. I admit that no dowser was forced to take the test but like me earlier, I assume they could not think of a better test.

Because I am responsible for the costs I have honed my suggested protocol to simplify it and make it more affordable whilst keeping to the claim that was accepted by Banachek that, by using bent metal rods I am able to detect the interface between undisturbed soil and that disturbed by man or nature. Nature will disturb soil as it flows beneath ground. Man may disturb soil by digging a trench and backfilling or by placing heavy weights upon it.

My suggestion for a testing protocol is that a suitable area of land be identified which I will crisscross with my dowsing rods to ensure that no land drains or service supplies, natural faults or watercourses are hidden beneath. This will be viewed by my assessor. We will agree the position for four or more walkways, each 2.4 metres across to be marked out. We will depart and an assistant to the assessor will throw dice to select four or more numbers. These will be used by the assistant to instruct volunteer diggers where to dig one hole per walkway. The location of each hole will be measured by GPS and photographed. Each hole will be around 1 metre across and around 1 metre deep. A length of ceramic land drain will be dropped at the bottom of each hole and a wetted layer of gravel and sand will be used to cover this pipe. Excavated soil will be used to backfill the trench. It will be rammed flat. The excavation will be hidden beneath a piece of stout exterior grade plywood, numbered according to the dice throw. The walkway will be completed by laying abutted sheets of plywood, numbered 1 to 6. The area will be cleared of all signs of work that could lead to their being any visual clues of where the trenches were made. The walkways will be at least two metres from each other. The possibility of identifying all four trenches hidden in the four walkways is over a million to one against doing it by chance. I would expect to identify all four. This is a far better simulation of the field conditions experienced by dowsers. It may not be perfect but it is a step in the right direction to examining the process of dowsing. The assessor and I, having been excluded from all experimental design and construction would then visit the site and only after I’ve made my results known would the assessor open the envelope provided off site by his assistant. This is the double blind part of the experimental construction. The correlation between my findings and his instructions would be announced. The GPS readings and photographs would be provided as back up.

I still do not know the motive force behind dowsing. It is still paranormal but not, I’m sure, supernatural. I suspect it might be an autonomic motor effect, like hair standing on end when near a strong electric field or pupils dilating when exposed to strong light, not under cognitive control but certainly an effect that could be studied further. This simulation would not exclude smell as being the motive force (animals can smell water miles away, elephants are known to excavate for it. Who knows that we might have such a residual facility). At least the simulation would not exclude it as the previous tests have done. Most “invisible forces” are electrical or gravitational. I would hope that my testing protocol would not exclude any unknown force but would be the gateway to its eventual identification.
I can see no link between my claims for dowsing using rods in the field and those made by people who use pendulums and maps. I can see no links between my claims and those by people who claim to diagnose disease by dowsing.

I would hope that by showing that dowsing’s paranormal status is only temporary I will assist Randi and other sceptical associations in refuting any supernatural claims being made in the future. At present each dowser could claim “my supernatural helper is better than any you’ve tested previously”. I fully support Randi’s exposure of fraudulent claims of mediums and hoaxers who will not accept examination. My claims are quite restricted and testable. I look forward to the test but first we need some land.

[Pixel42]

Thanks for that DowserDon, very interesting.

Your proposed test protocol seems sound at first reading. It would require rather more effort and expense than is usually deemed necessary when testing dowsing, but if that's what's required to be close enough to the field experience for you to be able to dowse whilst also ensuring mundane explanations are excluded then so be it.

Your first try at dowsing where you knew the route of the sewer sounds like a textbook example of the ideomotor effect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideomotor_effect), and all the subsequent experiences you describe can be explained by that, your years of experience at reading landscapes and confirmation bias. I'm sure you must realise this, so I'm a little puzzled as to why you think anything more is going on. Your test protocol appears to adequately exclude all these possibilities, so I can only assume that you have already tried it successfully. So may I ask again: what success rate have you achieved in dry runs of this test protocol?

ETA: Reading the protocol again clarification is needed as to how long the walkways are and hence how many possible positions there will be for the holes, and how close you will need to get to be considered a hit. At the moment I cannot see how you calculate odds of over a million to one against chance success.

[Ladewig]

So may I ask again: what success rate have you achieved in dry runs of this test protocol?

Yes! Please let us know, DD.

ETA: At the moment I cannot see how you calculate odds of over a million to one against chance success.

Seconded.
It seems like 1/6 raised to the fourth power which is 1 in 1296 - which are appropriate odds for the preliminary test, but are nowhere near 1 in 1,000,000.

[Almo]

Pixel42 is right. Looks like ideomotor effect (which doesn't mean idiot-motor, it means idea-movement) and confirmation bias to me as well. Randi himself has said that of all the paranormal people he's dealt with, the dowsers are usually the most honestly-deluded.

[Jim_MDP]

... I rationalised this by ...


Ah... I think I see the problem.

[Pixel42]

It seems like 1/6 raised to the fourth power which is 1 in 1296 - which are appropriate odds for the preliminary test, but are nowhere near 1 in 1,000,000.
It depends on how many possible positions there are under each walkway (and having a limited number of defined positions to choose from is the only way I can see to avoid disagreements over whether any point he indicates is near enough to the actual position to count as a hit).

If there are four walkways and, say, five possible positions under each then if my Maths is correct (and it's pretty rusty so it may not be) the odds of picking the right ones by chance are 1 in 625, which isn't quite enough to beat the 1:1000 odds typically specified by JREF for the preliminary test.

A sixth possible position or a fifth walkway would raise the odds sufficiently, though a cheaper and easier way of doing so would be to make the hole digging more random. For example if DowserDon knows there are four holes in total but there can be anywhere between 0 and all four of them under each individual walkway the odds against picking the right positions would be much higher, so fewer and/or shorter walkways would be needed to reach the required level of difficulty.

[MRC_Hans]

It depends on how many possible positions there are under each walkway (and having a limited number of defined positions to choose from is the only way I can see to avoid disagreements over whether any point he indicates is near enough to the actual position to count as a hit).

If there are four walkways and, say, five possible positions under each then if my Maths is correct (and it's pretty rusty so it may not be) the odds of picking the right ones by chance are 1 in 625, which isn't quite enough to beat the 1:1000 odds typically specified by JREF for the preliminary test.

A sixth possible position or a fifth walkway would raise the odds sufficiently, though a cheaper and easier way of doing so would be to make the hole digging more random. For example if DowserDon knows there are four holes in total but there can be anywhere between 0 and all four of them under each individual walkway the odds against picking the right positions would be much higher, so fewer and/or shorter walkways would be needed to reach the required level of difficulty.

As for position, all possible positions should be marked by a slab of plywood. The task would then be to point out the plywood slabs with water under. This makes the choice binary and the chance can be calculated. Positional precision would be unimportant.

Hans

[MRC_Hans]

What seems apparent from the replies and side-tracks resulting from my original query is that the world of sceptics is as riven as that of Christianity with its Catholics vs. Protestants and Islam with its Sunnis vs. Shias. So my slightly different approach will not please everyone. I do not expect it to.

I resent your comparison. Religious differences are clashes of dogmas. In the skeptical world, we realize that we cannot agree on everything; most problems have multiple solutions, and we don't know all the answers.


A little of my history:- I worked for 27 years as a research chemist for the UK Electricity Generating Board, mainly working on water problems (scale deposition, demineralisation, trouble shooting). I had a rig with a lot of water flowing around it and someone had left a bent welding rod near it. I picked it up and found it did not quite balance properly (oh no, not water divining, I thought. I’m supposed to be a scientist).

Really? Did you often go around balancing welding rods? What is the 'proper' balance of a bent welding rod?

At home I bent two rods and walked over the known route of my sewer and found that the rods swung as I crossed its line – ah, water, I thought (plus a few expletives).

So after some random rod did not balance the way you had expected it to do (how often will a random bent rod do that?), the scientist immidiately dived int oa dowsing experiment? .. I see.:rolleyes:

And you obtained a reaction where you knew there was to be one? Which means that what you tested might as well be your belief in dowsing. ;)

I walked around my house and found that the rods crossed elsewhere. This turned out to be the line of my underground electricity and gas supplies. I rationalised this by remembering that most underground services are bedded on sand and gravel, so water could be seeping along the service routes.

And you are telling me you didn't know where they were? A scientist and engineer, you never before pondered where your gas and electricity supply were routed? .. I see. - How did you confirm that these were indeed the correct positions?

My wife attended a conference on the coast and having got bored with reading whilst waiting for her, I remembered that the rods were still in my car.

Oh, so the disbelieving skeptic still put the rods in his car, for later experimentation?

I went for a walk along the cliffs and found two areas of very strong response – probably the remains of service ducts to wartime gun sites, I thought.

Not much doubt in your mind about your abilities, even at this point, ehh?


The next day I walked the same route but at coast level. The rods were not influenced by the sea water

Really? Don't you find that just a little bit odd?

but on looking up I found that there were waterfalls coming out of the cliffs where I had walked the day before. Oh dear, more links to water divining.

Did you ascertain the exact positions? How?
These were not just links. At this point, you were already a firm believer. Your actions and conclusions show that.


I visited a local park where there were two lakes, joined by a stream over which was a bridge. Standing on the bridge produced no response from my rods – so the effect was not from flowing water after all? I was perplexed.

Why perplexed? I can tell you why: You were already a believer, so you did not like your belief being shaken by illogical observations like this.


I heard of Randi’s $1million challenge and, at that time read that he was moving trucks of water or soil on tracks at ground level whilst the dowser under test was on the floor above. I decided that I could not possibly pass that test, so forgot about the Challenge for many years.

Why not? You are talking about an alleged ability of unknown properties. How could you judge that this experiment protocol would not work for you?

During that time I taught many friends including scientists how to dowse. I did not consider the ability to dowse particularly unusual although inexplicable.

Well, it seems all people can "dowse".


Later I heard that Randi was using copper pipes, some with water flowing others not and again decided that I would not pass that test either as I would detect the soil disturbed where all of the pipes were buried.

Nonsense. That is the idea of using empty pipes: You may bee able to see where there are pipes, but you must detect which ones carry water.

I was given a link to Randi’s YouTube video where he had a dowser on stage who claimed that he could detect an ore with dowsing rods. The ore was in plastic bottles beneath upturned buckets. My reaction was “what a poor simulation” of the conditions under which the dowser would normally operate (presumably a mine underground). I was annoyed.

So detecting something deep underground is easier than something right under your nose? What a strange ability! And again, how can you pretend to predict how an unknown sense will react to various methodologies?


On following links I found that Randi had used the same test for testing water dowsers. I was even more annoyed. Dowsing is not a spectator sport. It is not a theatrical entertainment.

How can you be annoyed? Protocols are agreed upon, so those dowsers were apparently satisfied with the method (at least before they failed). Who are you to judge how their claim should be tested?

It cannot be tested on a theatre stage. However, as I did not understand what mechanism drove dowsing to work I could not suggest a different test.

Then how could you know which test would NOT work?

.... Well I think I know how you deemed those testing methods inappropriate: The dowsers failed. Since you already firmly believed in dowsing, you concluded that, since the tests showed negative results, there must be a fault with the tests.

One property I dowsed for my son who was considering buying a house to live in produced a strange pattern of responses. I detected the route of the water supply but then detected a square of about 7 metres per side. Inexplicable until old plans of the area showed that the building had been a school with a buried air raid shelter. So perhaps I could detect the difference between soil and concrete or was the concrete covered in water. I was still mystified.

Or perhaps the results were just random. (I'm not impressed by your finding the wateer supply. As a water engineer, you would have a very educated guess at where it should be.)

I attended a meeting of about 60 dowsers (strange lot – I did not join their society) and visited a site of archaeological interest. The site was divided up into small walkways that dowsers could traverse. They detected the hidden outline of the medieval church and this was confirmed by reference to documents deposited with the Archaeological Department of the local University. Personally I was able to detect the outline of a hut (minus the doorway) in the corner of the field. So perhaps a heavy building compresses the soil so much that its location can be discerned many years after. I did not subscribe to the idea that the “spirit” of the church lived on.

Since you are, after all, somewhat rational, can't you see that with such a density of targets (in a known archaeological site) any hits are simply the Texas Sharpshooter fallacy.

I admit that no dowser was forced to take the test but like me earlier, I assume they could not think of a better test.

What is your criterion for a "better test"? Since you admit you have no idea how dowsing works, how can you have an opinion of what constitures a "good test"?

Because I am responsible for the costs I have honed my suggested protocol to simplify it and make it more affordable whilst keeping to the claim that was accepted by Banachek that, by using bent metal rods I am able to detect the interface between undisturbed soil and that disturbed by man or nature. Nature will disturb soil as it flows beneath ground. Man may disturb soil by digging a trench and backfilling or by placing heavy weights upon it.

I have no important comments to your protocol.

I still do not know the motive force behind dowsing. It is still paranormal but not, I’m sure, supernatural.

What, in your opinion, distinguishes 'paranormal' and 'supernatural'?

I suspect it might be an autonomic motor effect, like hair standing on end when near a strong electric field or pupils dilating when exposed to strong light, not under cognitive control but certainly an effect that could be studied further.

Those reactions are well understood, and in accordance with the laws of physics. The rising hair is not an automotor effect, btw. And pupils are contracted in string light. ... But I get your meaning. ;)

This simulation would not exclude smell as being the motive force (animals can smell water miles away, elephants are known to excavate for it.

SO how come you did not react to the sea or the water under the bridge? And if it is smell, what is your problem with mugs of water under upturned bucket? I do think your ideas of animal's abilities are somewhat exaggerated.

Who knows that we might have such a residual facility). At least the simulation would not exclude it as the previous tests have done.

If it was smell, it would not be paranormal, therefore the Randi test must exclude smell.

Most “invisible forces” are electrical or gravitational. I would hope that my testing protocol would not exclude any unknown force but would be the gateway to its eventual identification.

If it was electrical or gravitational, we would be able to confirm it by objective measurements: We have measuring instruments that are way more sensitive than the natural senses of ANY creature.


I can see no link between my claims for dowsing using rods in the field and those made by people who use pendulums and maps. I can see no links between my claims and those by people who claim to diagnose disease by dowsing.

Neither can I. A also se no links between your claims and those by people who claim to see the future or speak with spirits. Except that all are paranormal.

I would hope that by showing that dowsing’s paranormal status is only temporary I will assist Randi and other sceptical associations in refuting any supernatural claims being made in the future.

Nice, but all dowsers have failed so far, so don't start spending the money just yet. The fact that all dowsers have failed so far should tell you that it is possible to believe firmly in your abilities, ..... and be wrong.

My claims are quite restricted and testable. I look forward to the test but first we need some land.

And, I predict from experience, you will find it impossible to find some land that is 'clean' enough for your purpose. :rolleyes:

... However, what keeps you from going out to find such a piece of land right now? What are you waiting for?

Hans

[DowserDon]

Answers to some questions.

The use of my sewer. A chemical analyst when doing an assay will commonly analyse a “Standard” solution in the same batch as the unknown, to prove that the method has not been performed in a faulty way. I knew that the sewer with water flowing in it was there and I used that knowledge to refine how slowly I had to walk across the “water” and how loosely to hold the rods. I didn’t know that the rods would move when I walked over my service trenches. Why should I expect that? As far as I had heard at that stage only water was dowsable. I was really looking for land drains to water soakaways around the house. Futher, the services were buried beneath tarmac – I’d never heard of anyone dowsing through tarmac. The sewer might have been found by an ideomotor effect but not the trenches, waterfalls and air raid shelter.

Water supply to prospective house for son. MRC Hans should never consider buying a house in the UK – the estate agents would eat him. The water supply had been diverted when the air raid shelter was put into the forecourt of the existing 19th C building. The supply had been diverted through its own land. That land had been sold separately some years ago, leaving the route for the water passing across the next property’s drive way and land.

Preliminary test. The protocol I am trying to arrange is for the preliminary test and with four lanes each with six numbered sheets of rigid plywood for me to traverse, the odds of getting all four correct are over 1000 to 1. The plywood alone will cost over £500. The experiment is scalable to the final test but, if I have been shown to successfully find all four trenches I would hope that a review of this preliminary experiment might find cheaper ways of constructing the final experiment. I could not afford the final test if it were to be 1000 times more expensive than the preliminary. So if a forum member really wants to see me put to the test, think of a way of disguising where trenches have been dug. I must not be able to see or feel with my shoed feet where the backfilled trenches are. Gravel and tarmac were considered but these might be unacceptable to the landowner unless you can find someone who is building a car park. Any suggestions?

Professor French’s protocol. As a new contributor to this forum I am not allowed to post URLs, however I hope that some of you will have looked at the YouTube video, /watch?v=i4MPz8h9gYY. There, Prof. French used three lanes of six bottles.

Ideomotor Effect. Did I find it odd that I could not detect water that I could see in the park and at the sea shore? I did then. It rather knocks the ideomotor effect, don’t you think. I was expecting a much stronger response than when dowsing through a layer of soil or tarmac. What I eventually postulate is that all dowsers, not just me, probably detect the interface between undisturbed soil and soil disturbed by man or nature (generally water). Yes, my experience is that most people can dowse using rods. Those I’ve not been able to teach include two commercial pilots – perhaps their natural response to rod movement seems to be to cancel it out and correct for it. I’ve taught a Justice of the Peace, two industrial chemists, a metallurgist and a pharmacist, biologist and telecoms engineer, their wives and many others. This is why I had no trouble in getting my application witnessed.

Science and its progress. I hope by now you can understand why I consider Randi’s experiments to be poor simulations of dowsing in the field and my suggested protocol to be a better simulation. Science is advanced by someone noting an anomaly, wondering why, suggesting ways of explaining it and then putting those ways to the test. This expands on previous knowledge. Randi and French have shown that no supernatural being helps dowsers. Randi and French have not shown that dowsing does not work because, I consider, their test simulation is too restrictive. They only test for the presence or movement of water. My suggested protocol does not exclude the presence or movement of water in soil but extends the definition of dowsing to disturbed soil interfaces.

Experimental simulation. For years all that a bridge builder had to do was to show that the design could bear enough weight. That was good enough when spans were small and the material of construction was stone. Metal bridges built to the same weight specification ran into trouble when built in windy areas – they wobbled. Now the simulation is not only how much weight it can carry but is it torsionally stable. Wind tunnel tests are vital. The simulation has been improved. Nowadays, I would expect the specification for unstable areas to include some simulation for earthquakes. Tests improve with time according to failure of earlier models.
I rather like the quotation used by Pixel42, "The correct scientific response to anything that is not understood is always to look harder for the explanation, not give up and assume a supernatural cause". David Attenborough.
My proposals may not be adequate but if so I hope they are not the last. Even perfection can be improved upon. You ask Rolls Royce.

Land. Prof French, on the one time I spoke to him, said that he thought a friend of his in Leicestershire had land and would be willing for it to be dug up. He promised to contact him. I am still waiting. Land is not easy to find in the UK.

Texas sharpshooter results. MRC Hans uses his imagination sometimes. What was surprising to me was the absence of false positive results. Other than the outline, font, altar and some well-defined grave areas, most of the other land was free from positive results. This was not at all a random pattern that had to be looked at hard in order to discern a pattern, the pattern was easily apparent.

Nonsense. That is the idea of using empty pipes: You may bee able to see where there are pipes, but you must detect which ones carry water. And, I predict from experience, you will find it impossible to find some land that is 'clean' enough for your purpose.
Please try to understand that JREF have accepted my claim that I dowse using rods to detect the interface between disturbed and undisturbed soil. They use “paranormal” to be “unexplained by science”, so do I. Not all paranormal observations remain explicable only by invoking the supernatural. Lightning was only explicable as a supernatural sign of disapproval by the gods until a couple of hundred years ago. Fortunately individuals have challenged this concept, thought of experiments to conduct, performed them and published. I hope to follow that route.

The ideomotor effect is alive and well in the blinkered minds of some of the contributors to this forum. If the idea is "dowsing", the motor effect is to dismiss its possible existence. I am putting my money where my mouth is and am eager to be put to the double blind test. I wonder whether MRC Hans would care to put his money forward to pay for the plywood, if I pass the preliminary test.

[sadhatter]

Answers to some questions.

The use of my sewer. A chemical analyst when doing an assay will commonly analyse a “Standard” solution in the same batch as the unknown, to prove that the method has not been performed in a faulty way. I knew that the sewer with water flowing in it was there and I used that knowledge to refine how slowly I had to walk across the “water” and how loosely to hold the rods. I didn’t know that the rods would move when I walked over my service trenches. Why should I expect that? As far as I had heard at that stage only water was dowsable. I was really looking for land drains to water soakaways around the house. Futher, the services were buried beneath tarmac – I’d never heard of anyone dowsing through tarmac. The sewer might have been found by an ideomotor effect but not the trenches, waterfalls and air raid shelter.

Water supply to prospective house for son. MRC Hans should never consider buying a house in the UK – the estate agents would eat him. The water supply had been diverted when the air raid shelter was put into the forecourt of the existing 19th C building. The supply had been diverted through its own land. That land had been sold separately some years ago, leaving the route for the water passing across the next property’s drive way and land.

Preliminary test. The protocol I am trying to arrange is for the preliminary test and with four lanes each with six numbered sheets of rigid plywood for me to traverse, the odds of getting all four correct are over 1000 to 1. The plywood alone will cost over £500. The experiment is scalable to the final test but, if I have been shown to successfully find all four trenches I would hope that a review of this preliminary experiment might find cheaper ways of constructing the final experiment. I could not afford the final test if it were to be 1000 times more expensive than the preliminary. So if a forum member really wants to see me put to the test, think of a way of disguising where trenches have been dug. I must not be able to see or feel with my shoed feet where the backfilled trenches are. Gravel and tarmac were considered but these might be unacceptable to the landowner unless you can find someone who is building a car park. Any suggestions?

Professor French’s protocol. As a new contributor to this forum I am not allowed to post URLs, however I hope that some of you will have looked at the YouTube video, /watch?v=i4MPz8h9gYY. There, Prof. French used three lanes of six bottles.

Ideomotor Effect. Did I find it odd that I could not detect water that I could see in the park and at the sea shore? I did then. It rather knocks the ideomotor effect, don’t you think. I was expecting a much stronger response than when dowsing through a layer of soil or tarmac. What I eventually postulate is that all dowsers, not just me, probably detect the interface between undisturbed soil and soil disturbed by man or nature (generally water). Yes, my experience is that most people can dowse using rods. Those I’ve not been able to teach include two commercial pilots – perhaps their natural response to rod movement seems to be to cancel it out and correct for it. I’ve taught a Justice of the Peace, two industrial chemists, a metallurgist and a pharmacist, biologist and telecoms engineer, their wives and many others. This is why I had no trouble in getting my application witnessed.

Science and its progress. I hope by now you can understand why I consider Randi’s experiments to be poor simulations of dowsing in the field and my suggested protocol to be a better simulation. Science is advanced by someone noting an anomaly, wondering why, suggesting ways of explaining it and then putting those ways to the test. This expands on previous knowledge. Randi and French have shown that no supernatural being helps dowsers. Randi and French have not shown that dowsing does not work because, I consider, their test simulation is too restrictive. They only test for the presence or movement of water. My suggested protocol does not exclude the presence or movement of water in soil but extends the definition of dowsing to disturbed soil interfaces.

Experimental simulation. For years all that a bridge builder had to do was to show that the design could bear enough weight. That was good enough when spans were small and the material of construction was stone. Metal bridges built to the same weight specification ran into trouble when built in windy areas – they wobbled. Now the simulation is not only how much weight it can carry but is it torsionally stable. Wind tunnel tests are vital. The simulation has been improved. Nowadays, I would expect the specification for unstable areas to include some simulation for earthquakes. Tests improve with time according to failure of earlier models.
I rather like the quotation used by Pixel42, "The correct scientific response to anything that is not understood is always to look harder for the explanation, not give up and assume a supernatural cause". David Attenborough.
My proposals may not be adequate but if so I hope they are not the last. Even perfection can be improved upon. You ask Rolls Royce.

Land. Prof French, on the one time I spoke to him, said that he thought a friend of his in Leicestershire had land and would be willing for it to be dug up. He promised to contact him. I am still waiting. Land is not easy to find in the UK.

Texas sharpshooter results. MRC Hans uses his imagination sometimes. What was surprising to me was the absence of false positive results. Other than the outline, font, altar and some well-defined grave areas, most of the other land was free from positive results. This was not at all a random pattern that had to be looked at hard in order to discern a pattern, the pattern was easily apparent.

Nonsense. That is the idea of using empty pipes: You may bee able to see where there are pipes, but you must detect which ones carry water. And, I predict from experience, you will find it impossible to find some land that is 'clean' enough for your purpose.
Please try to understand that JREF have accepted my claim that I dowse using rods to detect the interface between disturbed and undisturbed soil. They use “paranormal” to be “unexplained by science”, so do I. Not all paranormal observations remain explicable only by invoking the supernatural. Lightning was only explicable as a supernatural sign of disapproval by the gods until a couple of hundred years ago. Fortunately individuals have challenged this concept, thought of experiments to conduct, performed them and published. I hope to follow that route.

The ideomotor effect is alive and well in the blinkered minds of some of the contributors to this forum. If the idea is "dowsing", the motor effect is to dismiss its possible existence. I am putting my money where my mouth is and am eager to be put to the double blind test. I wonder whether MRC Hans would care to put his money forward to pay for the plywood, if I pass the preliminary test.

More rambling about how it works, no showing that it works, more of the same stuff we see all the time.

Serious question, and i apologize for the curt tone, but it is the best way i can think of to put it, to avoid another wall of text.

Why, do you not just display your superpower to folks instead of trying to convince us through stories?

We will not be convinced through your anecdotes, just go out, find someone of some importance, and show them your talent. If it is real, you should have no trouble impressing folks, and drumming up a name for yourself. This shouldn't be as hard as folks like you claim it is. Make an appointment with a lawyer, and bring your testing stuff. If it is as impressive as you claim, he should be floored. Heck, do the same with your doctor, landlord, someone at a local college, just set up any kind of appointment and bring a small scale test. They may be a little wierded out, but if you can display a superpower, no professional in their right mind is going to ignore it.

This will do one of two things.

1) If your legit , it will impress the hell out of them, and make them want to get in on what is going to be a groundbreaking scientific study.

2) If you are deluded it will make you seem crazy as hell, and this should show you that your methods of testing yourself have resulted in self delusion.

It is the ultimate put up or shut up response. Do you believe in your powers enough to spring them on someone, knowing if they are real, they will be impressed and want to be in on the ground floor of what is going to be one hell of a gravy train? If not, then you are a long way from being in a situation to apply for the challenge.

[wardenclyffe]

Why, do you not just display your superpower to folks instead of trying to convince us through stories?


To be fair, he seems willing to be tested, we're just waiting for the JREF to respond (based on what we are told so far).

Ward

[Pixel42]

Preliminary test. The protocol I am trying to arrange is for the preliminary test and with four lanes each with six numbered sheets of rigid plywood for me to traverse, the odds of getting all four correct are over 1000 to 1.
That's correct. Not over a million to one but (judging by precedent) acceptable odds for the preliminary test.

The plywood alone will cost over £500.
If cost is a concern you might want to consider the tweak to the protocol I suggested, which would reduce the amount of plywood required. I don't have any suggestions for disguising the trenches I'm afraid.

Ideomotor Effect. Did I find it odd that I could not detect water that I could see in the park and at the sea shore? I did then. It rather knocks the ideomotor effect, don’t you think.
Um, no. The ideomotor effect is controlled by your unconscious, so you shouldn't expect the rods to react exactly as they would if your conscious mind was directing them.

The fact is that all the experiences that you've described can be explained by some combination of the ideomotor effect, coincidence, confirmation bias, your ability to read the landscape, and underestimating the frequency with which hits can occur by chance. The only way you can find out whether there really is something going over and above all of those factors is to carefully exclude them all. Your proposed protocol does that, so the first thing you need to do is to try it and see what your success rate is. [ETA: you don't need the full monty, just enough of it to prove to yourself that you can do better than chance with this setup; say to beat odds of 1 in 20]. Only when you've proved to yourself that you really have this ability should you even consider trying to prove it to JREF, or indeed anyone else.

At the moment you seem to be making the mistake so many applicants make of assuming that your subjective experiences alone are adequate proof for yourself, and you just need to convince others of what you already know to be true. But the reality is that the evidence JREF require is the minimum for anyone to be able to conclude dowsing is a genuine ability, including you. At the moment you have no more reason to assume you will pass your proposed test than I do.

[jsfisher]

How can you be annoyed? Protocols are agreed upon, so those dowsers were apparently satisfied with the method (at least before they failed). Who are you to judge how their claim should be tested?

Not only were the testing protocols agreed to, but the dowsers all took an open pretest...and passed just fine. Dowsing only works, apparently, when the dowser already knows the answer.

[Ladewig]

I am putting my money where my mouth is and am eager to be put to the double blind test.

Eager, eh? Are you eager enough to try a smaller double blind test before the actual JREF preliminary test?

[Pixel42]

DowserDon: Here is a smaller scale version of your proposed test protocol which you could use for a dry run.

You will need enough materials for up to 6 holes, and a friend (hereafter The Digger) who's prepared to dig them. Ideally, but not essentially, you should also enlist at least two observers (contact your nearest sceptics in the pub (http://www.skeptic.org.uk/events/skeptics-in-the-pub)group, I'm sure they'll be delighted to help).

You'll also need a suitable piece of waste ground. Dowse candidates and mark any spot where you get no response for several square metres. You'll need a site containing at least six such spots. Sketch a rough map of the site showing where the six spots are and make two copies of it.

1. First do an unblinded test. You should have The Digger present, so he can see exactly how you want the holes dug and refilled. Choose one of the unresponsive spots, dig and refill a hole as per your test protocol, and lay plywood over it. Dowse it again to ensure you are now getting a response. If you do not then you have not managed to reproduce whatever it is you are detecting when dowsing and must think again. If you do then you are ready to do the test.

2. On the day of the test return to the site with your materials, The Digger, and any invited observers. First check that the spot where you dug the hole earlier is still responding to your dowsing and the other undisturbed spots are not.

3. You and all but one of any observers should now leave the site whilst The Digger goes to each of the five undisturbed spots in turn and tosses a coin. If it comes down heads he digs and refills a hole and covers it with plywood, if it comes down tails he just covers the spot with plywood. He marks on his copy of the map which spots he has disturbed and which he hasn't. When he and any observer are satisfied that all five spots look and feel the same underfoot whether they have been disturbed or not they call you and leave.

4. You return to the site with any other observers and dowse the five spots, marking on your copy of the map which you think have been disturbed and which haven't.

5. You call The Digger who returns, and you compare the two maps. [ETA: you can of course dig each spot if you wish to confirm that The Digger's map is correct].

According to my rusty Maths there is a 1 in 32 chance of guessing correctly whether there is or is not a hole for all five spots - good enough to justify pursuing your application for the JREF MDC.

An even smaller scale version of this test with only, say, 3 spots would be better than nothing, but you should certainly do a dry run of some kind before investing the time and money necessary for an official, formal, test.

[Ladewig]

Pixel 42 is right.

I just want to emphasize two parts


3. You and all but one of any observers should now leave the site ..... they call you and leave.

No one present for the digging phase can be present for the dowsing phase.

you should certainly do a [double blind] dry run of some kind before investing the time and money necessary for an official, formal test.

[wardenclyffe]

The local skeptics in the pub might be able to act as a digging team. This would help prevent the necessity of hiring any special equipment for this prelim-prelim. Unfortunately, they would not be able to observe the test in person (maybe in cars from a distance?).

Ward

[666]

I worked for 27 years as a research chemist for the UK Electricity Generating Board...
Never heard of that. I have heard of the Central Electricity Generating Board but that hasn't existed as such for more than 20 years. Is that what you intended to say?

[Almo]

Doing a blinded test on yourself is important. I did a blinded test using iTunes to see if I could tell the difference between compressed music files and uncompressed music files. I couldn't. I was surprised, but when I couldn't tell which file was which because they all looked the same, I couldn't hear the difference, either.

[Ladewig]

Doing a blinded test on yourself is important. I did a blinded test using iTunes to see if I could tell the difference between compressed music files and uncompressed music files. I couldn't. I was surprised, but when I couldn't tell which file was which because they all looked the same, I couldn't hear the difference, either.


Emphatically yes. A blind test is by far the most important thing that the OPer can do at this stage.


..
As for your test, of course you couldn't hear the difference, you weren't using magic gold-plated wires.

[Almo]

A friend of mine doesn't believe me about compressed audio. He has multiple iPods with different sections of his huge uncompressed music collection.

It is instructive that instead of doing a blinded test, he ridicules me for not being able to hear the difference. I just ask if he's done a test, and he doesn't have anything else to say.

He remains nameless because I don't intend to insult him; he's just behaving irrationally.

ETA: For the record, I do know you can hear the difference at low enough bitrates with poor compression codecs. My claim that I cannot tell the difference is for 256 kbps AAC files and uncompressed .wav files, played through my Grado SR-125 headphones via iTunes. I'm sure the stereophile types would say I can't hear the difference because the setup is inferior, bad DAC on the audio card, poor cabling, etc.

My wife also took a blinded test. That tested the difference between a CD played in our stereo, and a 256 kbps AAC played from the Mac over wireless to PS3 out through HDMI to TV back through RCA cable to the receiver where the CD player is built in. Honestly; if you can't hear the difference with THAT setup, then I don't know where they would hide. Speaker cables maybe?

[PartSkeptic]

Hi. I am new to this site. I was researching GMO's and found a good discussion here.

Then I saw the challenge and read (skimmed) the dowsing exchange.

Many years ago, I knew some-one in South Africa who made his living from dowsing. He used rods and/or maps. I think his use of maps precludes having some sort of animal-like ultra-sense (which I have seen examples of, and some dowsers may use this).

He was paid by corporations and individuals to find not only water but minerals including gold. He made a good income, but I asked why he was not a whole lot richer. This was when I learned about the "abuse and lose rule". Such gifts are not "law of physics" but are moderated by a higher power. This gives skeptics (I am part skeptic) logical reason to shout "Cop-out".

A test was designed. Dig multiple holes and fill them in. Put gold jewellery in a cloth in one hole. He could not find the gold. His genuine puzzlement gave me my first lesson (of many) of the "no test rule". Another "cop-out", but it means the prize is 100% safe, unless the higher power decides to surprize you.

I needed to drill for water on a farm. The drillers claimed that geological survey and dowsing had about the same success rate of 80%.

I tried the rods where water had been predicted. It seemed to work - the rods moved at the same spot repeatedly. I don't think there is a "spook" force moving the rods. An extremely slight tilt of one's hands causes the rods to move. The rods are thin and slippery, and while I could make them swing if I wished, I could not sense my hands tilting when doing the dowsing.

I am an engineer and researcher, and have come across many claims. I find I can debunk most by just asking the right questions, and seeing the people back off. This must be done in a gentle, genuine interest manner, otherwise they go into "shields up" mode.

All of my psychic experiences occur when I least expect them. My guard is down, and my skeptical nature is at rest. My mood is one of idle curiosity mostly, and a spontaneous test will work. But only once, as if to prove to me personally that certain things work.

Because of "personal proof/evidence" I lean toward acceptance of a higher power, and of psychic phenomena. Certain "intuitions" have been a great help at times. At one stage I was a complete atheist, and for many years an agnostic.

Unfortunately my experiences fall into the category of anecdotes. These can be debunked by claiming a number of theories. Coincidence, liar, self-deception, self-delusion, hallucination, tricks of the mind, and so on. I would doubt my own sanity, except that there were often others involved who would confirm to me what happened.

[wardenclyffe]

PartSkeptic,

Welcome to the forum. You make many good points. But there are a couple of problems with the theories you present.

First, if the higher power shows you that it exists only once, doesn't it seem more likely that it was just a coincidence once? If it did keep happening over and over, that seems like something worth exploring.

Also, if the higher power prevents someone from getting rich using their powers, how much money does it allow them to make? At what point would your dowser friend have gone broke? If he'd asked for one Rand more? If he'd accepted one job more? There are millionaire psychics like James Van Praagh and John Edward. Are they frauds because they are rich? Are the only true psychics the ones who scrape by with a neon palm in their living room window?

We should be able to measure how much the higher power is willing to allow a practitioner to make.

Ward

[Pixel42]

Hi. I am new to this site. I was researching GMO's and found a good discussion here.
Welcome to that discussion. :)

This was when I learned about the "abuse and lose rule". Such gifts are not "law of physics" but are moderated by a higher power. This gives skeptics (I am part skeptic) logical reason to shout "Cop-out".
Well spotted.

The argument seems to boil down to which of three possible types of universe we live in:

Type A: in which there are no higher powers and no paranormal abilities which in any way override the laws of physics as we understand them, and coincidences occur as often as those laws predict

Type B: in which higher powers/paranormal abilities affect the universe to the extent that sufficient experiments, observations and measurements can detect their effect

Type C: in which higher powers/paranormal abilities occasionally override the laws of physics but something is deliberately ensuring that no amount of experiments, observations and measurements can detect their effect in, for example, an unexpectedly high number of coincidences

Most sceptics would I think argue that Type C is redundant. There are only two types of universe; if Type C is indistinguishable from Type A under any conceivable circumstances then it is Type A, and there is no good reason to postulate it as a separate possibility.

So we concentrate on trying to determine if the universe we live in is Type A or Type B. If it's Type B it should be relatively easy to gather sufficient evidence to prove it. The more time and effort is spent trying and failing to do so the more likely it becomes that the universe is Type A, but we can never definitely prove it.

[Ladewig]

This was when I learned about the "abuse and lose rule". Such gifts are not "law of physics" but are moderated by a higher power. This gives skeptics (I am part skeptic) logical reason to shout "Cop-out".

So the question I have is: How does the higher power regulate demonstrations of special abilities when the JREF-challenge applicant specifically says that his powers come from above and that when he wins the money he will donate to charity? This situation happens with surprising regularity.

I am also interested in your theories about this regulatory higher power. Is it more like some sort of karma in that there are no conscious decisions or is it more like a powerful being who can evaluate specific situations (including the motives and thoughts of individual people) and then make decisions about whether a power will successfully work, partially work, or fail to work?
But perhaps those questions are best asked in a different thread.

[DowserDon]

No 666 I did not intend to say CEGB. Admittedly that is who paid me but for the mainly non-UK forum members I said UK EGB. Central could have been Central Mongolian, Central Australian or Central American. UK EGB gives more info.

[DowserDon]

I'm in a ratty mood today.
Can we please in this forum use the terminology adopted by JREF in its $1 million Challenge. It uses "paranormal" to mean "not explicable by science". That means it could change tomorrow with a scientific paper being published giving an explanation. "Supernatural" suggests the intervention of an force that is "super-" (outside of nature). I do not believe in the supernatural. I do believe that there are many processes that have not at present got an explanation. Personal experience suggests that dowsing is one of them.
Can anyone point to a proper well-funded examination of dowsing. Unlikely as no scientist with a reputation to defend would even look at it. Do not quote JREF bottle and bucket protocol, it is too far removed from conditions in the field.
I am retired, so I'm not concerned about reputation.
As for anecdotes. I'm sure that if I report a successful double blind test, it will still be regarded by many as anecdotal.
I may have some land made available to me in March (February in the UK is likely to be snowy).
I promise to post the results.

[Ladewig]

I'm in a ratty mood today.
Can we please in this forum use the terminology adopted by JREF in its $1 million Challenge. It uses "paranormal" to mean "not explicable by science".

While I am prepared to accede to your request and use that particular terminology, I feel compelled to point out that in this message board, opening posters do not have the power to limit what is discussed or how it is discussed.



ETA: I do want to point out that if you think posts 83-86 are too far away from the topic defined in the opening post, you may request that they be moved to another thread. Your request may be denied but one never knows. To make such a request, select any of the posts and click on the exclamation point inside the triangle located in the lower left portion of the post. When a dialogue box comes up briefly explain that you want those posts moved to a new or a different thread because they are off-topic. Then wait 8-32 hours for a response.

[Pixel42]

Can anyone point to a proper well-funded examination of dowsing.
The wiki article references several such studies: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dowsing#Evidence

as does the skeptic's dictionary entry: http://www.skepdic.com/dowsing.html

and the entry on dowsing in this site's own encyclopedia: http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/encyclopedia.html

I'm sure that if I report a successful double blind test, it will still be regarded by many as anecdotal.
Anecdotal describes evidence gathered in circumstances where sources of error such as confirmation bias haven't been rigorously excluded, a properly conducted double blind test is not anecdotal evidence. Of course if all you offer in support of an assertion that you have conducted such a test is your word, that is still anecdotal. If, however, you have a successful double blind test recorded before independant witnesses (again I recommend your nearest sceptics in the pub group) it will be difficult for even the most cynical sceptic to dismiss it.

I may have some land made available to me in March (February in the UK is likely to be snowy).
I promise to post the results.
Excellent.

[PartSkeptic]

I might be getting off thread with some of the comments, but will respond to particular replies.

First, if the higher power shows you that it exists only once, doesn't it seem more likely that it was just a coincidence once? If it did keep happening over and over, that seems like something worth exploring.

The "once" applies to an impulsive "test" of a particular phenomenon. Examples: Mental telepathy, picking horse racing winners, remote viewing, seeing the future. Trying to repeat the "tests" were dismal failures. But I have enough instances of psychic events occurring spontaneously to make me lean toward personal belief. Recently, I "knew" that a particular motorcyclist passing me would die in the next mile. He did.

Also, if the higher power prevents someone from getting rich using their powers, how much money does it allow them to make? At what point would your dowser friend have gone broke? If he'd asked for one Rand more? If he'd accepted one job more? There are millionaire psychics like James Van Praagh and John Edward. Are they frauds because they are rich? Are the only true psychics the ones who scrape by with a neon palm in their living room window?

We should be able to measure how much the higher power is willing to allow a practitioner to make.

It is not science with metrics. Many people start out with psychic abilities, and then slowly lose them if they overcharge, and they know /feel it. By then they have learned how to "fake it", and could not care. I would guess that most (if not all) professional and wealthy psychics are in this category.

The true "superstars" were probably the biblical prophets, but it is too late to test them.

A clairvoyant friend who charges, works for a modest fee, and will decline to charge if she cannot deliver. Another professional clairvoyant I knew did have abilities, but got a lot of "inside information" from the interconnected clients she had, and was quite astute and perceptive of human nature.

[PartSkeptic]

Most sceptics would I think argue that Type C is redundant. There are only two types of universe; if Type C is indistinguishable from Type A under any conceivable circumstances then it is Type A, and there is no good reason to postulate it as a separate possibility.

I would agree with you that, for most people, Type C is indistinguishable from Type A. And for that reason they are unlikely to change their viewpoint. This includes many who have "blind faith", although they might have a personal "feeling".

Type C: in which higher powers/paranormal abilities occasionally override the laws of physics but something is deliberately ensuring that no amount of experiments, observations and measurements can detect their effect in, for example, an unexpectedly high number of coincidences

For me, I am compelled to say that my experience gives me good reason to feel that Type C exists. Even if I could say that something big would happen this year, and it did happen, it could still be explained by a "lucky guess".

Small "near future" events can (but rarely) be predicted with accuracy, but anyone giving a day/month year for the end of the world (and details of how it will happen) MUST be mistaken. My experience is that it would not be allowed. Even the prophet Muhammad's advice about a very long-shot famous bet (the winnings given to charity when won) his friend had placed, was given an extended window and time frame. I was raised Methodist by the way.

I told my wife in 2008, that there was a good chance of an economic crash, and we acted to cash out our investments including selling our home. I was "guided" to internet articles. Economists WERE saying for many years it would happen. I happened to read all the right ones at the right time. I am quite happy to accept a chain of coincidences (albeit serendipitous) on this one.

DowserDon. You sound honest and I believe what you say. But you are likely to find that the proof needed to win the prize will elude you. But explore the psychic world. It is interesting to say the least.

[PartSkeptic]

So the question I have is: How does the higher power regulate demonstrations of special abilities when the JREF-challenge applicant specifically says that his powers come from above and that when he wins the money he will donate to charity? This situation happens with surprising regularity.

Donating to charity is irrelevant. Proof will NOT be allowed. You might have some-one who knows that greed is abuse and tries to get around the first rule I gave. Hence I separated the two rules "abuse and lose" and "no test (permitted to succeed)". Anyone claiming to "possess a power" should realize that "powers" are "given" on an event by event basis by an outside higher power, and that even the best have "off-days" and get it wrong (to keep them "honest and stop conceit).

I am also interested in your theories about this regulatory higher power. Is it more like some sort of karma in that there are no conscious decisions or is it more like a powerful being who can evaluate specific situations (including the motives and thoughts of individual people) and then make decisions about whether a power will successfully work, partially work, or fail to work?

It seems we are here to learn lessons (and evolve) on a soul level. Think of it as a parent who wants a child to learn a lesson. The parent monitors the child but does not let the child know the parent is observing and is subtly intervening on occasion. If re-incarnation exists (I only suspect it might because it is logical to me) then death(s) at various stages in life is only a lesson.

These days, a soldier can be put into simulations that he is unaware of the monitoring and controlling, if you want a less biblical scenario.

[Ladewig]

Donating to charity is irrelevant. Proof will NOT be allowed. You might have some-one who knows that greed is abuse and tries to get around the first rule I gave. Hence I separated the two rules "abuse and lose" and "no test (permitted to succeed)". Anyone claiming to "possess a power" should realize that "powers" are "given" on an event by event basis by an outside higher power, and that even the best have "off-days" and get it wrong (to keep them "honest and stop conceit).



It seems we are here to learn lessons (and evolve) on a soul level. Think of it as a parent who wants a child to learn a lesson. The parent monitors the child but does not let the child know the parent is observing and is subtly intervening on occasion. If re-incarnation exists (I only suspect it might because it is logical to me) then death(s) at various stages in life is only a lesson.

These days, a soldier can be put into simulations that he is unaware of the monitoring and controlling, if you want a less biblical scenario.



Thank you for your prompt responses. Given that this description is the exact opposite of what the OPer/claimant is asserting, might you consider starting a new thread to talk about your beliefs, experiences, and evidence?

[Pixel42]

I would agree with you that, for most people, Type C is indistinguishable from Type A.
For all people. By your definition.

But I agree with Ladewig, you need to start your own thread if you want to discuss this view further as it is very different to the one the OP is describing and certainly doesn't belong in this subforum.

[666]

No 666 I did not intend to say CEGB. Admittedly that is who paid me but for the mainly non-UK forum members I said UK EGB. Central could have been Central Mongolian, Central Australian or Central American. UK EGB gives more info.
Thanks for the clarification and sorry for the slight derail. I take your point although I would probably have phrased it as "the UK's Central Electricity Generating Board", but that's just me. :)

[gnome]

If it's not allowed to be known for sure, then you don't know for sure either. So the only possible conclusion is not that you do, in fact know, but that you aren't sure but prefer to believe so.

[gnome]

Can anyone point to a proper well-funded examination of dowsing. Unlikely as no scientist with a reputation to defend would even look at it. Do not quote JREF bottle and bucket protocol, it is too far removed from conditions in the field.

Too often the "conditions in the field" allow for the use of information available besides the dowsing technique.

It is on you to describe what eliminates non-dowsing methods of sussing where water might be, while still retaining enough "field conditions" for dowsing to work. Which, to your credit, you are attempting to do by applying. I will be keeping up because I love it when an applicant gets to preliminary testing.

[PartSkeptic]

I agree my posts are off-thread, and I will back off. Feel free to delete if it cleans up the discussion.

Starting a new thread is not really a good idea since I would be compelled to spend a lot of time trying to be precise to avoid apparent contradictions in logic. And getting to the truth of the anecdotes would require me to go through extensive (and unwanted by me or readers) discussions of my credibility and credulity.

I will limit any future posts to simple, short and relevant comments.

[PartSkeptic]

If it's not allowed to be known for sure, then you don't know for sure either. So the only possible conclusion is not that you do, in fact know, but that you aren't sure but prefer to believe so.

Re-read your post. A great summary. Yes, I agree.

If I was not such a natural doubter who also wants unshakeable proof (like God appearing daily to a large bunch of us to confirm what I think, then submitting to testing, and claiming the prize) I would not be saying I am not sure.

[Pixel42]

As for anecdotes. I'm sure that if I report a successful double blind test, it will still be regarded by many as anecdotal.
I may have some land made available to me in March (February in the UK is likely to be snowy).
I promise to post the results.

If, however, you have a successful double blind test recorded before independant witnesses (again I recommend your nearest sceptics in the pub group) it will be difficult for even the most cynical sceptic to dismiss it.
Just to add that I am also retired and live in the UK so, depending on how far away from me the test takes place, I might be able to come along to witness it. So you'd have confirmation from a fairly long standing member of the forum of the results when you post them.

[Ethan Thane Athen]

... I’ve taught a Justice of the Peace, two industrial chemists, a metallurgist and a pharmacist, biologist and telecoms engineer, their wives and many others. This is why I had no trouble in getting my application witnessed.


Could you please stop willfully transmitting your woo to other 'scientists'.

Sorry, I'm in a ratty mood today as well!

Your protocol is over-elaborate, difficult to control and expensive / time-consuming IMHO. It is very difficult to dig and remove all traces of that soil interference - especially in the UK where it's nearly always muddy!

Your attempted explanation for what you are detecting - disturbance of soil by man (pipes etc) or water flow - has a number of potential logic holes: why are you not constantly detecting where the soil has been disturbed by tree / plant roots, insects or other creatures tunnelling (you'll be hard pushed to find an area of ground the worms haven't been through!); what about where the water has gone through soil or softer rock but is covered over with granite that is therefore undisturbed? Would you detect that?

If it's disturbed soil you detect (regardless of the above problems) couldn't we have a far simpler test where we have small containers of undisturbed soil (dug up in an intact section) and disturbed soil (similar)? You could even select the samples yourself and then check in an open test that you can still tell the difference before they are randomised.

Incidentally, your dismissal of the failure of the ideomotor effect as an explanation of other dowsers' failure to perform when tested misses the explanation already given that they try the test first in open conditions and have no trouble detecting the relevant samples (even when covered up - so long as they know where they are) thereby proving the setup is fine as a test of their abilities... and then all fail as soon as the setup (whilst exactly the same otherwise) is blinded. If you respond to this by saying all such dowsers are not 'true' dowsers, then bear in mind your ascertion that anyone can do it and it's easy to learn, as that would make any claim that they're not 'true' dowsers a mite feeble.

I also fail to understand why you won't do the simpler self-tests suggested. Your excuse that we wouldn't believe the results spectacularly misses the point that such a test is for you. It'll either allow you to hone your skills and the test protocol (which can only improve your chances of passing) or allow you to realise that you are sadly (and rather disturbingly easily) deluded. Of course if you did involve the local skeptic group that would help the above and also act as some assurance in any relaying to us that it is more than anecdote - but the main point of the test is for you.

Sadly I expect (as with most other dowsers before you), you'll either keep elaborating on the test conditions, such that it becomes (even more) impractical to run, or you will indeed be tested (great!), will fail (as have all before you) and then construct a new elaborate theory as to what it was you were actually detecting and why the test was not a fair measure of that (as, sadly, many people who fail the test do).

Of course there remains the hope that you will be true to your former profession and accept the results of a rigorous and fair test (that you will have formally agreed is rigorous and fair before you take it).

Fingers crossed!

[Marcus]

Fingers crossed!
DowserDon seems pretty rational, he really could be the first person to accept the results of a JREF preliminary, although I would still say the odds are against it.

The problem will be the protocol, it's complicated and will be difficult to make acceptable to both sides.

[Ethan Thane Athen]

DowserDon seems pretty rational, he really could be the first person to accept the results of a JREF preliminary, although I would still say the odds are against it.

Er he seemed extremely quick to go from 'Oooh look a bent wire' through 'Let's see if dowsing works' to 'Dowsing works...ooh except in those cases where it doesn't so let's redefine dowsing to fit' for a rational person who claims to be a scientist.

The problem will be the protocol, it's complicated and will be difficult to make acceptable to both sides.

Agreed - and fits the pattern of continually redefining a 'skill' to confound testing and / or rationalise away failure.

Then again, I'm cynic as well as skeptic and lack the patience and understanding of most on this board. I also accept my approach is probably less helpful than others' and less likely to lead a 'believer' to a rational outcome, so I'll bow out of this thread now - and keep a watching brief...

Best of luck DowserDon and here's hoping you prove me wrong!

[Almo]

DowserDon seems pretty rational, he really could be the first person to accept the results of a JREF preliminary, although I would still say the odds are against it.

The problem will be the protocol, it's complicated and will be difficult to make acceptable to both sides.

I thought someone accepted the prelim of the GSIC prelim test. Though that may have been a special case as I seem to rememeber the person being tested wasn't a true believer in it in the first place.

[DowserDon]

Thanks Pixel42. I followed your Wiki links beyond the first page (descriptions of water in pipes and trucks! and found this which is quite interesting but again a long way from soil interfaces:-

Physiol Chem Phys. 1978;10(6):525-34.
Anatomical localization of human detection of weak electromagnetic radiation: experiments with dowsers.
Harvalik ZV.
Abstract

Positive responses (dowsing signals) were evoked from 14 male "dowsers" by exposure to artificial electromagnetic (ac) fields. When the kidney area was shielded, such responses failed to occur. This suggests that magnetic sensors exist in man, probably located in the renal vicinity. Extinction of response was also observed when the head was shielded. This suggests the existence of additional magnetic sensory apparatus in the brain. Discrimination among magnetic patterns (signatures) is hypothesized to account for the apparent ability of dowsers to find specific underground substances, notably water. Such discrimination would require functional association of the sensory apparatus with a signature processor. Data are presented suggesting that this sensor-processor complex does indeed exist and may be located in the vicinity of the pineal gland.

I don't claim to know how or what activates a dowsers response but perhaps Harvalik does.

[Pixel42]

Thanks Pixel42. I followed your Wiki links beyond the first page
This is the first time you've read the wiki article on dowsing and followed its links? Seriously?

and found this which is quite interesting

Out of all the studies referred to in the three links I gave you, this is the one you seize on? A paper about a simple test of human sensitivity to electromagnetic radiation which, for reasons known only to the author, was done on dowsers rather than random individuals? An author who appears to have produced just four papers in a career that lasted from 1947-1978 (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=%22Harvalik%20ZV%22%5BAuthor%5D), none of which (including this one) had anything to do with testing dowsing, and whose own wiki page has been deleted (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaboj_Harvalik)(reason was 'WP:Notability + pseudoscience')?

So far I've been impressed by your articulacy and willingness to put your beliefs to the test, but I have to say my optimism that a reasonable discussion with you is possible has taken a severe hit after reading this post. Please read all three articles and their references carefully and critically, and try not to cherry pick sources which give even the slightest support for your preconceived beliefs no matter how dubious they are (it took me just a few minutes to check up on the credibility of Mr Harvalik), whilst ignoring much more plentiful and better quality evidence that those beliefs are mistaken.

[SkepticScott]

Anatomical localization of human detection of weak electromagnetic radiation: experiments with dowsers.What was the control, how was the group blinded, how were the experimenters blinded, what was a "response"? Without those details (at the least), that study doesn't tell us anything. It may have been very poorly designed and not worth anything.

[PartSkeptic]

Incidentally, your dismissal of the failure of the ideomotor effect as an explanation of other dowsers' failure to perform when tested misses the explanation already given that they try the test first in open conditions and have no trouble detecting the relevant samples (even when covered up - so long as they know where they are) thereby proving the setup is fine as a test of their abilities... and then all fail as soon as the setup (whilst exactly the same otherwise) is blinded. If you respond to this by saying all such dowsers are not 'true' dowsers, then bear in mind your ascertion that anyone can do it and it's easy to learn, as that would make any claim that they're not 'true' dowsers a mite feeble.

I did some closer reading, and followed some links.

Am I missing something regarding the ideomotor effect? My understanding of the Wiki explanation is that "movements" of a device (such as rods) are produced by the person by muscle action that is so slight that the person is not aware that they are controlling. (Something I agree with and stated so earlier).

This allows the subconscious to over-ride the conscious intention of the person to not move the device (rods).

The source of the subconscious control is either:

a) The conscious knows what the rods should do
b) The subconscious gets information from physical senses such as smell, taste, vibration, magnetic fields, neutrino disturbance, sounds, sight and the brain analyzes these, no matter the tiny scale.
c) The subconscious gets it's information from "spirit" or a higher power.
d) Under test conditions, the person gets subtle "clues" from either the test setup, or from other persons involved in the test.

My understanding is that JREF is looking to exclude all but c) which DowserDon seems to not believe in.

But it seems that DowserDon believes he can pass the test under b) if the effects are too small to be measured by today's science.

Where am I getting confused about the various statements made in the posts?

kblood - I like your approach and understand what you are saying in the small sampling of your posts I have browsed through so far.

Open mind. Play with a pair of rods, to see how slight any movement needs to be in the unstable state. Tilt them upwards until they start to swing, and then try to keep them just below this unstable position. You may find that they swing when you too know they should. If you subconsciously wish to sabotage your own test, your subconscious may make an effort to tilt towards stability (forward). You can then get a first-hand feel rather that a second-hand explanation. If you really wish to test further, suspend your disbelief and say you can do it, and go find a water pipe. Afterward, you can go back into skeptic mode and analyse what happened (if anything).

[Pixel42]

The source of the subconscious control is either:

a) The conscious knows what the rods should do
b) The subconscious gets information from physical senses such as smell, taste, vibration, magnetic fields, neutrino disturbance, sounds, sight and the brain analyzes these, no matter the tiny scale.
c) The subconscious gets it's information from "spirit" or a higher power.
d) Under test conditions, the person gets subtle "clues" from either the test setup, or from other persons involved in the test.
There's also

e) the subconscious moves the rods randomly and confirmation bias/underestimating the number of hits to be expected leads the dowser to erroneously think the movement is associated with the location of whatever is being dowsed for more often than would be expected by chance.

In a previous discussion here on dowsing someone who had investigated the subject in far greater depth than I have expressed the view that (b) makes far less contribution to the perceived success of dowsing than (e). Indeed he was unconvinced that (b) made any contribution whatsoever.

My understanding is that JREF is looking to exclude all but c) which DowserDon seems to not believe in.
JREF certainly want to eliminate the use (conscious or unconscious) of any information that can be obtained with the normal senses, but their standard test wouldn't eliminate most of the things you've listed under (b). If the presence of water (or whatever else is being dowsed for) really changes things like smell, magnetic field, neutrino density etc and it's that the dowser is detecting then it would do so during the blinded test too, so the dowser should be able to get a success rate better than chance. The only sense data that's really eliminated by a standard double blind test is that obtained by sight.

[wardenclyffe]

But (e) does not explain why dowsing always seems to work in an open test but then fails when the test is blinded. For example, what I think is the most thorough and compelling test, the one James Randi performed in Australia:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqoYrSd94kA

I'm guessing that DowserDon would get a hit (or non-hit) on each pipe exactly the same, since he does not dowse for water necessarily, but rather ground which has been disturbed in a particular way. Still for those who dowse for water or metals, this seems to be a fairly conclusive test to me.

Ward

[Ladewig]

The source of the subconscious control is either:

a) The conscious knows what the rods should do
b) The subconscious gets information from physical senses such as smell, taste, vibration, magnetic fields, neutrino disturbance, sounds, sight and the brain analyzes these, no matter the tiny scale.
c) The subconscious gets it's information from "spirit" or a higher power.
d) Under test conditions, the person gets subtle "clues" from either the test setup, or from other persons involved in the test.

My understanding is that JREF is looking to exclude all but c) which DowserDon seems to not believe in.

I don't understand your viewpoint here. I am not a JREF spokesperson, but I am pretty sure that JREF testers believe that if you can use only your physical senses and a coat-hanger to detect the magnetic fields associated with a bucket of water, then you deserve $1,000,000.

[wardenclyffe]

Also, if you go to www.http://books.google.com/ and look up the Encyclopedia Of New Age Beliefs and look at page 180 in the chapter about dowsing, you will see that Harvilik was a dowser who did map and "information dowsing" (whatever that is) and seems to be the type of guy that DowserDon generally has no use for. And this is a book that supports the idea of dowsing. The previous page lists a number of reasons that dowsing is real, but cannot be scientifically tested.

Ward

[Ladewig]

Disclaimer: I am not associated with JREF in any way and my criticisms of your protocol in no way change your protocol negotiations with JREF or its agents


My suggestion for a testing protocol is that a suitable area of land be identified which I will crisscross with my dowsing rods to ensure that no land drains or service supplies, natural faults or watercourses are hidden beneath. This will be viewed by my assessor. We will agree the position for four or more walkways, each 2.4 metres across to be marked out. We will depart and an assistant to the assessor will throw dice to select four or more numbers. These will be used by the assistant to instruct volunteer diggers where to dig one hole per walkway. The location of each hole will be measured by GPS and photographed. Each hole will be around 1 metre across and around 1 metre deep.


You see - there's the problem. Holes measuring one cubic meter? Why? Why can't you perform this test with holes measuring one cubic foot? It sure would save a lot of time and money. Have you actually tried the test with holes smaller than one cubic meter? Have you actually tried the test with holes exactly one cubic meter in volume? If not why not?


Also, why do you have to buy 500 Pounds of plywood. Can't you just get six sheets and use the same sheets for each of the different walkway tests? I.e. They set up the first walkway, you select a specific location along the walkway, you leave the area and then they set up the second walkway with the same sheets from the first walkway. In fact, buying used plywood or even borrowing several sheets would be even cheaper.


ETA: I do bring this stuff up not because I am a jerk (well not only because I am a jerk) but also because a fair number of potential applicants try to save face in backing out of the formal testing by putting their noses in the air, sniffing, and disdainfully declaring "My superpowers are so delicate that the tiniest things set them off, therefore I will need a very, very expensive protocol set up for me before I can amaze you with my superpower."

[Pixel42]

But (e) does not explain why dowsing always seems to work in an open test but then fails when the test is blinded.
In an open test it's surely (a) that's at work. Take away the conscious knowledge by blinding and you get the same rate of success as in the field. The difference is that you can measure that rate accurately as being no better than chance, instead of allowing the usual cognitive biases/unrealistic expectations to mislead you into thinking it's higher than that.

[wardenclyffe]

But for all the challenges that I know of, the applicant must pay for the expenses. In this case, DowserDon seems to be aware of that and seems to be willing to spend the money. However, I, like most of you, believe that self-testing is very important. Self-testing in this instance could become very, very expensive.

That's why I think Pixel42's suggestion of finding a local skeptics in the pub group is a good idea. The younger members of the group might be convinced to do some digging and the older members of the group can be blinded to all the digging and placement of targets, but they can be there to supervise the test while the diggers are out of sight.

I think DowserDon might be amazed at how much work he can get out of a group of skeptics for the price of a few pints.

Ward

[wardenclyffe]

In an open test it's surely (a) that's at work. Take away the conscious knowledge by blinding and you get the same rate of success as in the field. The difference is that you can measure that rate accurately as being no better than chance, instead of allowing the usual cognitive biases/unrealistic expectations to mislead you into thinking it's higher than that.

You are correct. I should read more carefully.

Ward

[Ladewig]

But for all the challenges that I know of, the applicant must pay for the expenses. In this case, DowserDon seems to be aware of that and seems to be willing to spend the money.

Perhaps it is too soon for me to adopt the cynical viewpoint. To remain completely objective I should wait and see what happens. In this particular case I think I'll take my objective-skeptic cap off for a moment. Money talks and BS walks - while it is possible that our dauntless challenger is reaching for his wallet, I think it is more likely that he is tying his shoes. I will emphatically state that I could end up with more than a little egg on my face. If that is the outcome I will eat crow and admit that my rash conclusions were inappropriate and uncalled for. I will sincerely and heartily apologize.

But, I just want to take one more moment to reemphasize what you said about self-testing. That is the most important thing of all at this point. A blind test will save a lot of time, energy, and tears in the future.

[Marcus]

I thought someone accepted the prelim of the GSIC prelim test. Though that may have been a special case as I seem to rememeber the person being tested wasn't a true believer in it in the first place.
I don't remember that one, missed it I guess. Do you remember which superpower was being tested for?

I really thought that Connie was going to accept the results of her test, she swore up and down that she was going too, so I suppose that I should assume this one will go the same way if it goes that far.

[PartSkeptic]

Thanks for comments.

e) the subconscious moves the rods randomly and confirmation bias/underestimating the number of hits to be expected leads the dowser to erroneously think the movement is associated with the location of whatever is being dowsed for more often than would be expected by chance.

I did not think of this possibility because I assumed that the success rate would be so high that there would be no chance of misinterpretation of results. I agree that under (self) test conditions where there are hits and misses it could explain why some dowsers mislead themselves to think they are successful.

I don't understand your viewpoint here. I am not a JREF spokesperson, but I am pretty sure that JREF testers believe that if you can use only your physical senses and a coat-hanger to detect the magnetic fields associated with a bucket of water, then you deserve $1,000,000.

I was asking for clarification rather than expressing a viewpoint. I wrote and then deleted a comment to the effect that it might be that JREF wants to pay for a demonstration of using c) spirit (and get huge publicity income) but would have to pay for anyone who could outfox the system using b) senses.

It is possible that c) spirit works by enabling/heightening b) senses (beyond the ability of science to measure).

DowserDon - I wish you success since I think there is a 95% possibility that dowsing works (although I lean toward the psychic explanation).

You see - there's the problem. Holes measuring one cubic meter? Why? Why can't you perform this test with holes measuring one cubic foot? It sure would save a lot of time and money. Have you actually tried the test with holes smaller than one cubic meter? Have you actually tried the test with holes exactly one cubic meter in volume? If not why not?

I join those who are advising you to blind self-test, and start small. Although there are effects of scale, you need to experiment to find the needed scale.

As a child I made a crude parachute and jumped out a tree. I started on the low branches, and then made soft landings for the higher branches. The possibility occurred to me that I needed more height but I was not prepared to jump from the third floor of the apartment block because if I was wrong I would be the equivalent of road-kill.

[Ladewig]

I join those who are advising you to blind self-test, and start small. Although there are effects of scale, you need to experiment to find the needed scale

Here we find common ground. I am not insisting that DD use one cubic foot, I just want to know if one cubic meter was calculated using trial and error or if it was more of a w.a.g.

Not too long ago, we had a poster claim he could find tiny flakes of gold by dowsing stream banks. When he failed a protocol he had previously agreed to he decided that anything other than a field test would require a target of five pounds of pure gold. He had never tested his ability to find five pounds, or four pounds or even one pound. He just claimed that the testers should provide five pounds of gold.

[Pixel42]

I did not think of this possibility because I assumed that the success rate would be so high that there would be no chance of misinterpretation of results.
I think it's worth pointing out that there are many cases of a perceived paranormal ability (telepathy, remote viewing, communication with the dead, foretelling future events etc) for which careful testing has shown (e) to be the explanation, despite the claimant's conviction that they were achieving results much better than chance. In some of those cases cold reading was boosting their apparent success rate but in others it could never have been better than chance, yet the claimant was utterly and genuinely convinced it was. So this kind of misinterpretation must happen quite often.

[Cuddles]

In a previous discussion here on dowsing someone who had investigated the subject in far greater depth than I have expressed the view that (b) makes far less contribution to the perceived success of dowsing than (e). Indeed he was unconvinced that (b) made any contribution whatsoever.

I'd say (a) is likely a major contributor as well, especially when it comes to the open tests. It's pretty firmly established that dowsers are best at finding things when they already know where those things are. The actual muscle movements that cause the ideomotor effect are triggered subconsciously, but the knowledge leading to that is often clearly concious.

b) The subconscious gets information from physical senses such as smell, taste, vibration, magnetic fields, neutrino disturbance, sounds, sight and the brain analyzes these, no matter the tiny scale.

Perhaps you could elaborate on exactly which physical sense humans posses which can detect neutrinos?

Open mind.

I do not think this means what you think it means.

[Almo]

I don't remember that one, missed it I guess. Do you remember which superpower was being tested for?

I really thought that Connie was going to accept the results of her test, she swore up and down that she was going too, so I suppose that I should assume this one will go the same way if it goes that far.

There you go:
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=38788

And here's the original claim about the GSIC that ended up a mess:
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=36074&highlight=gsic

[PartSkeptic]

Perhaps you could elaborate on exactly which physical sense humans posses which can detect neutrinos?

Sorry - silly thought that popped into my head when trying to think what can penetrate deep into rock.

I do not think this means what you think it means.

Mmmm. I find your comment a bit cryptic. I was trying to say - be open my suggestion to "play" with the rods (cheap and quick) to experience the ideomotor effect, and then see if one can get (a) to work and see how that feels.

[DowserDon]

Thanks Pixel 42 for writing:-
Just to add that I am also retired and live in the UK so, depending on how far away from me the test takes place, I might be able to come along to witness it. So you'd have confirmation from a fairly long standing member of the forum of the results when you post them.
I'll send you a private message giving you details of where and when and my private e-mail address for contact.

[DowserDon]

I'd just like to say a big thank you to all who have answered my original questions and offered helpful advice.
I'm bowing out for the rest of February but will resume in March by which time I hope to be in a position to give a date for a homespun simplified double blind test recommended by so many, conducted as cheaply as possible, knowing that eventually it will need to be scaled up to satisfy the JREF requirements.
I hope Pixel 42 will attend.

You might like to Google National Trust + Dowsing. They run courses on it. Have a go. You could always ask for your money back if they don't succeed in teaching you.

[Pixel42]

Got your PM DowserDon and that location should be doable for me. PM the date when you have fixed it, and I'll let you know if I'm free.

I know a couple of members of the Cheltenham sceptics in the pub group (though I've yet to get to a meeting myself) who might be interested, would it be OK to bring them along?

ETA: I'm a member of the National Trust and saw an article in the magazine about dowsing a while back - very credulous, very poor - but I was unaware of any courses. I was glad to see some letters in the following edition of the magazine pointing out the lack of scientific evidence for it.

E again TA: Thread on that article: http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=150586

[Marcus]

There you go:
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=38788

And here's the original claim about the GSIC that ended up a mess:
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=36074&highlight=gsic
Thanks. It looks like this case involved a guy trying to win a million dollars with a sound chip, no claim of supernatural powers on his part. I think I will still give DowserDon credit for being the first to admit that his superpowers don't exist if he accepts the results of a preliminary. A long shot, I know, but it's the slightly non-zero odds of all aspects of a Challenge that make it interesting. I don't even consider dowsing powers to be impossible, just very unlikely.

[gnome]

Re-read your post. A great summary. Yes, I agree.

If I was not such a natural doubter who also wants unshakeable proof (like God appearing daily to a large bunch of us to confirm what I think, then submitting to testing, and claiming the prize) I would not be saying I am not sure.

Alright. The only thing I would add here, is that you seem to be fudging a bit here.

If I read you right, you are suggesting that you must say you are "not sure" unless you have absolutely incontrovertible evidence continuously. It's not really meaningful because we don't really have that kind of evidence about a lot of things. That isn't the kind of evidence we are looking for when we try to decide if something is really going on. Even small or infrequent results can convince if they turn up significantly more often than chance.

[Almo]

Thanks. It looks like this case involved a guy trying to win a million dollars with a sound chip, no claim of supernatural powers on his part. I think I will still give DowserDon credit for being the first to admit that his superpowers don't exist if he accepts the results of a preliminary. A long shot, I know, but it's the slightly non-zero odds of all aspects of a Challenge that make it interesting. I don't even consider dowsing powers to be impossible, just very unlikely.

You have to read about what the GSIC does. It would definitely be supernatural if it worked.

http://www.goldensound.com/installationguides/intelligent-chip-gsic-cddvdsacd-upgrade-installation-guide

It purportedly improves the sound of a CD permanently just by playing the disc for 2 seconds while the chip is on the stereo. What's more, they wear out so you have to buy more of them.

[Marcus]

How thoughtful of them to let you know just when the magic wears off, so you can run out and buy another one.

[PartSkeptic]

If I was not such a natural doubter who also wants unshakeable proof (like God appearing daily to a large bunch of us to confirm what I think, then submitting to testing, and claiming the prize) I would not be saying I am not sure.
Alright. The only thing I would add here, is that you seem to be fudging a bit here.

If I read you right, you are suggesting that you must say you are "not sure" unless you have absolutely incontrovertible evidence continuously. It's not really meaningful because we don't really have that kind of evidence about a lot of things. That isn't the kind of evidence we are looking for when we try to decide if something is really going on. Even small or infrequent results can convince if they turn up significantly more often than chance.

I have event after event happening to me and around me that defy explanations other than psychic manifestations. And yet I find myself saying "It could be coincidence, it could be tricks of the mind, I could be crazy".

I understand that that one needs to beat chance significantly in a test. If that happened and some-one won the prize, just how many would say "Since psychic phenomena do not exist, there was some cheating" or "What went wrong - I don't believe the test demonstrated psychic ability".

When I was 50 (well past my mental prime) I was given a IQ test in a job application. I was told it was an "open ended test" and told that it was impossible for anyone to finish the 50 questions in 15 minutes and get them all correct. I got 50 out of 50 with 10 seconds to spare. I can tell you that I could see people think I cheated somehow. I now think that perhaps I was helped in a psychic way because it seems impossible to me that I did so well. One explanation is that I lucked out by getting all questions within my capability. Another explanation is that the tester misstated the "open endedness".

I was twice openly accused in front of the whole class of cheating by a teacher said the only way I could get the test scores I did was by having a preview of the exam paper. I suspect she deliberately tried to trap me with obtuse questions that no-one else got correct.

[PartSkeptic]

I am going to experiment with mental telepathy with my son. He said that in the past he could tell what people were thinking until he got frightened by the unknown, and made a conscious effort to stop. I seem to be able to project thoughts. So we will make a transmitter/receiver team.

I will use the standard cards (circle/square/triangle/star/other), and practice with him. It is simple to do. I will be aiming for significant success, or else I will consider it a failure. I will read up on test procedure and make sure I eliminate human senses and super-senses.

Maybe I am wrong about non-testability rule.

[Almo]

#1 PartSkeptic: he must not be able to see you at all. Body language is a powerful communicator.

Watch the part of Kundun where the Dali Lama chooses his objects from his previous life. It's actually a quite realistic portrayal of how the process has probably worked. It also has the benefit of selecting a child who is in tune with other people, so maybe it's not such a bad idea after all. :)

[Ladewig]

#1 PartSkeptic: he must not be able to see you at all. Body language is a powerful communicator.

Emphasized for emphasis.

[sadhatter]

I am going to experiment with mental telepathy with my son. He said that in the past he could tell what people were thinking until he got frightened by the unknown, and made a conscious effort to stop. I seem to be able to project thoughts. So we will make a transmitter/receiver team.

I will use the standard cards (circle/square/triangle/star/other), and practice with him. It is simple to do. I will be aiming for significant success, or else I will consider it a failure. I will read up on test procedure and make sure I eliminate human senses and super-senses.

Maybe I am wrong about non-testability rule.

If i had a nickle, for every previous master of the arcane arts that got "frightened" away from their own ******* superpower, i could set up my own one trillion dollar challenge.

This is about the second biggest cliche ( in a tight race with ' I don't have to prove my powers to anyone.') in the realm of woo. And uttering it does nothing for your credibility.

[SkepticScott]

I am going to experiment with mental telepathy with my sonI also suggest that your son write down his guesses, and you write down the cards, so that you can easily compare them afterwards. Even something as seemingly innocuous as giving immediate right/wrong feedback can skew the expected result from 20%.

[Marcus]

I understand that that one needs to beat chance significantly in a test. If that happened and some-one won the prize, just how many would say "Since psychic phenomena do not exist, there was some cheating" or "What went wrong - I don't believe the test demonstrated psychic ability".
The whole purpose of the careful attention to protocol in a MDC preliminary is to eliminate any possible false positives. Assuming the conclusion is a trait of woos, not skeptics, if someone were to pass a preliminary they would definitely be the center of attention. Any possible sources of error would be addressed in the Final, if they passed that and won the prize, they would indeed have proved their superpower.

[PartSkeptic]

Thank you for all your suggestions and help.

When I learned hypnosis I read that people sub-vocalise, and under hypnosis some can "hear" the thoughts. Also that although eyes appear closed, some can "peep" and see the image of the card in the other person's eyes.

And body language, voice tone, and the words used are such give-aways. I am a really good poker player - I do not claim psychic power but knowledge of others, and good at calculating the odds.

So the two of us must be separated in rooms at opposite ends of the house. Perhaps my daughter-in-law in the passage shouts start 1, stop 1, start 2, stop 2 and we write down the card seen and perceived when the stop is shouted. And no-one sees anyone else. Do 20 and then compare sheets. And then again and again.

If i had a nickle, for every previous master of the arcane arts that got "frightened" away from their own ******* superpower, i could set up my own one trillion dollar challenge.

Scared by the unknown? And what it might do to? Seems reasonable. It seems the numbers go against you because it suggests that "something" might be out there. And I doubt they were masters. Rather things happened beyond their control, and they knew they were not in control.

And I only started really using and trying to experiment and amplify possible psychic abilities once I had a greater understanding of what I am dealing with. Which is only recently. It seems there are powers of good and evil - and getting controlled by evil is frightening to many. I have had experiences which were lessons to me.

[Pixel42]

I am going to experiment with mental telepathy with my son.
Repeating a scientific experiment that's been done many times before can be fun and instructive, you always learn more by doing something yourself than by reading about what happened when other people did it. Just don't expect to get different results from those everyone else got, because that's not how the universe works. If it was the scientific method wouldn't work, and the world would be a very different place.

This is the fundamental truth previous MDC applicants only discovered when they took the preliminary test. If they were as sensible as DowserDon and had tested themselves earlier using a scientifically rigorous protocol none would ever have got to that point, and a lot of unnecessary public humiliation of sincere, well meaning people would have been avoided.

[PartSkeptic]

Just don't expect to get different results from those everyone else got, because that's not how the universe works. If it was the scientific method wouldn't work, and the world would be a very different place.

Thank for some sound advice. I agree with everything you said in your post.

I have some reasons for hoping for a different result for just one challenge. And if there is a successful challenge, I expect that I will no longer be able to do it again. And of course the worst possibility is that I might get great preliminary results to get to the final and then fail there.

It is a really long shot, and I have no illusions about success/failure. My aim is not to challenge scientific method, but to use scientific method to be allowed to make a point that there might be something beyond the laws of physics.

And of course I have to do the usual "soul search" of whether the entire prize must be donated (my preference), or whether I/we can keep a small percentage (5% or 10%) of the prize, or have any say how a portion should be donated (anonymous charity and/or needy friends and family, and some deserving souls I/we know about). My other half of the team has to feel the same.

I am retired and don't need the money at the moment. Material goods and recognition are not on my list of needs. If I could do it anonymously I would.

If my son declines, I know another who has capabilities, and I will approach them.

[PartSkeptic]

If i had a nickle, for every previous master of the arcane arts that got "frightened" away from their own ******* superpower, i could set up my own one trillion dollar challenge.

All this debate brings up old memories.

I was about 14 years old. Up late at night reading with the lights on. I heard tires squeal outside, which had happened a few times because they recently installed a traffic light on our nearest intersection. Then I heard heavy footsteps in the wooden-floored passage by the front door. But I knew the front door was locked and the rest of the family was sleeping. My father was away - he worked on construction sites.

The foot steps came down the passage. Logically, it could only be a ghost walking through the front door. Great, I am going to see a genuine ghost. I hope he comes into my bedroom. I was all excited. Then I made the connection with the tires screeching. This ghost was a person who probably got hit by a car and killed. Did I want to see a bloody apparition in my room with powers I did not comprehend? No way. Fear and fright - you have no idea how intense that can be.

I pulled the sheet over my head, and waited. At least I would not see the ghost. I could not hear the footsteps once the ghost reached the dining room which had a carpeted concrete floor. But then I heard the footsteps in my room at the far side where the door was. And heavy breathing - in, out, in out. Was that me? I closed my mouth and held my nose. Not me.

The sounds were getting closer. The footsteps stopped by my bed, and the breathing got closer. I closed my eyes tightly, thinking the ghost might just pop his head under the sheet. Please don't touch me, I silently begged.

Just then a siren sounded in one long burst outside. I heard a sharp intake of breath, and then silence. I then heard my Mom get out of bed and my two brothers get out of bed also. The key sounded in the front door which had an old fashioned heavy mechanism. Voices, excited chatter. I fell asleep under the sheet after the disturbances died down.

The next morning I got the confirmation that a man was knocked off his bicycle and killed.

I repeat my point. You cannot know fear of the unknown until you have been there. Movies and childish pranks just don't do it. I resolved I did not want to see ghosts. And I was a kid who would "put down" injured animals to stop them suffering, when everyone was upset and panicking. Blood and gore did not bother me. My atheistic belief that we were "machines" made it easy to say "just a collection of atoms".

Confirmation bias, faulty memory, false memory, hearing my own heart beat/breathing. Natural explanations which give me reason to doubt my own story.

[Pixel42]

You cannot know fear of the unknown until you have been there.
I suffered from sleep paralysis and the accompanying hallucinations on and off for most of my twenties. I didn't discover what it was until years after the episodes stopped.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis

Sleep paralysis occurs either when falling asleep, or when awakening. [...] The paralysis can last from several seconds to several minutes, with some rare cases being hours, "by which the individual may experience panic symptoms" [...]

In addition, the paralysis may be accompanied by terrifying hallucinations (hypnopompic or hypnagogic), perceived deafening loud noise and an acute sense of danger.[9] Sleep paralysis is particularly frightening to the individual because of the vividness of such hallucinations.[8] The hallucinatory element to sleep paralysis makes it even more likely that someone will interpret the experience as a dream, since completely fanciful or dream-like objects may appear in the room alongside one's normal vision. Some scientists have proposed this condition as an explanation for reports of alien abductions and ghostly encounters.[10]

[PartSkeptic]

I suffered from sleep paralysis and the accompanying hallucinations on and off for most of my twenties. I didn't discover what it was until years after the episodes stopped.

Thank for a possible explanation. It is one that I am familiar with. The reason I had not considered it was that I was wide awake and reading in bed. I had not yet turned off the light. It took me along time to actually fall asleep.

There was only one of two other occasions that I thought I saw a ghost. A phantom figure at the bottom of my bed. But I woke from sleeping, and there was some moonlight coming in the window. I closed my eyes and tried to go back to sleep. Now this one I would contribute to some form of partial sleep, or even a dream. Did not seem like it at the time. This for me is a very weak example and easily doubted.

The other occasion is extremely weak. Most woos would be skeptical too. My earliest memory. I was a toddler barely able to talk, and I saw a ghost elephant herd walking down the driveway while I was crying that my mother was driving away. Even then it shocked me because I knew it was not real, and this is why it was my earliest memory by far.

Your story is the sort I would like to discuss in person to understand the phenomenon. I don't know how much the media distort such explanations, and I like to ask my own questions. Part of the search for answers. Have you written about this elsewhere?

[Pixel42]

Thank for a possible explanation. It is one that I am familiar with. The reason I had not considered it was that I was wide awake and reading in bed. I had not yet turned off the light. It took me along time to actually fall asleep.
That may be how you remember it, but it may not be what actually happened. You could have been starting to doze and incorporated what you were hearing in real life into a dream, before waking again fully. Hallucination is a frightening word but they are really not that rare and they aren't always a symptom of something wrong mentally. Many people have them, and not just people who suffer from sleep paralysis.

When I was working I had a clock radio which turned on Radio 4 in the morning to wake me up. I once slowly emerged from a dream in which I was adrift on a raft on the ocean being menaced by sharks to discover that someone on the radio was describing in extremely vivid detail how he had drifted on a raft whilst those around him were picked off by sharks. Whilst still partly asleep I had incorporated what I was hearing into a dream.

Your story is the sort I would like to discuss in person to understand the phenomenon. I don't know how much the media distort such explanations, and I like to ask my own questions. Part of the search for answers. Have you written about this elsewhere?
I've mentioned it briefly on other threads here about the phenomenon, as have other sufferers, and of course the subject has been written about extensively elsewhere on the web. It's way off topic for this thread, however, so if you want to discuss it further I suggest you bump one of the existing threads.

[PartSkeptic]

I've mentioned it briefly on other threads here about the phenomenon, as have other sufferers, and of course the subject has been written about extensively elsewhere on the web. It's way off topic for this thread, however, so if you want to discuss it further I suggest you bump one of the existing threads.

Thank you for all your input. I am going to pull back. I will check other threads for interest, and follow-up on this topic on the web. Bye for now.

[oak]

I stumbled upon this thread after becoming intrigued with the million dollar challenge, which I had never heard of before last night.

I know little about dowsing, specifically. However, I hope you don't mind indulging a newcomer in expressing some thoughts on the general topic:

I implore the skeptic to remain open to the possibility that a display of paranormal ability may very well be inhibited by the artificial constructs of an experiment. As an analogy, I may have trained my dog to consistently "fetch" on command in my yard, but the moment I try to demonstrate his ability to an audience at the local dog park, he fails to do so. This is not because he can't do it, but because the conditions have changed.

It could be argued that, with practice in the dog park environment, he should eventually be able to fetch on command. But perhaps there is something at the dog park location that will always inhibit him from fetching, like another alpha dog that has a tendency to nip at any dog who tries to run after a ball. Perhaps no one even realizes that this is why my dog won't fetch because the influence of the alpha is subtle (it's been demonstrated that dogs pick up on energy from other dogs, an energy that most people will not pick up on. Also, dog's develop strong associations. My dog may have once been nipped by the alpha in a unseen event while trying to retrieve a ball and has consequently learned his lesson and will never try to retrieve a ball in front of the alpha again). Let's also not forgot state-dependent and context-dependent learning.

My point is that we may not always be aware of the subtle effects of the controlled elements of an experiment. It could be the design of the experiment that's the problem. The rub is teasing out experimental design flaw from the power of a human to rationalize in order to uphold a delusion. I noticed that some MDC protocols were rejected because they were so complicated, but perhaps the individual being tested was trying to design a situation that's as real-world as possible. But with this, we begin to enter the realm of a natural experimental design, which I'm assuming would not uphold to the strict standards of the MDC. But hey, it's a million dollars... I wouldn't expect any less.

Some specific points I'd like to make:


Your attempted explanation for what you are detecting - disturbance of soil by man (pipes etc) or water flow - has a number of potential logic holes: why are you not constantly detecting where the soil has been disturbed by tree / plant roots, insects or other creatures tunnelling (you'll be hard pushed to find an area of ground the worms haven't been through!)

Perhaps because animal and insect tunnels, tree and plant roots, etc. are part of what makes up baseline, undisturbed soil


You see - there's the problem. Holes measuring one cubic meter? Why? Why can't you perform this test with holes measuring one cubic foot? It sure would save a lot of time and money. Have you actually tried the test with holes smaller than one cubic meter? Have you actually tried the test with holes exactly one cubic meter in volume? If not why not?

I wonder this myself. How exactly was the 1 cubic meter length and depth determined? For example, DD mentioned that he was able to detect gas and electric lines, but from what I found on info about UK gas lines, the minimum depth of a mainline must be 750 mm in a road or verge and 600 mm in a footpath while the depth of a service pipe is minimally 375 mm in private ground and 450 mm in footpaths and highways. Already, we've saved some digging time.

I'll reiterate what many others here have stressed. An experiment fraught with potential design complication/expense should be subject to running one or more pilot tests to further refine said design. Coming up with protocol stipulations that seem to come out of thin air is not sound experimental design.

That's why I think Pixel42's suggestion of finding a local skeptics in the pub group is a good idea. The younger members of the group might be convinced to do some digging and the older members of the group can be blinded to all the digging and placement of targets, but they can be there to supervise the test while the diggers are out of sight.

I don't even think DD is ready for that step yet. It wouldn't hurt to start with a few friends to pretest various aspects of the protocol before even enlisting a group of strangers to put time and energy into the small-scale version of the experiment. Why not first test his own limits by digging several areas of various depth and width to further hone in on an elegant experimental design? Sure, the results would be subject to interpretation limitations as the pretests would probably not be double-blind, but the information gained would be helpful as part of a documented, information-gathering phase of the experiment.

My concern is that many of DD's claims were not objectively validated. Reasoned responses as to why he was getting a "hit" or "miss" in areas that he would have thought otherwise (e.g. "I rationalized..." "Probably the remains of....") does not constitute valid proof. While I'm not saying DD's claims are false, it raises more questions than answers that should be further explored before jumping the gun on creating such an expensive experimental protocol. The human mind's ability to rationalize, reconstruct a memory, delude, etc. is powerful. DD, if you are truly pursuing the MDC in the name of science, I urge you to do so with upmost prudence. Keep your mind open to the possibility that this could all be in your head by truly testing its limitations.

:dig:

[Ladewig]

It could be argued that, with practice in the dog park environment, he should eventually be able to fetch on command. But perhaps there is something at the dog park location that will always inhibit him from fetching, like another alpha dog that has a tendency to nip at any dog who tries to run after a ball. Perhaps no one even realizes that this is why my dog won't fetch because the influence of the alpha is subtle (it's been demonstrated that dogs pick up on energy from other dogs, an energy that most people will not pick up on. Also, dog's develop strong associations. My dog may have once been nipped by the alpha in a unseen event while trying to retrieve a ball and has consequently learned his lesson and will never try to retrieve a ball in front of the alpha again). Let's also not forgot state-dependent and context-dependent learning.

My point is that we may not always be aware of the subtle effects of the controlled elements of an experiment. It could be the design of the experiment that's the problem.

Emphatically yes. When performing a scientific experiments (or a scientific demonstrations) it is imperative to isolate variables. That is why every JREF dowser test (and every other JREF Challenge test) begins with an open testing phase. The dowser is shown exactly where the target is and is asked to perform his dowsing procedure. The applicant is specifically told that this phase is to ensure that there is no underground pipe or obstacle that the test-makers are unaware of, that there is no overwhelming electrical field or magnetic field that is influencing the dowser's abilities, and that there is no unknown or unrecognized object or force preventing a successful demonstration of the dowser's abilities. The dowser must be able to perform a successful open test before the double-blind test. After the dowsers pass this phase they attempt the double-blind phase and when they fail, all sorts of excuses arise: the skeptical juju blocked my powers (aka the goat effect), the foundation of this building has too much iron rebar, the sun was in my eyes, Jupiter was in Scorpio, yadda, yadda. They always pass the open test and agree to the test conditions, but they always fail the double blind test.


ETA: a much more minor point: there is a slight flaw with the dog in the park analogy. If one is charging between $40 and $400 per hour to demonstrate one's dog's ability to fetch things, then one should be able to easily identify the vast majority of factors that will limit one's dog's performance.

MORE ETA: welcome. This forum is populated by a very, very wide range of people. If you find some deliberately (or accidentally) off-putting or downright rude, please ignore them and participate with the rest of us. In general, people will not mock you for spelling or grammar errors unless they occur in a post in which you are bragging about your superior intelligence or education. Also, cow-orkers is not an accidental misspelling of co-workers.

[oak]

Yes, it appears the dowsing challenges have specifically been subject to deluded thinking. An individual succeeding in the open test only to fail the double-blind reasonably eliminates the possibility that it was the "fault" of the experimental procedure. However, I did not intend my analogy to specifically explain away such clear-cut examples of the subject not being able to do what he/she claims to be able to do. My purpose was to point out that in other, less clear-cut instances, there may very well have been a potential design flaw. A design flaw that may not even be known beforehand. Or, the candidate recognized a potential design flaw only to be rejected on the grounds of being difficult or unreasonable in wanting to change a particular protocol to such seemingly haphazard stipulations. As a result, the candidate never even gets as far as the experimental challenge because his or her protocol changes were rejected.

I would urge potential candidates to do exactly what DD is being urged to do. Perform pilot studies. If you can reasonably demonstrate that a particular protocol change is necessary (e.g. such as needing to use a certain kind of envelope in order to more adequately predict what's inside it - assuming the envelope is not one that would be easier to cheat with), run a pre-test that actually shows this to be the case. The more complicated the necessary protocol, the more you'd need to prove that these are the conditions under which you'd need to successfully perform your "act."

[oak]

ETA: a much more minor point: there is a slight flaw with the dog in the park analogy. If one is charging between $40 and $400 per hour to demonstrate one's dog's ability to fetch things, then one should be able to easily identify the vast majority of factors that will limit one's dog's performance.

You edited this while I was writing my previous response :)

We can presume that a person who is charging (in effect, charging one million dollars) to demonstrate an ability should know its limitations. However, I'm arguing that it is entirely possible to miss something that one would never even think would influence results. Just because a person has an ability and has been able to demonstrate that ability in some situations does not necessarily mean that the individual knows the whys or hows of the ability. They may be just as mystified as everyone else. For example, infants are born with a plantar grasp reflex. The infant does not know why or how he's able to do it, but that doesn't mean he can't do it. Okay, yes, we now come to the argument that even though the infant does not know the hows or whys he will still be able to demonstrate it during an experimental condition... but what if the experiment was set up at just the time that the infant loses the reflex, as all infants do. Of course, we know that infants lose the ability at a certain age so this is easily explained by science, but what exactly do we know about the nuances, developmental limitations, ability to control paranormal phenomena? Very little, indeed.

Hope that made sense.... and thanks for the welcome :)

[Ladewig]

Yes, it appears the dowsing challenges have specifically been subject to deluded thinking. An individual succeeding in the open test only to fail the double-blind reasonably eliminates the possibility that it was the "fault" of the experimental procedure. However, I did not intend my analogy to specifically explain away such clear-cut examples of the subject not being able to do what he/she claims to be able to do. My purpose was to point out that in other, less clear-cut instances, there may very well have been a potential design flaw. A design flaw that may not even be known beforehand. Or, the candidate recognized a potential design flaw only to be rejected on the grounds of being difficult or unreasonable in wanting to change a particular protocol to such seemingly haphazard stipulations. As a result, the candidate never even gets as far as the experimental challenge because his or her protocol changes were rejected.

I would urge potential candidates to do exactly what DD is being urged to do. Perform pilot studies. If you can reasonably demonstrate that a particular protocol change is necessary (e.g. such as needing to use a certain kind of envelope in order to more adequately predict what's inside it - assuming the envelope is not one that would be easier to cheat with), run a pre-test that actually shows this to be the case. The more complicated the necessary protocol, the more you'd need to prove that these are the conditions under which you'd need to successfully perform your "act."

I mostly agree with all that.

[Ladewig]

Yes, it appears the dowsing challenges have specifically been subject to deluded thinking. An individual succeeding in the open test only to fail the double-blind reasonably eliminates the possibility that it was the "fault" of the experimental procedure. However, I did not intend my analogy to specifically explain away such clear-cut examples of the subject not being able to do what he/she claims to be able to do. My purpose was to point out that in other, less clear-cut instances, there may very well have been a potential design flaw. A design flaw that may not even be known beforehand. Or, the candidate recognized a potential design flaw only to be rejected on the grounds of being difficult or unreasonable in wanting to change a particular protocol to such seemingly haphazard stipulations. As a result, the candidate never even gets as far as the experimental challenge because his or her protocol changes were rejected.

A qualified yes. I could seek out a very experienced lawyer who charges $400/hour and yet he misses some obscure legal precedence and thus I lose my case. At that point it would be incorrect for me to say, "all lawyers are frauds." But if I approach dozens or hundreds of $400/hour lawyers and they all predict I will win my case and I always lose my case, then the odds of me finding a useful $400/hour lawyer to win this particular case is diminished.

I would urge potential candidates to do exactly what DD is being urged to do. Perform pilot studies. If you can reasonably demonstrate that a particular protocol change is necessary (e.g. such as needing to use a certain kind of envelope in order to more adequately predict what's inside it - assuming the envelope is not one that would be easier to cheat with), run a pre-test that actually shows this to be the case. The more complicated the necessary protocol, the more you'd need to prove that these are the conditions under which you'd need to successfully perform your "act."

I will agree that this approach is useful for DD's test, for other dowser tests, and other JREF Challenge tests. Surprisingly (or not depending on one's view of human nature) very, very few applicants follow this advice and perform a single blind or double blind test before showing up for the Challenge's preliminary test.

[oak]

I would also posit that the average person has limited knowledge of the scientific method and how it may work for or against them. Experimental design is COMPLICATED! Particularly when attempting to prove something at p = <0.001! I mean, dang! Statistics is certainly not my forte, but the probability that a medication has an effect need only be <0.05... and there's far more than a million at stake there!

[Almo]

#1 PartSkeptic: he must not be able to see you at all. Body language is a powerful communicator.

Emphasized for emphasis.

Emphasized emphasis is emphatic.

[Pixel42]

A poster has mentioned on another thread that Professor Chris French, DowserDon's appointed tester, is speaking at a meeting of Reading Skeptics in the pub on March 15th. Details here:

http://reading.skepticsinthepub.org/Event.aspx/873/Weird-Science

I've used the email address DowserDon PM'd me to let him know, in case he would like to attend.

[steenkh]

Thank for a possible explanation. It is one that I am familiar with. The reason I had not considered it was that I was wide awake and reading in bed. I had not yet turned off the light. It took me along time to actually fall asleep.
In my youth I had lots of experience with sleep paralysis. Mostly, I felt wide awake when it happened. The effect was simply that I had lost control over my body, like my brain was awake, but my body asleep. It was frightening in the beginning, because I did not know what happened, but I usually struggled my way out of the situation and regained control.

Later, I had experiences where I immediately slipped back into paralysis, although I had just been able to move. Once, I experienced being able to move one arm (usually moving one arm would be sufficient to end the spell) but the rest of the body still did not follow. As I gained experience with the condition, it was less frightening, and eventually, I just let myself slide into sleep when in paralysis.

Over the years, it disappeared.

[zooterkin]

A poster has mentioned on another thread that Professor Chris French, DowserDon's appointed tester, is speaking at a meeting of Reading Skeptics in the pub on March 15th. Details here:

http://reading.skepticsinthepub.org/Event.aspx/873/Weird-Science

I've used the email address DowserDon PM'd me to let him know, in case he would like to attend.

I expect Chris French's email address is available somewhere, but he is also reachable via Twitter at https://twitter.com/#!/chriscfrench if someone wants to ask him directly.

[PartSkeptic]

Some input and comment would be much appreciated. Math and rule checked needed.

I gave some thought to the number of trials, the number of cases, and what will constitute a valid result. I looked at the rules and the application form.

DowserDon is proposing 4 trials (4 lanes) with 6 cases (6 spots with equal possibility). If Don gets 4 correct picks in the preliminary, and 4 correct in the final, then his odds are 1,296 and 1,296, and the overall odds are 1,296 times 1,296 giving 1,679,616. 1,296 is BDF result and is also 6x6x6x6. This is his best shot.

I gave some thought to testing telepathy with Zener cards. How many trials and how many correct, and how is the overall or final is calculated. Not simple math by any means unless 100% correct results are always obtained.

I found a formula on JREF where someone is discussing the odds for 20 trials for kids using zener cards, and on further research found that Excel has a formula called the BINOM.DIST (BDF) (where one must use FALSE for the last field).

If Don doubles the number of lanes to 8 (8 trials) then if he gets 6 hits instead of 8 correct his odds are 2,399. If he does this on the finals, one might say that his overall odds were 2,399 times 2,399 giving odds of 5,757,367. But using the BDF formula means that he had 16 trials with 12 hits and this gives odds of 2,480,097. If he agreed to beating odds of 4 million, he could lose if he did not do his homework properly.

It would help to know in advance what formulas, odds and combination of preliminary with final will be used.

Why not tell possible applicants to go to Excel (or get a friend to go to Excel) and play with it using the proper formulae, so that everyone can get some idea of the odds?

When I checked out what type of applications were received, I wonder how such esoteric claims could ever be reduced to a formula.

[gnome]

I understand that that one needs to beat chance significantly in a test. If that happened and some-one won the prize, just how many would say "Since psychic phenomena do not exist, there was some cheating" or "What went wrong - I don't believe the test demonstrated psychic ability".

Some might. Though the better the test was designed, the fewer people would--which is why they try so hard to come up with as good a test as possible, leaving nearly nothing to chance and trying to eliminate all chance of cheating.

If someone actually passed the MDC, the most common response would not be "how did he cheat?" but "let's study what he can do and learn why it works".

[PartSkeptic]

More on testing.

I doubt DD will be allowed to set up 8 lanes, and then say he wants to do 4 and see how he does, and if he does not get 4 out of 4, ask to do the other four to get 6 out of 8, or to even request that the first 4 be discounted because he was "off his game" and "warming up". The number of trials is critical the way I see it.

Has JREF has done a dummy scenario, and dummy contract, using Zener cards?

Where can one find examples of protocols that have been proposed?

Some might. Though the better the test was designed, the fewer people would--which is why they try so hard to come up with as good a test as possible, leaving nearly nothing to chance and trying to eliminate all chance of cheating.

If someone actually passed the MDC, the most common response would not be "how did he cheat?" but "let's study what he can do and learn why it works".

A logical and reasoned answer. Problems with test design are why it seems the telepathy with zener cards is the simplest to avoid cheating and the easiest to decide what is a hit and what is a miss.

But it seems from some web reading that it is also the one that is most tested. One psychic web site claims that there are extensive studies to prove it works. Studies that no doubt have the usual flaws.

MORE ETA: welcome. This forum is populated by a very, very wide range of people. If you find some deliberately (or accidentally) off-putting or downright rude, please ignore them and participate with the rest of us. In general, people will not mock you for spelling or grammar errors unless they occur in a post in which you are bragging about your superior intelligence or education. Also, cow-orkers is not an accidental misspelling of co-workers.

I too am learning (never too old) - good advice.

[Pixel42]

So if a forum member really wants to see me put to the test, think of a way of disguising where trenches have been dug.
A thought has occured to me about this. As has been pointed out the disturbed spots will be muddy and trampled, it will be hard to remove all signs that something has been going on around them compared to the undisturbed spots. What might be easier would be to make the undisturbed spots look more like the disturbed ones by spraying water and trampling the ground around them. It might be best to spray and trample all the spots right at the start, before even the open test is done.

The important thing is that once the digging party has finished all the dowsing spots should look the same, whether there is a trench beneath them or not. It doesn't matter whether they all look undisturbed or all look disturbed, as long as there are no visual clues which the dowser could pick up (consciously or unconsciously) to tell him which is which.

[Pixel42]

Why not tell possible applicants to go to Excel (or get a friend to go to Excel) and play with it using the proper formulae, so that everyone can get some idea of the odds?
Most MDC applicants are sure they can achieve 100% success, they can be quite surprised that they only need to do significantly better than chance to win the prize and are therefore allowed some failures.

The problem with DowserDon's proposed protocol is that he specifies there should be one trench under each walkway, which means he needs lots of long walkways to reach the required odds even if he finds every single trench. As I already pointed out if the hole digging was more random than that - if each walkway could have trenches under 0, 1, 2 ... up to all of its potential spots - then both the number and length of walkways required to reach the required odds by finding all the trenches would be reduced. Alternatively the number of walkways/spots could be set so that the required success rate was much less than 100% whilst still beating the required odds, and the number of walkways/spots needed would still be less than he is currently proposing.

When I checked out what type of applications were received, I wonder how such esoteric claims could ever be reduced to a formula.
This is why each test protocol is negotiated seperately and there are no set protocols/odds. JREF seem to prefer the kind of blind test with specified chance odds to beat which we've been discussing wherever that is possible, but it frequently isn't.

Where can one find examples of protocols that have been proposed?
The threads in the challenge applications subforum give them, in those rare cases where the application got that far in the process.

[steenkh]

A thought has occured to me about this. As has been pointed out the disturbed spots will be muddy and trampled, it will be hard to remove all signs that something has been going on around them compared to the undisturbed spots. What might be easier would be to make the undisturbed spots look more like the disturbed ones by spraying water and trampling the ground around them. It might be best to spray and trample all the spots right at the start, before even the open test is done.
Or perhaps cover them all with blankets or tarpaulin - if that does not disturb the dowsing.

I also think that it is important to dig an extra hole for the free run, where DowserDon knows there is a hole, so that he can confirm that he is able to dowse correctly under the circumstances offered. That will prevent some of the later excuses.

[DowserDon]

I would also posit that the average person has limited knowledge of the scientific method and how it may work for or against them. Experimental design is COMPLICATED! Particularly when attempting to prove something at p = <0.001! I mean, dang! Statistics is certainly not my forte, but the probability that a medication has an effect need only be <0.05... and there's far more than a million at stake there!

Your letter, Oak, has brought me back into the discussion. Experimental design is complicated. Let's look at famous dowsing experiments.
Randi's trucks containing water shows that no supernatural being or force helps a dowser to decide which truck water is in. Randi's bottles beneath buckets shows that no supernatural being helps a dowser decide which bottle contains water. Similarly for his pipework experiments. They are all superb experiments for disproving the supernatural. They've succeeded. Their flaw small is that someone can come along and say that their supernatural helper is better than others and nothing in the previous tests can disprove their claim.
They have not disproved dowsing in the field because the experiments were not designed to examine a field trial. Designing a field trial is admittedly difficult and is unlikely to be error free.
If, in a test there was a requirement for a dowser to find water in the field, it would be extremely difficult to eliminate the possibility of the dowser reading the landscape. So my experience of finding service trenches is the basis for a less error prone experiment that does not assume that dowsing is driven by the supernatural.
It uses trench excavations that have been refilled with a drainage pipe, providing a void, sand and gravel ballast and topped up with the original soil and turf until level. Spoil from digging is to be removed along the walkway, not out from the side, so that there is no clue where the trench was dug. As plywood can be delivered before the digging starts, the digging will be conducted from the plywood, thus preserving the trench edge which will be hidden beneath the plywood anyway. The spoil will be dumped temporarily on tarpaulin and the excess removed – along the walkway.

I might as well continue to answer some queries about the dimensions of the proposed trenches (still to be agreed by my assessor, Prof French, so could be amended). I am aware that I have found service trenches around my 40 year-old house; they would have been 0.75 metres deep as pointed out. A 15’ main sewer was even easier to detect. Remember, I am not doing research at this stage. I am in a contest and one error will see me removed from the Challenge for at least a year. So my choice of a 1 metre deep trench seems prudent.
If someone is going to dig a trench one metre deep, they will need it to be one metre wide and nearly two metres long so that they can wield a spade and shovel. The 2 metre width is useful. If I wandered off course on a 4 foot wide board I wouldn't want to miss a centrally placed hole because it was only one foot wide.
If the digging is done by volunteers I needn't worry too much about deeper holes being more expensive to dig - what is another bottle of beer amongst friends.
The real cost lies in disguising where the holes have been dug.
A small excavator is likely to leave a track to and from the hole requiring even more expensive covers which is why the experiment is designed around hand dug trenches.
I do not know the limits of detection for any of these parameters that I'm having to decide in advance, so in March (hopefully) I'm likely to go for something I know and am happy to be tested on rather than something at the limits. I am conscious of the fact that I have only one chance.
My latest ideas on disguising where the trenches have been dug and keeping costs down is that the trenches will be hidden by plywood 8’ by 4’ and formed into a walkway 4’ wide. Each plywood sheet would be marked so as to divide it in half. Each walkway would comprise 6 boards marked 0,1; 2,3; 4,5; 6,7; 8,9; and 10,0. The 0 places would be there so that I would be at the right height before reaching position 1 or after leaving position 10. Three walkways with ten position options would be similar to the testing of Swedish woman who was tested by Banachek using three sets of ten playing cards.
Oak continued “I'll reiterate what many others here have stressed. An experiment fraught with potential design complication/expense should be subject to running one or more pilot tests to further refine said design. Coming up with protocol stipulations that seem to come out of thin air is not sound experimental design.”
I hope I’ve shown they did not come out of thin air. The protocol will be subject to pilot studies in March, weather permitting. If Prof French and Pixel 42 attend I’m sure that together we can refine the test protocol before agreeing the proper preliminary test.

[Almo]

Randi's tests are designed to show that dowsers can't do what they say they can. You are forgetting the baseline test where the dowsers know where the water is, they detect it, and say the test will be easy to pass and that they will admit dowsing does not work if they fail the test. They fail, and out come the excuses.

[Pixel42]

DowserDon: I hope you will agree by now that the first thing you need to do, before you go to the trouble of arranging a double blind test and inviting anyone to observe it, is an open test (step 1 of the simplified dry run protocol I outlined in post #76). You need to find a spot somewhere - your own garden will do - which does not respond to your dowsing, dig and fill a trench exactly as you have described and then check that you now get a positive dowsing response. If you don't you need to experiment with different trench depth/size/fillings until you do. No-one but you needs to be present, this is solely so that you can be sure that you know exactly the kind of trench which needs to be dug in order for you to be able to detect it. Only then will it be time to set up the dry run and invite me, Prof French and/or your local sceptics group to observe it.

Having said all that Almo is of course correct: every dowser who has taken a properly run double blind test has passed the open test and yet failed to do better than chance in the blinded one. If the same thing happens to you, will you be prepared to accept that your perceived dowsing success rate is indeed due to the confounding factors that have been discussed in this thread? You are expecting us to accept a positive result as evidence that there is more to dowsing than that, but the quid pro quo is that you need to be prepared to accept a negative result as evidence that there isn't.

[wardenclyffe]

I absolutely agree with Pixel42 (at least on her first paragraph above). I believe all of us (including DowserDon) were getting a little ahead of ourselves. DowserDon has detected all sorts of things underground, but never (as far as we know) anything exactly like what he or we are suggesting for an actual test. This will allow him to refine exactly what works and what does not work for him without the risk of appearing foolish because one small variable was overlooked.

The second paragraph would be ideal, but I've long ago given up on the idea of forcing anyone to give statements or drop beliefs based on evidence. I'd like them to and sometimes they do, but neither I nor any of us can force such a thing.

Ward

[PartSkeptic]

At some point DD is going to have to be specific, and I suggest sooner rather than later.

JREF argues for specificity...the test must be measured with metrics, that is numbers and formulae.

I have been exploring the practicalities and strategies for winning the MDC assuming there are psychic powers (or even unmeasurable abilities).

DowserDon. Despite wanting you to succeed, you might find the odds pretty daunting.
With human error at play, and only 4 trials per test, you might need God's help if you are to win.

*** Your minimum actual odds to win the challenge with your method appear to exceed 2 trillion to 1. ***

Each test comprises a number of trials each with a number of choices (states or cases)(of cards or marked positions).

Test 1... Final Self-test
Test 2... Witness test for consideration
Test 3... Preliminary test
Test 4... Final test

For an applicant to succeed he/she must get great results for tests 1 and 2.

I cannot find where MCD states the odds needed for test3 and test 4 individually (greater than 1 thousand?), and the odds needed if the tests are taken in combination (greater than 1 million?)

Here is a summary of the spread sheet results:

(a) Number of states is 6 (6 cards, or 6 positions per plank)
(b) Odds are calculated using the inverse of the Excel BINOM.DIST function
(c) T is the number of trials/test
(d) E is the expected number of hits per trial
(d) H1,H2,H3,H4 are the number of hits (successes) for tests 1,2,3,4
(e) P1,P2,P3,P4 are the odds for H1,H2,H3,H4 (rounded somewhat)
(f) P34 are the combined odds for tests 3 and 4
(g) P1234 are the combined odds for tests 1,2,3 and 4
(h) k=thousand, M=million, G=Billion, T=Trillion


T__________4______4_______8______50_____200

E________0.67___0.67____1.34____8.33____33.3

H1_________4______4_______6______19______53
P1_______1,3k___1.3k____2.4k____5.7k____7.1k

H2_________4______4_______6______19______53
P2_______1,3k___1.3k____2.4k____5.7k____7.1k

H3_________4______4_______6______19______53
P3_______1,3k___1.3k____2.4k____5.7k____7.1k

H4_________4______3_______6______19______53
P4_______1,3k_____65____2.4k____5.7k____7.1k

P34______1,6M____41k____2.4k____5.3M____4.6M
P1234____2,8T____35G____1,9T____3,2T____1.3T


One must look at the whole picture for a candidate to succeed. And look at the (minimum) overall odds!!!

One must assume that human error will creep in. With a low number of trials per test, little or no error is acceptable.

PS - I am getting older and I know I am more prone to silly errors. Please check me.
PPS - This was time-consuming but interesting. I learned one must "sweat the details" because that is where the Devil hides.
PPPS - The odds of doing 200 trials and getting NONE right is 6.8 quadrillion. The odds for getting less hits increase as one moves away from the expected.

[PartSkeptic]

After posting the previous reply, I started to do some checks on the spreadsheet. I do not get the results I expected.

Will have to check why. For example, if I put in the expected number of hits for a large number of trials the odds should reduce to 1 to 1, and they don't.

[PartSkeptic]

I think the formula is susceptible to internal computer limits. Especially with large number of tests and hits. The divide by zero error comes up.

Again, just shows that one must not assume computers are precise.

[Almo]

If he could really dowse for water, his chances of winning the MDC would be 100%. They don't even require 100% success. Just significantly better than chance.

[Pixel42]

*** Your minimum actual odds to win the challenge with your method appear to exceed 2 trillion to 1. ***
Huh? :confused:

Given that the test is designed such that he'd have a 1 in 1000 chance of passing the preliminary test even if the dowsing ability didn't exist and (assuming the final test is a straight repeat of the same test) a 1 in a million chance of passing both even if there were no such ability then I think it's safe to say you've got your sums wrong.

[oak]

A thought has occured to me about this. As has been pointed out the disturbed spots will be muddy and trampled, it will be hard to remove all signs that something has been going on around them compared to the undisturbed spots. What might be easier would be to make the undisturbed spots look more like the disturbed ones by spraying water and trampling the ground around them. It might be best to spray and trample all the spots right at the start, before even the open test is done.

The important thing is that once the digging party has finished all the dowsing spots should look the same, whether there is a trench beneath them or not. It doesn't matter whether they all look undisturbed or all look disturbed, as long as there are no visual clues which the dowser could pick up (consciously or unconsciously) to tell him which is which.

Good idea. It would be simple enough to have the observers give the final "thumbs up" that the site meets their specifications for being as "cue-free" as possible.

[oak]

I hope I’ve shown they did not come out of thin air. The protocol will be subject to pilot studies in March, weather permitting. If Prof French and Pixel 42 attend I’m sure that together we can refine the test protocol before agreeing the proper preliminary test.

Yes, I see your rationale. As long as the specifications satisfy you, you're willing to flip the bill and it's been approved by MDC, I suppose you can dig as deep as you'd like. I'm riveted and I hope this all happens.

[Pixel42]

For the benefit of anyone who finds the probability calculations difficult to fathom (which includes me) perhaps it might be helpful to work through the logic for an ability that we know really does exist.

Say you've been blind from birth, and you want to know whether this sight that other people talk about really exists. You might set up a test as follows:

1. Have cards with four raised patterns on them (circle, square, triangle, wavy lines) made. You, and any other unsighted person, can only detect which pattern is which by touch, but any sighted person will also be able to see which is which.

2. Have the person who claims to be sighted sit in a chair at one end of a closed room whilst you stand at the other end. Ensure there is no way the testee can receive information by their other senses.

3. Use a four-sided die to randomly determine which one of the four patterns to hold up and ask the testee to say which it is.

Now you know that if you were sitting in the chair and just guessing you'd be right one time in four purely by chance, so you need to do this enough times for the testee to be right significantly more often than that to be able to safely conclude anything from your test. Say you decide to do this 100 times. You'd expect the testee to be right around 25 times by chance, but if he can really do what he says then he should be right all 100 times. But you allow for his ability to be less than 100% accurate (maybe he's a little short-sighted and might occasionally confuse the circle and square), so you set a success criteria of, say, 85 correct identifications.

Suppose you test dozens of people in this way and, no matter how convinced they are they that have this ability and that they will score 100% correct, none ever manage to get more than 28 right. What would you conclude?

This is where we are with dowsing (and indeed all the other supposed abilities usually classed as paranormal). Dozens, probably hundreds by now, of people who claim to be able to dowse have been tested by JREF and others under circumstances which exclude the use of information obtained by their ordinary senses, and none have ever done better than would be expected by chance. It's not a case of no-one quite reaching the specified success criteria, say beating odds of 800:1 but not quite getting to the required 1000:1 - such a partial success would be extremely noteworthy and generate a great deal of interest and excitement. It's a case of - no matter how convinced they are of their ability and their expected 100% success rate - none ever doing better than chance.

Now DowserDon believes that the reason for that continual failure is that the conditions under which all those tests were done didn't match the conditions under which dowsing works closely enough. In my analogy it would be as if the blind person was unknowingly conducting his tests in a dark room, where even someone with 20/20 vision would do no better than chance. I think it's reasonable for him to want to explore that possibility, however unlikely it may seem to me, and I'm happy to assist in any way I can.

ETA: It's worth noting that in my analogy the blind man's error would be apparent when the open test was done: the sighted person would be unable to confirm the identity of a card, even when told what it was, if there was no light. This is why the open test is so important, and why the fact that dowsers never have any difficulty with it makes me doubtful that DowserDon's explanation of why they never do better than chance in double blind testing is the correct one.

[William Smith]

...you might need God's help if you are to win.


Not really. If one can do what one claims, there is a virtual guarantee one will succeed and win. It is that simple.

DowserDon is an anagram for "Re: Own Odds" and "Rod News: Do". So there you go.



PartSkeptic is an anagram for "Aptest Prick". But that would only qualify if you claimed you could transmit Zener Cards to a suitable receiver, wouldn't it?

[Almo]

Woa. Nice post, Pixel. Very, very clear explanation of the situation, and great analogy.

[PartSkeptic]

Given that the test is designed such that he'd have a 1 in 1000 chance of passing the preliminary test even if the dowsing ability didn't exist and (assuming the final test is a straight repeat of the same test) a 1 in a million chance of passing both even if there were no such ability then I think it's safe to say you've got your sums wrong.


(A)
Your logic/math in this thread is correct when working with 100% accuracy and only considering the preliminary and final tests.

Probability to get 1 trial correct with 6 positions is 1/6 (the odds are inverse 6/1)
Probability to get 2 trials correct with 6 positions is 1/6*1/6 (odds are 6x6)
Probability to get 4 trials correct with 6 positions is 1/6^4 (odds are 6^4 = 6*6*6*6) which is 1,296.

The odds for two tests each with 4 trials can be (6*6*6*6)*(6*6*6*6) = 1296*1296 = 1,679,616

Your math works even if one looks at both tests as one big combined test.
Probability to get 8 trials correct with 6 positions is (1/6)^8 (odds are 6*6*6*6*6*6*6*6) = 1,679,616

(B)
However, you are only looking at a part of the picture.
Don is NOT going to do 2 tests, but at least 4.

One to prove to himself he can do it (with pub skeptics), and then (at least) one test with a respected referee. Otherwise he does not even qualify for an application.

This is then a minimum of 4 tests.
Odds are 1,296 * 1,296 * 1,296 * 1,296 if one does the simple math for 100% success rate

Combining tests by considering them to be one big test gives the same result
Probability to get 16 trials correct with 6 positions is (1/6)^16
Odds are 6^16 = 1,679,616 * 1,679,616 which exceeds 2 trillion.

[Pixel42]

However, you are only looking at a part of the picture.
Don is NOT going to do 2 tests, but at least 4.
To win the MDC requires the applicant to pass just two tests: the preliminary and the final.

What testing the applicant does or does not choose to do beforehand is entirely up to them. You'd think every applicant would have the sense to do some investigations and a dry run to see if their ability (a) works at all under the test conditions which they've agreed to and (b) is reliable enough to get the agreed success rate, but almost none do. If they do have the sense to do so and discover that they can't do what they've been claiming to do after all then they should also have the sense to withdraw their application. If they discover they can achieve the required success rate under test conditions then there's no reason to think they won't be able to do so again in the test proper and they can proceed to take the MDC with justified confidence, rather than with the totally unjustified (and about to be shattered) confidence of the typical applicant.

[PartSkeptic]

Suppose you test dozens of people in this way and, no matter how convinced they are they that have this ability and that they will score 100% correct, none ever manage to get more than 28 right. What would you conclude?

(A)
Your example is great on the methodology. You have provided an easier way to make my points.

I would ask, what are the odds of getting 28 hits out of 100 trials?

And what are the number of hits needed to get odds exceeding 1,000 per test?
And how do you calculate such odds given the hits are not 100%?

(B)
Go to http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=87775
(JREF Forum » General Topics » Education = My Zener card experiment)

The formula is BDF = C(N,M) * p^M * (1-p)^(N-M)

This is the scientifically accepted formula. Why not state so in the rules?

At http://saliu.com/theory-of-probability.html you will find that

C(N.M) = N! / (M! * (N-M)!)

((* is multiply, / is divide, ^ is power and ! is factorial.))
(( N is trials, M is hits, p is individual probability))
((Odds are the reciprocal of BDF.))

This is the same as the Excel BINOM.DIST function.
The Excel sheet is unreliable for doing 100 trials!!
It cannot compute the large numbers - why not put a warning in the rules?

(C)
The odds for 28 hits with 100 trials is 14 to 1 (a real failure)
The odds for 38 hits is 743, and for 39 hits it is 1,402.

Why not give your example, give the formula and give the required number of hits (39) for the witnessed test, the preliminary test, and for the final test?

I have done my own checks of my work, and I think I am fairly free of error.

Statistics is far from simple. I last did a course when I studied for a degree in business in 2007, so I had to search many websites to find the full and correct accepted formula.

(D)
What are the odds if the two tests are combined? 39+39 out of 100+100?

It is not 1,402 * 1,402 (= 1,965,604), but 226,395 using the formula.
To exceed 1 Million odds combined then one must get 41 for each test (or 40+41) (or 39+42).

Again I ask, are two tests of 1,402 okay, or is an overall combined result exceeding 1 million required?

[PartSkeptic]

To win the MDC requires the applicant to pass just two tests: the preliminary and the final.

Not really. To win it, you must be in it.

An application will not be considered without some supporting documentation and I cannot see that a letter from my clergyman saying I am a nice and gifted guy will do it. At least one successful test is required to "buy the ticket".

And I maintain the if Don wins, JREF will say he beat the test odds of 1 million, but Don CAN claim that he beat odds of 2 trillion by using my logic.

[PartSkeptic]

Sometimes my brain just keeping working on problems even when I am trying to sleep. So I got up.

I made an assumption that the self-test, the application test, and the preliminary test were the same protocol as the Final Test.

Bad assumption.

The rules say that the preliminary could uncover issues that would require re-negotiation of test protocol. This would mean that only the Final Test would count. And then all other tests are invalid as far as odds are concerned.

I presume that the Final Test must then beat odds of 1 million on one test. If so, a 100% success on 4 trials is not sufficient. It would require 100% success on 8 trials (in effect another preliminary added in).

[steenkh]

Not really. To win it, you must be in it.

An application will not be considered without some supporting documentation and I cannot see that a letter from my clergyman saying I am a nice and gifted guy will do it. At least one successful test is required to "buy the ticket".

And I maintain the if Don wins, JREF will say he beat the test odds of 1 million, but Don CAN claim that he beat odds of 2 trillion by using my logic.
It would only be a problem if he claimed he could do something with a probability close to chance, in which case he should not apply.

If the JREF was putting up a prize for people who could ride a bicycle, the rules might state that the applicant would have to ride 100 metres of level ground without touching the ground with his body at any point, while staying within the confines of a bicycle lane 1,5 metres wide. For an applicant who cannot ride a bicycle this would perhaps be a trillion to one that he could make it, but for a person who really can ride a bicycle, it should pose no problem at all.

Besides, there are no rules stating exactly what odds will be demanded by the JREF. It has actually happened that the JREF has lowered the odds for an applicant in order to make the test cheaper and shorter.

[steenkh]

The rules say that the preliminary could uncover issues that would require re-negotiation of test protocol. This would mean that only the Final Test would count. And then all other tests are invalid as far as odds are concerned.
That is possible, but it is difficult to say, because nobody has passed the preliminary test. Probably even the JREF will be unsure about what to do. But it has often been said informally by JREF staffers that the odds and the protocol would stay the same for the final test.

Presumably, the protocol would only be renegotiated if it became obvious that the applicant had found a way to circumvent the protocol, or if the rules turned out to be ambiguous.

[jsfisher]

...
((Odds are the reciprocal of BDF.))
...

Minor nit. Odds = (1/probability) - 1.

E.g. A 25% probability translates to 3-to-1, not 4.

[Gr8wight]

Not really. To win it, you must be in it.

An application will not be considered without some supporting documentation and I cannot see that a letter from my clergyman saying I am a nice and gifted guy will do it. At least one successful test is required to "buy the ticket".

And I maintain the if Don wins, JREF will say he beat the test odds of 1 million, but Don CAN claim that he beat odds of 2 trillion by using my logic.

And all this is irrelevant if he can do what he claims to be able to do. For any applicant who truly has the ability they claim to have, any discussion of odds is unnecessary, because they are not operating under random chance.

[PartSkeptic]

Minor nit. Odds = (1/probability) - 1.

E.g. A 25% probability translates to 3-to-1, not 4.

Minor in some respect, but when I comes to math/stats definitions, there is the need to be precise. Thank you.

[PartSkeptic]

And all this is irrelevant if he can do what he claims to be able to do. For any applicant who truly has the ability they claim to have, any discussion of odds is unnecessary, because they are not operating under random chance.

My claim would be the that I can do the test proposed by Pixel42, and get enough right so that the majority of scientists would say the result is "significant enough to rule out chance".

Why would I not claim to be able to do 100%? Because if mental telepathy exists it is a weak ability, and the conscious mind starts guessing. A "receiver" under hypnosis might do 85 out of a 100, or even 100 out of a 100, but to find such a person is very hard. They are rare and probably young (about 10years old).

To get 85 out of 100 is so good it will impress most people. But what are the scientific odds. So great there are about 35 zeros, not the 6 zeros of a million to one.

Note: 80% right in 10 tests is not impressive. the odds are 2588 to 1.
The number of trials makes a huge difference.

JREF acknowledge this and give odds calculated by a formula. All I am saying is that JREF could be a little more open about odds and formula (some tests use different formulae, but there are probably only two or three)

[PartSkeptic]

That is possible, but it is difficult to say, because nobody has passed the preliminary test. Probably even the JREF will be unsure about what to do. But it has often been said informally by JREF staffers that the odds and the protocol would stay the same for the final test.

DowserDon needs 100% for all tests to beat the odds if he uses 4 trials per test. My initial point was that if he does 8 trials per test, he might need only 6 out of out 8 to give him a margin of error. In fact, JREF might insist on this protocol for the final.

DD's number of trials per test are low and the odds exceed 1,000 to 1. My other point was that if he can repeat these test over and over, it is hard to argue with his success rate, because then the odds are huge.

[Pixel42]

DowserDon needs 100% for all tests to beat the odds if he uses 4 trials per test.
Which is why he should change his protocol so that every dowsing spot has a 50% chance of having a trench under it. Then he would need fewer walkways/spots than his existing protocol requires, and still be able to beat the required chance odds with a success rate a lot less than 100%.

PartSkeptic you still seem to be missing the point about the purpose of self testing and the setting of success criteria relative to chance success. Yes of course the odds against you getting a positive result if you don't have a paranormal ability increase the more testing you do, that's the whole point of establishing whether a result is repeatable: to eliminate the possibility of a false positive due to a statistical fluke. But someone who really can do what they claim to be able to do will get a better-than-chance result in every test, so the more testing they do the more obvious and undeniable their ability becomes. Someone who really does have a paranormal ability will find that easier, not harder, to prove with every test they do, as the odds against chance success accumulate in their favour.

As for why JREF don't go into success criteria and probability formulae in their rules, I can't speak for them but I would imagine it's partly because every claim - and therefore every agreed test protocol - is different so they need to be flexible (as you yourself pointed out with some claims this statistical approach can't even be applied), but mostly because such details would be totally incomprehensible to 99% of applicants. For them just saying something like "You need to find at least 7 of the 10 barrels of water buried in this piece of ground to pass the test" is perfectly understandable and reasonable.

[wardenclyffe]

I, for one, would prefer that PartSkeptic start a new thread. This is drifting from DowserDon's claim and moving closer to a Zener Card claim from PartSkeptic. I understand that PartSkeptic is trying to figure out how JREF develops protocols and figures odds by using DowserDon as an example, but I think it would be more helpful in a new thread.

One poster's opinion,

Ward

[William Smith]

My claim would be the that I can do the test proposed by Pixel42, and get enough right so that the majority of scientists would say the result is "significant enough to rule out chance".
...

Excellent. Now all you have to do is do it.


...
JREF acknowledge this and give odds calculated by a formula. All I am saying is that JREF could be a little more open about odds and formula (some tests use different formulae, but there are probably only two or three)

All I am saying is that people like you could be a little more open about doing what they claim to be able to do.

(To the tune of "Give peace a chance".)
"All we are saying
Is do what you claim."

[William Smith]

Upon re-reading my post, I may have been a little overzealous or impolite. What I meant to convey was, PartSkeptic, that I am greatly looking forward to results - any results - from an actual test or self-test. For the last years, please allow the brevity, we have seen a lot of this:

1. Forum member claims ability.

2. When asked to produce data to confirm ability, forum member produces words.

3. When told words do not equal satisfactory data, forum member produces more words.



Conclusion: Forum member has not produced data, but many, many, many words. Exceptions: Edge and connie sonne. That did not, and in edge's case does not, prevent them from producing many, many, many more words.

Since you're retired, take an afternoon and read both cases. Have chocolate or other helpers ready.

[EHocking]

DowserDon needs 100% for all tests to beat the odds if he uses 4 trials per test. My initial point was that if he does 8 trials per test, he might need only 6 out of out 8 to give him a margin of error. In fact, JREF might insist on this protocol for the final.

DD's number of trials per test are low and the odds exceed 1,000 to 1. My other point was that if he can repeat these test over and over, it is hard to argue with his success rate, because then the odds are huge.Rather than get all caught up with the maths, I tend to refer to these handy tables that have been devised by the author (not me) with the MDC in mind.

http://www.automeasure.com/chance.html (http://www.automeasure.com/chance.html)

They outline the number of trials and expected "success" due to random chance for "odds" of 1:100, 10,000 and 1,000,000.

[steenkh]

Why would I not claim to be able to do 100%? Because if mental telepathy exists it is a weak ability, and the conscious mind starts guessing. A "receiver" under hypnosis might do 85 out of a 100, or even 100 out of a 100, but to find such a person is very hard. They are rare and probably young (about 10years old).
Why do you not simply test yourself to find out exactly what odds you get right?

[Almo]

I, for one, would prefer that PartSkeptic start a new thread. This is drifting from DowserDon's claim and moving closer to a Zener Card claim from PartSkeptic. I understand that PartSkeptic is trying to figure out how JREF develops protocols and figures odds by using DowserDon as an example, but I think it would be more helpful in a new thread.

One poster's opinion,

Ward

You mean two poster's opinons. :)

[William Smith]

You mean two poster's opinons. :)

Threeve.

[PartSkeptic]

Thanks for all the comments, including the "lighter" ones.

I take the points made, and will now back down, and try not to sidetrack from DD.

When my son gets round to doing an experiment with me, I will give a short summary.

[PartSkeptic]

Rather than get all caught up with the maths, I tend to refer to these handy tables that have been devised by the author (not me) with the MDC in mind.

http://www.automeasure.com/chance.html

They outline the number of trials and expected "success" due to random chance for "odds" of 1:100, 10,000 and 1,000,000.

These are really good. Thanks.

I like to understand the underlying theory. Then I more fully understand the tables.

[wardenclyffe]

Thanks for all the comments, including the "lighter" ones.

I take the points made, and will now back down, and try not to sidetrack from DD.

When my son gets round to doing an experiment with me, I will give a short summary.

No need to back down or go away. The discussion is interesting. I just think it deserves a thread of its own and DowserDon deserves a thread of his own, as well.

Ward

[sadhatter]

Thank you for all your suggestions and help.

When I learned hypnosis I read that people sub-vocalise, and under hypnosis some can "hear" the thoughts. Also that although eyes appear closed, some can "peep" and see the image of the card in the other person's eyes.

And body language, voice tone, and the words used are such give-aways. I am a really good poker player - I do not claim psychic power but knowledge of others, and good at calculating the odds.

So the two of us must be separated in rooms at opposite ends of the house. Perhaps my daughter-in-law in the passage shouts start 1, stop 1, start 2, stop 2 and we write down the card seen and perceived when the stop is shouted. And no-one sees anyone else. Do 20 and then compare sheets. And then again and again.



Scared by the unknown? And what it might do to? Seems reasonable. It seems the numbers go against you because it suggests that "something" might be out there. And I doubt they were masters. Rather things happened beyond their control, and they knew they were not in control.

And I only started really using and trying to experiment and amplify possible psychic abilities once I had a greater understanding of what I am dealing with. Which is only recently. It seems there are powers of good and evil - and getting controlled by evil is frightening to many. I have had experiences which were lessons to me.

A pistol is an unknown to one who is just learning to use one. The nuances of firing it properly, and being safe with it are knowledge that the first time user does not have. And beyond that it is known that a mistake, can , and will kill you. Yet i don't see darn near every single person who claims to have used a pistol say they got scared and stopped using it.

There are a dearth of dangerous real talents out there, that people can and do perform constantly, and they have to learn somewhere, yet only with the paranormal is the amount of folks who just give up in fear so terribly high.

Maybe i am a tad psychic myself, because i can anticipate your repsonse " But people can learn about guns beforehand, the paranormal is a total unknown." , the problem is, that if it is, you have just admitted there is no one that knows of it, so we can dismiss the ramblings of those who say they do. But that would destroy the premise of the "masters" you were speaking of.

So either A) the paranormal is a complete unknown, thereby it is reasonable for folks to fear it ( though this still doesn't clear up why there are no thrill seekers that take the risk. We have folks who jump out of ******* planes for fun, but no one would be silly enough to mess with psychic powers...) , or B) There is evidence of the paranormal, so it isn't an unknown , so it makes little sense why people fear it so.

[PartSkeptic]

Upon re-reading my post, I may have been a little overzealous or impolite. What I meant to convey was, PartSkeptic, that I am greatly looking forward to results - any results - from an actual test or self-test. For the last years, please allow the brevity, we have seen a lot of this:

1. Forum member claims ability.

2. When asked to produce data to confirm ability, forum member produces words.

3. When told words do not equal satisfactory data, forum member produces more words.



Conclusion: Forum member has not produced data, but many, many, many words. Exceptions: Edge and connie sonne. That did not, and in edge's case does not, prevent them from producing many, many, many more words.

Since you're retired, take an afternoon and read both cases. Have chocolate or other helpers ready.

I took some time to check out what I could find. You are right. Words ... and more words.

I was able to read the test procedure for connie sonne. I agree it was simple and clear. It seems she failed from some of the postings afterward. I am not sure why she felt she failed. Fraud? No reason for fraud!

I now understand many of the comments made to me. For me it was instructive to have the discussion. Thanks.

[Almo]

I now understand many of the comments made to me. For me it was instructive to have the discussion. Thanks.

No problem. :) And feel welcome to hang around the forum and discuss stuff. You're already past one of the most important hurdles: you have a willingness to learn.

[sadhatter]

And all this is irrelevant if he can do what he claims to be able to do. For any applicant who truly has the ability they claim to have, any discussion of odds is unnecessary, because they are not operating under random chance.

And this is what bothers me.

Paranormal folk explain their abilities a lot like i explain a lot of weird talents i have. Knife throwing is the best example. They have a good grasp of it, but always admit they are not perfect and they have limitations. But when said limitations are taken into consideration, and a test designed for them is done, they fail.

This is the very definition of a braggart, someone who claims a set of abilities and cannot, when said abilities are asked to be reproduced replicate them.

The paranormal folks like to make it seem as if someone is doing the equivalent of asking them to throw a knife through a hole just large enough for the blade to go in ( to simplify, a trick that would be darn near impossible when the physics of knife throwing are taken into account.). But that is not the case, they are the ones who tell of their limitations, but this always raises another point.

What if i said i could throw knives very well, but that my particular talent doesn't really work well when people are watching, even by camera. And if anyone touches the board i am using, besides myself, that will screw up my throw. So in order to test this, we need to have a person and camera free environment, and no one can touch, in any way, my equipment of the test.

Wouldn't it seem kind of obvious that i am looking to cheat?

But that is about half of the claims we get. One's limitations in an art, seldom co-incide with what would be conducive to cheating. Yet in the paranormal, they always seem to.

So really we get 2 kinds of folks, those who say their limitations co-incide with things that would help them cheat, and those who simply cannot perform when their limitations are taken into an account and a test is designed.

I cannot think of a talent i posses that i could not design a test for that would eliminate cheating and allow me to do my thing. And to put a point on it, it certainly wouldn't take me the giant amount of time it seems to take every paranormal person to come up with this. I could understand if the vast majority of the claimants were claiming something like " I just discovered this power yesterday and i want to be tested." , yeah it might be a bit wacky, but we have people who claim to be doing these things for years, yet have no grasp of the minutia of their talent.

As an example, here is a protocol , designed in under 8 minutes, that would show, sans possibility of cheating that a person can throw a knife, 10 feet, without mechanical or other aid.

1. All knives used will be inspected by both parties as well as an impartial expert, and a model of knife designed for a standard throw ( not fluted, or in any other way modified for a straight, or "S" throw.) will be agreed upon by both parties before hand.

2. The throwing method in question must use at least a 3/4th rotation throw. The claimant can use more than a 3/4th rotation throw, but must use at least a 3/4th rotation throw.

3. No system of marking distance will be available to the claimant. Floors , ceilings, walls, etc will be free from visible markings. The claimant will be informed of the appropriate minimum distance, but no further visual or auditory clues will be allowed.

4. The target will also be inspected by both parties as well as an impartial observer, made of a reasonable species of wood common to throwing ( soft pine would be a good example.) knives, and be of a standard commonly used size in regards to knife throwing. If no agreement can be reached as to what constitutes "standard" in this case, a target size must be agreed upon by both the testing agency and the claimant.

5. The action of the knife will be filmed, both for purposes of making sure the knife is rotating an appropriate number of times, and that no trickery is happening in regards to the target.

6. The knife will be inspected directly before the throw by both parties and an impartial observer for any trace of resin, epoxy, or any other modification of the blade prior to the throw.

7. Blades will be inspected after the throw has been recorded, again to ensure that at no point was the blade modified in any fashion.

8. Wind conditions will be monitored to make sure that wind is not a factor in the throw. Turbulence should be no more than would be common on a non storming, average summer day ( an average of the last 10 years of summer non storming weather for the location should provide an appropriate baseline.).

9. Humidity will be controlled to be that of an average summer day.

10. Lighting will be no brighter than an average day, or baring that, no brighter than an average office building.

11. Sound levels will be adjusted so that they are no more than average background noise expected in a city.

And there it is, a protocol in about 7 minutes, that would guarantee no cheating could take place. Clearly one can see the many limitations and complications inherent in knife throwing, but one can also see that none of said limitations are correlated with what would make it easy to cheat. Yet the paranormal folk need years, years to design a test that would provide the same level of surety of an ability.

[Gr8wight]

What if i said i could throw knives very well, but that my particular talent doesn't really work well when people are watching, even by camera. And if anyone touches the board i am using, besides myself, that will screw up my throw. So in order to test this, we need to have a person and camera free environment, and no one can touch, in any way, my equipment of the test.

Wouldn't it seem kind of obvious that i am looking to cheat?

It might seem that way to some observers, but for the purposes of a JREF million dollar test, the JREF would never say that. They would simply say, "I'm sorry, but your claim, as described, is untestable under the rules of the challenge."

[PartSkeptic]

A pistol is an unknown to one who is just learning to use one. The nuances of firing it properly, and being safe with it are knowledge that the first time user does not have. And beyond that it is known that a mistake, can , and will kill you. Yet i don't see darn near every single person who claims to have used a pistol say they got scared and stopped using it.

If psychic powers are controlled by a higher power (and perhaps a evil force) then it is like leaving loaded guns (of different types) around for a primitive tribe to find. They play with one, and one day it goes off killing some-one. A few people decide that it can give power if it can be controlled, and they go through a ritual and mumbo-jumbo. They don't realize that the ritual involves cocking the mechanism and pulling the trigger. The tribe gets to know that a pistol can do things, and can be used for good and bad, but they also know they sometimes loved ones or self can be killed. So when one finds a pistol lying around they decide to drop it in fear and leave it there. They don't have experts to train and teach them.

A few weeks ago, my grand-daughter fired her father's pistol at the firing range. Despite watching first, the experience shocked and frightened her. Feeling that kick and power in ones hands, is not the same as observing.

[Pixel42]

I was able to read the test procedure for connie sonne. I agree it was simple and clear. It seems she failed from some of the postings afterward. I am not sure why she felt she failed. Fraud? No reason for fraud!
Here's the thread about the Connie Sonne challenge in which she participated: http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=132871

You'll notice that several of us urged her to do a blind self test but she steadfastly refused to do so, insisting that it was unnecessary because she already "knew" she could pass such a simple straightforward test. It's a 20 page thread but you only need to read the first page or two to get the gist.

This is the thread about the aftermath of her failure, in which she again participated: http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=148178

At the time of the test she explained away her failure as due to the mysterious higher powers that granted her abilities having decided that The Time Was Not Yet Right for them to be revealed, but a few weeks later she decided JREF must have cheated. She returned to this thread periodically over the next year or so making increasingly libellous allegations against JREF and Banachek, vowing each time to be about to reveal evidence of fraud and to take legal action (neither of which ever materialised) before eventually being banned. Once again we urged her to do an independantly witnessed self test using the same protocol, pointing out that success would be the best evidence she could produce that she had indeed been cheated; once again she ignored all such suggestions.

Edge still posts occasionally, in fact I'm surprised we haven't yet seen him on this thread. He seems to be trying to come up with a test protocol for dowsing which is sufficently complicated that no-one will be able to tell that it isn't scientifically rigorous. There was another dowser who posted regularly called Old Bob who also steadfastedly refused to do any meaningful blind testing, insisting that his anecdotal evidence was all that he, or we, required to "know" dowsing worked. He was eventually banned for threatening other posters with physical violence.

You might wonder why, in the light of the above, any of us bother to engage with the paranormal believers who come here at all, but it's not always a complete waste of time. There have been some actual practitioners who came to the forum to find out how to apply for the MDC, read the links we directed them to about confirmation bias and cold reading etc, did some self testing, and realised they had indeed been inadvertantly fooling themselves. Some have stayed and become forum stalwarts, even moderators. I mostly keep engaging because marshalling evidence and arguments is a good form of mental exercise for people like me who have retired but still want to keep their minds working, and the occasional success in opening someone's mind is a nice bonus. Plus of course there is always the hope, usually unspoken but present I suspect in the back of the minds of even the most cynical of sceptics, that one day someone will indeed actually be able to do what they claim, and a whole new area for scientific exploration will be opened up.

[Cuddles]

All I am saying is that JREF could be a little more open about odds and formula (some tests use different formulae, but there are probably only two or three)

For the formulae, it's impossible to be more open since nothing more than basic maths is required. This is high school probability, not some kind of secret knowledge only the JREF is party to. As for what odds are required, it's already been explained that that depends very much on what the actual claim is and how it will be tested, so it's impossible for the JREF to be open about it in advance because they don't know in advance. However, they are entirely open about it during the negotiations with an applicant.

It's also worth remembering, as has been pointed out every time this topic has come up, that the odds are utterly irrelevant to the applicant. The odds of winning by chance are the odds that the JREF will lose their money even if the applicant does not have the claimed ability. But the applicant (hopefully) believes they do have the claimed ability, so they shouldn't care in the slightest how much chance they would have of winning without it. The only reason the odds of winning by chance are in any way relevant to the applicant is that they can affect the length of time and complexity of a test. But that just means they should focus on the length of time and complexity, not the odds themselves.

Any applicant who genuinely believes they have magic powers should be happy to accept odds of winning by chance of trillions to one, because that number has nothing whatsoever to do with their actual chance of winning, which should be so close to 100% that you can't tell the difference. That so many people make such a fuss about their chance of winning without using their ability tells us an awful lot about how much they really believe in it.

If psychic powers are controlled by a higher power (and perhaps a evil force) then it is like leaving loaded guns (of different types) around for a primitive tribe to find. They play with one, and one day it goes off killing some-one. A few people decide that it can give power if it can be controlled, and they go through a ritual and mumbo-jumbo. They don't realize that the ritual involves cocking the mechanism and pulling the trigger. The tribe gets to know that a pistol can do things, and can be used for good and bad, but they also know they sometimes loved ones or self can be killed. So when one finds a pistol lying around they decide to drop it in fear and leave it there.

And how is this relevant to your claims of magic powers? Obviously you haven't decided to just drop it, you claim to be actively experimenting and to understand what you are dealing with. This is the problem with so many woo claims - the excuses invented to explain why the claims can't be proven often directly contradict the claims themselves.

A few weeks ago, my grand-daughter fired her father's pistol at the firing range. Despite watching first, the experience shocked and frightened her. Feeling that kick and power in ones hands, is not the same as observing.

Yet it can, in fact, be observed. Something no magic power has ever managed to achieve.

[William Smith]

If psychic powers are controlled by a higher power (and perhaps a evil force) then it is like leaving loaded guns (of different types) around for a primitive tribe to find. They play with one, and one day it goes off killing some-one. A few people decide that it can give power if it can be controlled, and they go through a ritual and mumbo-jumbo. They don't realize that the ritual involves cocking the mechanism and pulling the trigger. The tribe gets to know that a pistol can do things, and can be used for good and bad, but they also know they sometimes loved ones or self can be killed. So when one finds a pistol lying around they decide to drop it in fear and leave it there. They don't have experts to train and teach them.
...


I like to play Advocatus Diaboli, hence I would claim that if psychic powers were controlled by a higher power, it could as well be a benevolent force. Or both.

Do you realise how easily one falls into the temptation of using words, words and more words to theorize, hypothesize and rationalize, instead of providing a simple demonstration?

More lightly put: A woman is either pregnant or she is not. There is a simple way to find out.

[PartSkeptic]

You might wonder why, in the light of the above, any of us bother to engage with the paranormal believers who come here at all, but it's not always a complete waste of time. There have been some actual practitioners who came to the forum to find out how to apply for the MDC, read the links we directed them to about confirmation bias and cold reading etc, did some self testing, and realised they had indeed been inadvertantly fooling themselves. Some have stayed and become forum stalwarts, even moderators. I mostly keep engaging because marshalling evidence and arguments is a good form of mental exercise for people like me who have retired but still want to keep their minds working, and the occasional success in opening someone's mind is a nice bonus. Plus of course there is always the hope, usually unspoken but present I suspect in the back of the minds of even the most cynical of sceptics, that one day someone will indeed actually be able to do what they claim, and a whole new area for scientific exploration will be opened up.

Retired. I wondered about your time. And I too find this to be mental exercise.

I could never post like this if I was not (perhaps only temporarily) retired. And yes, you answered a question in the back of my mind. While some may like the "cut and thrust", and the humour can be good, I appreciate the answers I get from posters like you. I am learning a lot, and so will stay with it for a while.

You have expressed a key thought well - "HOPE" - that some-one might provide some evidence that there is indeed be more to life. I definitely have that hope.

I have some more posts once I do complete the research that this forum has lead me to.

I will try an experiment once (50 + 50 trials - me sending, then son sending). I will be really surprised to beat random chance, but is it happens then I will do another test but even stricter.

IMHO, (I am learning abbreviations on the forum) anyone who does NOT do strict blind testing before applying is fooling themselves.

[Pixel42]

DowserDon has emailed me to say he has arranged a test for March 25th. The location is about a two hour drive from where I live, so I should be able to attend. He proposes to use a single walkway with ten possible dowsing spots and a single trench, which should be adequate for a "proof of concept" self test.

[Almo]

DowserDon has emailed me to say he has arranged a test for March 25th. The location is about a two hour drive from where I live, so I should be able to attend. He proposes to use a single walkway with ten possible dowsing spots and a single trench, which should be adequate for a "proof of concept" self test.

Awesome. Looking forward to reading about the results!

[steenkh]

DowserDon has emailed me to say he has arranged a test for March 25th.
Sounds great! Is this a test for the MDC, with Professor French acting for the JREF, or is it all just a private test?

Anyway, I hope that DowserDon's dowsing works so that we find that the world is not just causing awe and wonder, but we have gotten the laws of physics completely wrong, which will be really exciting!

[Pixel42]

Is this a test for the MDC, with Professor French acting for the JREF, or is it all just a private test?
It's a private self test, though DowserDon says he will invite Prof French to observe.

[steenkh]

Excellent. Private self tests are so rare. DowserDon has my respect.

[William Smith]

Sounds good so far. But let's not start bleeping each other's bleeps just yet.

[Yeggster]

The thing I noticed and has not been discussed much (perhaps because it's so obvious) is that this test protocol will be very difficult to accomplished at any reasonable cost and positively preclude cheating.

Would the acreage have to be tented to eliminate anyone of a thousand people and aircraft viewing the progress, or can that be accomplished by simply secluding the participant? How could the possibility be eliminated that someone sees the progress and transmits info to the participant?

The plywood idea is not workable, it would be too easy to see the results of the digging, I'd propose the entire acreage would need to be ploughed and smoothed over after the digging is completed ... not out of the question a simple half day job with local farming equipment.

To save on the hand digging a simple rotary post hole digger on the same farm equipment could be used ... perhaps 18" in diameter?

[Pixel42]

The thing I noticed and has not been discussed much (perhaps because it's so obvious) is that this test protocol will be very difficult to accomplished at any reasonable cost and positively preclude cheating.
DowserDon has indicated that the cost of the materials for a full test is a concern, it's one reason he's doing a cut down 'proof of concept' dry run before proceeding with it.

Would the acreage have to be tented to eliminate anyone of a thousand people and aircraft viewing the progress, or can that be accomplished by simply secluding the participant? How could the possibility be eliminated that someone sees the progress and transmits info to the participant?
I would think keeping the applicant and those in the digging party under observation (and obviously temporarily confiscating their mobile phones) would be sufficient. JREF may disagree, but it has done similar tests many times before so it obviously has ways of doing this which it considers acceptable.

DowserDon has agreed to me bringing a couple of friends along on March 25th, so we can arrange for there to be at least one observer with both him and the digger whilst they are seperated. Not that there's any real need to guard against cheating in this case - this test is for his own benefit after all - but obviously precautions against accidental information leakage still need to be taken.

The plywood idea is not workable, it would be too easy to see the results of the digging, I'd propose the entire acreage would need to be ploughed and smoothed over after the digging is completed ... not out of the question a simple half day job with local farming equipment.

Making sure all the dowsing spots look the same whether they have been disturbed or not is definitely the most problematic aspect of this protocol. This idea is certainly workable and may be the one JREF prefers. I don't think DowserDon would object to the surface being ploughed over, he seems to think whatever it is his dowsing is detecting is further down. For the dry run on March 25th, though, just making sure all the dowsing spots look equally disturbed will have to do.

[MRC_Hans]

Making sure all the dowsing spots look the same whether they have been disturbed or not is definitely the most problematic aspect of this protocol.

Isn't that a question of digging in all spots, but only leaving targets in some?

(Sorry if this has already been addressed)

Hans

[Pixel42]

Isn't that a question of digging in all spots, but only leaving targets in some?
AIUI it's the fact that the ground is disturbed in some way that DowserDon thinks he is detecting. So any digging, even if nothing is then left in the hole, risks giving him a false positive.

ETA a quote from DowserDon:

Because I am responsible for the costs I have honed my suggested protocol to simplify it and make it more affordable whilst keeping to the claim that was accepted by Banachek that, by using bent metal rods I am able to detect the interface between undisturbed soil and that disturbed by man or nature. Nature will disturb soil as it flows beneath ground. Man may disturb soil by digging a trench and backfilling or by placing heavy weights upon it.

[EHocking]

DowserDon has emailed me to say he has arranged a test for March 25th. The location is about a two hour drive from where I live, so I should be able to attend. He proposes to use a single walkway with ten possible dowsing spots and a single trench, which should be adequate for a "proof of concept" self test.Um, perhaps I'm being dim, but how is this to work?

How is DowserDon going to run the unblinded part of this trial if only a single trench will be dug under a single walkway?

Or, once the unblinded check has been done, how will the blinded part of the trial be conducted with only a single (already detected) trench being dug?

I'm having to presume that I've misunderstood your post.

[zooterkin]

AIUI it's the fact that the ground is disturbed in some way that DowserDon thinks he is detecting. So any digging, even if nothing is then left in the hole, risks giving him a false positive.

ETA a quote from DowserDon:
Because I am responsible for the costs I have honed my suggested protocol to simplify it and make it more affordable whilst keeping to the claim that was accepted by Banachek that, by using bent metal rods I am able to detect the interface between undisturbed soil and that disturbed by man or nature. Nature will disturb soil as it flows beneath ground. Man may disturb soil by digging a trench and backfilling or by placing heavy weights upon it.




What are the limits of 'nature'? Moles, earthworms, rabbits? What is 'undisturbed'? How long after something has been dug up or ploughed does it become undisturbed? It seems a bit vague to me, and any reading of 'disturbance' could, for example, be counted as a hit due to the presence of worm holes, or because it turned out the field had been dug up six months ago.

[Old man]

The thing I noticed and has not been discussed much (perhaps because it's so obvious) is that this test protocol will be very difficult to accomplished at any reasonable cost and positively preclude cheating.

Would the acreage have to be tented to eliminate anyone of a thousand people and aircraft viewing the progress, or can that be accomplished by simply secluding the participant? How could the possibility be eliminated that someone sees the progress and transmits info to the participant?

The plywood idea is not workable, it would be too easy to see the results of the digging, I'd propose the entire acreage would need to be ploughed and smoothed over after the digging is completed ... not out of the question a simple half day job with local farming equipment.

To save on the hand digging a simple rotary post hole digger on the same farm equipment could be used ... perhaps 18" in diameter?
I agree with the above. I've been meaning to post a similar suggestion.

[Pixel42]

How is DowserDon going to run the unblinded part of this trial if only a single trench will be dug under a single walkway?

Or, once the unblinded check has been done, how will the blinded part of the trial be conducted with only a single (already detected) trench being dug?

I'm having to presume that I've misunderstood your post.
Either he has already done the unblinded test I urged him to do in his own back garden before setting this up and inviting observers (see post #167), or he is choosing not to bother to do one. The reasons for doing an initial unblinded test have been made abundantly clear to him, but no-one can force him to do one.

[Pixel42]

What are the limits of 'nature'? Moles, earthworms, rabbits? What is 'undisturbed'? How long after something has been dug up or ploughed does it become undisturbed? It seems a bit vague to me, and any reading of 'disturbance' could, for example, be counted as a hit due to the presence of worm holes, or because it turned out the field had been dug up six months ago.
I presume this is why his proposed test protocol has him dowsing the test site thoroughly beforehand and identifying an area where he gets no reaction at all as suitable for the walkway(s).

I do agree that his reasoning as to what exactly it is he's detecting when he dowses is dubious.

[EHocking]

Either he has already done the unblinded test I urged him to do in his own back garden before setting this up and inviting observers (see post #167), or he is choosing not to bother to do one. The reasons for doing an initial unblinded test have been made abundantly clear to him, but no-one can force him to do one.OK. I haven't misunderstood. But I still see this particular venture as being next to pointless.

1:10?

Even if 5 trials were conducted in this manner, the expected success rate at "odds" of 1:100 chance is still 0-2, i.e, you'd need to be successful 3 out of 5 trials for the result to be outside random chance.

What can that prove except to confirm his own preconceptions?

A single attempt is fraught with many possibilities of him picking up on clues as to where the single hole was dug. Even if he picks them up subconsciously.

Perhaps a better protocol would be to dig multiple holes.

Dig first hole, plow over, place boardwalk and "dowse".
The person recording his "dowsing" would also be blinded to the location of this hole.

Then, dig a second hole and repeat the "dowsing" test.

Repeat process with a third hole.

Results of the "dowsing" is not revealed until all three trials have been completed.

With a backhoe (or post hole digger) and tiller on a small tractor, time would not necessarily be a constricting factor in attempting multiple trials along the same boardwalk.

While even this is not terribly robust in confirming an ability, it seems like a bit of an improvement on just a single trial.

[MRC_Hans]

AIUI it's the fact that the ground is disturbed in some way that DowserDon thinks he is detecting. So any digging, even if nothing is then left in the hole, risks giving him a false positive.

ETA a quote from DowserDon:

Ahh, he's going for non-provable. He has no idea how his ability works, but it sure as hell is defeated by any measure that keeps him from cheating. ... Familiar pattern. :rolleyes:

Hans

[Pixel42]

OK. I haven't misunderstood. But I still see this particular venture as being next to pointless.

1:10?
Yes. Good enough to justify proceeding with more extensive (and costly in both materials and effort) testing if successful. If unsuccessful - if he can't even beat odds that small - then obviously he gives up any idea of investing even more money and effort, at least with this particular methodology.

How many big holes to you think you could convince someone - even your own son - to dig just so you can find out whether you're on the right track with something like this?

[Yeggster]

Yes. Good enough to justify proceeding with more extensive (and costly in both materials and effort) testing if successful. If unsuccessful - if he can't even beat odds that small - then obviously he gives up any idea of investing even more money and effort, at least with this particular methodology.

How many big holes to you think you could convince someone - even your own son - to dig just so you can find out whether you're on the right track with something like this?

I know my son is 19 years old and string as a horse ... But I doubt even an hourly wage would get him out there with a shovel :)

[steenkh]

Either he has already done the unblinded test I urged him to do in his own back garden before setting this up and inviting observers (see post #167), or he is choosing not to bother to do one. The reasons for doing an initial unblinded test have been made abundantly clear to him, but no-one can force him to do one.
Well, since this is his own private test, he can do the unblinded test afterwards. When all has been revealed, he can use his stick and see if it suddenly reacts better than before.

But of course negative vibrations from his failure during the blinded test could offset his dowsing prowess ...

[EHocking]

Well, since this is his own private test, he can do the unblinded test afterwards. When all has been revealed, he can use his stick and see if it suddenly reacts better than before.

But of course negative vibrations from his failure during the blinded test could offset his dowsing prowess ...Solution?

Have him do the unblinded test after the previous trials but before the results are announced.

That way he has dowsed before the holes were dug, to show that there has not been 'local interference', and afterwards to confirm that his dowsing should work.

[Almo]

Solution?

Have him do the unblinded test after the previous trials but before the results are announced.

That way he has dowsed before the holes were dug, to show that there has not been 'local interference', and afterwards to confirm that his dowsing should work.

Smart. I think this would make a lot of sense.

[EHocking]

Yes. Good enough to justify proceeding with more extensive (and costly in both materials and effort) testing if successful. If unsuccessful - if he can't even beat odds that small - then obviously he gives up any idea of investing even more money and effort, at least with this particular methodology.OK, but my point was that a "once off" could also swing the other way. By fluke, or by picking up other visual indicators, a single trial may merely confirm his belief.
At least with a couple of more holes attempted on the day you can show a little more than a 1 in 10 chance.How many big holes to you think you could convince someone - even your own son - to dig just so you can find out whether you're on the right track with something like this?Well, a "once off" success would hardly convince many - equally a "once off" failure could also be just as easily dismissed by DowserDon.

I was just wanting to put the idea out there that, since you're already in a cold Surrey(?) field with a digger and a plough, you might as well avail yourselves of the opportunity to make multiple attempts.

Whether it would help either party? I doubt it, as we've seen before with edge when SezMe indulged him in a trial where he managed something like 7/10 successes. On the face of it significant - but not according to the laws of random chance.

[wardenclyffe]

Well, a "once off" success would hardly convince many - equally a "once off" failure could also be just as easily dismissed by DowserDon.

I'm not sure that's true. A "once off" failure might be dismissed by DowserDon, but I think another outcome is more likely.

I do not believe that a single failure would convince him that dowsing (as a paranormal or yet-to-be-proved scientific thing) was not a real power. I think his personal experiences were convincing enough to him that it would take more than that.

I do think that a single failure would make him re-think the testing protocol. It's possible that he would simply spend a lot more money and scale the test up to the level where it would be accepted for the MDC, but he seems to have enough common sense that I think he's more likely work on other self-testing protocols until he found something he felt confident that he could reproduce under test conditions.

He could just keep going and hope to win the million, but that's an awfully expensive lottery ticket.

Ward

[Pixel42]

OK, but my point was that a "once off" could also swing the other way. By fluke, or by picking up other visual indicators, a single trial may merely confirm his belief.
It may - there's obviously a 10% chance of a fluke success even if we manage to successful eliminate all visual indicators. But any pre-test is better than none; remember how rare it is to convince an applicant of the need to do one at all.

I was just wanting to put the idea out there that, since you're already in a cold Surrey(?) field with a digger and a plough, you might as well avail yourselves of the opportunity to make multiple attempts.
AIUI we're going to be in his son's garden with a spade.

[Pixel42]

OK, but my point was that a "once off" could also swing the other way. By fluke, or by picking up other visual indicators, a single trial may merely confirm his belief.
A possible safeguard against this occured to me while I was in the bath.

The observers who stay with DowserDon whilst the trench is dug should, when they return to the test area, take their own best guess as to which spot has the trench, write it down and seal it an envelope. Without benefit of dowsing that guess will be based on any visual evidence the digging party have inadvertantly left, despite their best efforts to eliminate it. Once DowserDon has made his choice and the digging party has returned, but before they indicate which spot does have the trench, one of the digging party should open the envelopes. If others as well as DowserDon have correctly identified the trench then that would be an indication that visual clues were indeed left and the result is not reliable.

[EHocking]

A possible safeguard against this occured to me while I was in the bath.

The observers who stay with DowserDon whilst the trench is dug should, when they return to the test area, take their own best guess as to which spot has the trench, write it down and seal it an envelope. Without benefit of dowsing that guess will be based on any visual evidence the digging party have inadvertantly left, despite their best efforts to eliminate it. Once DowserDon has made his choice and the digging party has returned, but before they indicate which spot does have the trench, one of the digging party should open the envelopes. If others as well as DowserDon have correctly identified the trench then that would be an indication that visual clues were indeed left and the result is not reliable.That's a very good (and simple) idea to introduce a control group.

[EHocking]

I'm not sure that's true. A "once off" failure might be dismissed by DowserDon, but I think another outcome is more likely.

I do not believe that a single failure would convince him that dowsing (as a paranormal or yet-to-be-proved scientific thing) was not a real power. I think his personal experiences were convincing enough to him that it would take more than that.From experience with other dowsers here and reading of other material, you are most likely correct.I do think that a single failure would make him re-think the testing protocol. It's possible that he would simply spend a lot more money and scale the test up to the level where it would be accepted for the MDC, but he seems to have enough common sense that I think he's more likely work on other self-testing protocols until he found something he felt confident that he could reproduce under test conditions.Which is exactly how the MDC is run in principle. Test the actual claim. The difficulty is devising a protocol that is not cumbersome in time and effort and where the results are self-evident. Always been a tricky one to get the two parties to agree upon.

I'll give DowserDon his due, though. At least he has stuck to one claim of his abilities and one singular test target.He could just keep going and hope to win the million, but that's an awfully expensive lottery ticket.

WardAyup. It will be interesting to see what happens in the aftermath.

[EHocking]

It may - there's obviously a 10% chance of a fluke success even if we manage to successful eliminate all visual indicators. But any pre-test is better than none; remember how rare it is to convince an applicant of the need to do one at all.Oh, my comments should not be read as being unconstructive - just voicing my qualms.

Certainly DowserDon appears to be approaching this in good faith.AIUI we're going to be in his son's garden with a spade.Ah. That rather limits things. When I heard talk of ploughing over the dig site I envisioned a larger area.

One last. Has taking photos of the site, pre and post trial been discussed at all? Or are all these "suggestions" merely complicating a rather straightforward demonstration.

[Pixel42]

When I heard talk of ploughing over the dig site I envisioned a larger area.
It's a good suggestion for the real MDC test, but impractical for small scale 'proof of concept' testing with limited resources.

One last. Has taking photos of the site, pre and post trial been discussed at all?
I was certainly planning to take my camera with me to take 'before' and 'after' pictures of the walkway for later posting here. As long as I don't take pictures of people I wouldn't expect any objection, though obviously I'll ask permission first.

[steenkh]

Solution?

Have him do the unblinded test after the previous trials but before the results are announced.

That way he has dowsed before the holes were dug, to show that there has not been 'local interference', and afterwards to confirm that his dowsing should work.
Alas, making the second test unblinded involves revealing the location of the holes, so a formal announcement of the result of the blinded test is superfluous.

[steenkh]

If others as well as DowserDon have correctly identified the trench then that would be an indication that visual clues were indeed left and the result is not reliable.
Or he would believe they have powers similar to his own, but without the dowsing rod.

[Bodmass]

Hi all. Just thought I'd pop in to let you know that following the advice upthread, Milton Keynes Skeptics in the Pub have been approached and asked to help out with the preliminary test stage. Something a few of us will be more than happy to help with.

One thought on reading the ideas above is regarding how to hide where digging has been done. As an allotment gardener it occurred to me that (depending on the field in question) it would be simple & quick to run over the whole area (maybe a metre wide of the trench/walkway) with a small rotavator/tiller. This should make the whole surface area pretty uniform before the arrival of Dan.

Anyway, I'll keep an eye on this thread & if anyone (esp Pixel42) wants to contact us regarding this we can be found at wwwdotfacebook.com/groups/MK.Skeptics/ or on Twitter as @MKSkeptics.

Regards,

Bod.

[wardenclyffe]

I'm very excited about this test. I'm very glad that DowserDon contacted the local skeptics in the pub (and not just because I suggested it).

I think its great that grassroots skeptics can get involved like this.

Bodmass, ask if someone from your group might have permission to videotape the proceeedings. I think such a record will be useful to DowserDon, your group and skeptics and believers in the paranormal worldwide.

It can show how two different groups or individuals with opposing viewpoints can work together to get to the truth. Even though both sides expect different outcomes, both sides can be civil and pleasant. I hope it stays that way.

Like I said, this is exciting.

Good luck, all!

Ward

[Pixel42]

I'm very excited about this test. I'm very glad that DowserDon contacted the local skeptics in the pub (and not just because I suggested it).
So am I, and not just because it was actually me who suggested it (post #76) :)

I'm afraid I'm don't use either facebook or twitter, Bodmass, but I'm sure we can keep in touch via this thread and/or PM.

DowserDon has emailed me to say he has successfully done an unblinded test. Because of the time it took to dig the trench he thinks the preparation should be done the day beforehand. I can understand why, but it obviously creates a few additional problems as far as the test protocol is concerned. He seems to be working on a detailed test protocol which he will presumably post here in due course.

[wardenclyffe]

So am I, and not just because it was actually me who suggested it (post #76) :)


Yes, but I agreed with the suggestion in post #116. And isn't agreeing with a good idea the same as coming up with it oneself?

My memory....

Ward

[Pixel42]

Here's my proposed protocol for the test on 25th March, based on DowserDon's ideas. Obviously it's his test so the final choice of protocol is his, but I hope he finds my suggestions helpful.

Materials Required

11 pieces of plywood, 10 marked with the numbers 1 to 10.

Instructions for the digging party of the kind of trench required (written by DowserDon)

Paper, pens and envelopes

A pack of cards from which the picture cards have been removed

Digging equipment

Two digital cameras

Before 24th March

1. DowserDon dowses the test area and identifies places where he gets no response. He chooses a suitable area for the walkway and lays it with the numbered plywood, and a seperate area for the unblinded test where he lays the unnumbered piece of plywood

On 24th March

2. The digging party arrive and one of them takes photos of the test site. They dig a trench as per DowserDon's instructions under the unnumbered plywood.

3. One of the digging party shuffles the pack of cards and another picks one at random from it. Having shown the others which number it is he places it in an envelope, seals it, writes his name on it and puts it in his pocket.

4. The digging party then dig a trench as per DowserDon's instructions under the piece of plywood with the corresponding number.

5. The digging party then restore the site such that there is no visual evidence of which piece of plywood has the trench underneath it by removing/hiding the evidence of digging and/or muddying the rest of the spots. When all are satisfied they take more photos of the walkway and then leave.

On 25th March

6. DowserDon and the 3 observers meet at the site at a pre-arranged time. An observer takes photos of the walkway.

7. DowserDon dowses the spot marked by the unnumbered plywood to confirm he is now getting a positive response. If he does not the test is declared void and abandoned.

8. Each observer inspects the walkway in turn whilst the others hang back, takes his best guess as to where the trench has been dug, writes the appropriate number on a piece of paper and seals it into an envelope, writes his name on the envelope and puts it in his pocket. No consultation with each other or DowserDon is allowed and they should give each other no indication which number they have chosen.

9. DowserDon walks the walkway dowsing until he is satisfied he has identified the trench. He then writes the appropriate number on a piece of paper and seals it in an envelope, writes his name on the envelope and puts it in his pocket.

10. DowserDon and his observers then phone the digging party who return to the site. All envelopes are placed in full view of all parties. An observer first opens the envelope containing the card and shows the others which spot was actually used. He then opens the envelopes of the other observers and DowserDon.

11. If anyone present feels it necessary, the plywood is removed and the location of the trench is verified.

12. One of the observers and one of the diggers posts a report of the test on this thread, incorporating their photos.

Success criteria

If DowserDon and no more than one of his 3 observers correctly identify the location of the trench the test is declared passed.

If DowserDon and at least 2 of his 3 observers correctly identify the location of the trench it is accepted that visual clues must have been left and the test is declared void.

If DowserDon does not correctly identify the location of the trench the test is declared failed.

Comments

Obviously this protocol would not be acceptable in a formal MDC test as, short of posting guards overnight, there is no way to ensure that the dowser did not return to the site before the test and sneak a look under the plywood to find out where the trench has been dug. But this test is being run purely for DowserDon's benefit, so he can discover if he really can detect a trench in a double blind test. Cheating would only result in him investing considerable time and money taking the formal test only to be publically humiliated when he proves unable to do so, so I don't think it's necessary to take the kind of stringent precautions against cheating which would be required if $1m was at stake, only those necessary to avoid inadvertant information leakage. It means that a successful result will not on its own be conclusive evidence of the effectiveness of dowsing, but (a) the low odds against chance success make it insufficient to prove that anyway and (b) it's only intended to be a step on the way to producing that evidence in the official JREF test.

[wardenclyffe]

It all seems very sensible. The only thing I don't really like is turning this into a two day affair. It might be necessary. I don't know how long it's going to take to do this digging and I don't know how many volunteers will...uh...volunteer.

If there's a way to make it happen all on the same day, I think it would be preferable. It removes the temptation to peek overnight (although as Pixel42 points out, there'd be no point in peeking in the long term), but more importantly, I think it's going to be difficult to get everyone together twice. It might be necessary, but it seems cumbersome.

And, of course, DowserDon and the landowner have to agree to everything, too.

Excited,
Ward

[Cuddles]

The only thing I don't really like is turning this into a two day affair. It might be necessary.

It's worth bearing in mind that the JREF is very unlikely to agree to a two day test. To start with, the it's longer than any previous MDC test I'm aware of. Just taking more than a few hours has been a serious concern during previous negotiations. Secondly, and more importantly, it obviously leaves the test incredibly open to cheating. Are you going to keep a 24 hour watch on the site, everyone involved in preparing it and everyone who could potentially look at it and then communicate with the applicant? If not, then you're not preventing an easy way of cheating. And of course, if you do then clearly you have enough people to do the whole thing in less time anyway.

So while this may be OK for a local test with nothing at stake, it's probably not worth taking too seriously as a trial run for an actual prize, because I can't see anyone accepting such a protocol once money and reputations are at stake.