Open invitation to Dowsing Dan

[drumdude]

I’d like to extend a public invitation to DCP to travel down to Texas and repeat his successful water dowsing feat. The whole thing will be very simple, some pipes will be buried under the ground and water will run through some but not others. A video camera will capture which pipes have water flow, which will be obscured from Dan. Dan will surely be able to find the water, given his past success.

Why am I confident Dan will be unable to accomplish this? Simple economics.

To quote a thoughtful redditor:

If dowsing actually worked, Oil and Gas companies would be able to save literal truckloads of money by just having some guy with twigs walk/sail around. I've even read an article where some guy claims to do it remotely. So why pay a service company six figures per day over a few days when you just could pay one guy 150k and be done? Because you would drill a lot of dry wells, and your company would go into bankruptcy.

So, in summary, if dowsing actually worked, dowsers would either 1) never pick up your call or 2) if they did take your call, you wouldn't be able to afford them.

[I Have Questions]

Given that Interpreter is currently running a project in Africa called “not by bread alone”, and that areas of Africa are desperate to find water, why hasn’t Dan gone there to simply and quickly point out where the water can be found? He could a lot of good with those dowsing rods. So why hasn’t he pursued it? I note that his new found fantasist friend Paul “I see faraway objects” Smith is adding dowsing lessons as a new income stream…

[url= https://rviewer.com/about-us/ {Our first priority[/url] is teaching remote viewing-related skills to individuals and small groups. Our primary emphasis is on training people in Controlled Remote Viewing (CRV), but we also teach associative remote viewing (ARV), and we will soon add courses in dowsing, operational remote viewing, and other related topics.

One assumes Dan has handed over some money and has signed up for it.

[Rivendale]

I am sure everyone has seen the amazing Randy and others who have set up similar tests for dowsers and all of them do no better than chance. One of my favorite debunking is from the Australian Skeptics Society who offered $110 if they could win the Might Mitta competition. They also staged competitions to find buried archeological and geological treasures reminiscent of Joseph Smith's treasure hunting. The impact of cognitive bias, placebo effect and cultural tradition keep dowsing alive and allow many people to believe despite massive contradictory evidence. That is why Dan won't accept. It would mean he could be wrong about his lifelong religion and he will have none of that.

https://youtu.be/AA7SmSlrXGc?si=PFv_jL5fvhizIpU8

[Gadianton]

I’d like to extend a public invitation to DCP to travel down to Texas and repeat his successful water dowsing feat.

How are you going to test dowsing when he can remote view the entire area first?

If dowsing actually worked, Oil and Gas companies would be able to save literal truckloads of money by just having some guy

Wait for it.

They do.

That right-wing guy in my neighborhood has a rod in his garage that he borrowed from his friend who worked for the city. It has a very specific name and I'll let you know if I can remember it. Maybe I can work it into a conversation and get a pic later. It's some kind of antenna. Kept it on his work truck. Think of it like a shovel. You get to the job site, grab the shovel and dig and hit a rock. Damn it, you toss it aside and grab a pick. The fact the shovel failed doesn't mean shovels don't work. That antenna might be pulled out as a first pass and "boom!", or it could be reserved for later after nothin' else worked. Where happens to lie in the stack of junk could be as much of a factor as any. There is no exact formula for when the shovel vs. the auger vs. the post-hole digger vs. the hand spade deploys. The worker in this case is a product of 'workin' man' culture (which may be significantly right-leaning) and isn't thinking about implications of such a device actually working.

He might know enough about electricity to get shocked and so what's electricity vs. some other force the antenna can pick up from the water or gas or whatever? That right-wing guy isn't especially superstitious and has a sense of humor about it, but he believes it enough it's worth a try. It's like any other tool, maybe it will work maybe it won't. He doesn't read science journals or know what "statistical significance" means. He doesn't think about it any deeper than that. If he had a single neuron in his body capable of thought, he'd wonder how the implications stack up against his beliefs as a Christian. While the tide could be changing here, at one time all of these practices were considered occult. My best chance of dissuading him from this or anything else is to prove my point through the Bible, which has occasionally worked with him (unless it comes to helping the poor or any social issue, even though his pastor is deeply involved with helping refugees).

Mormonism has the same beliefs about the occult. Everyone has heard that story about a priesthood leader interfering with the operation of a Ouija board. The fact that dousing works for Dan proves that his priesthood is ineffective. The fact that Dan wields the power of Satan so thoughtlessly should not only concern himself but his priesthood leaders. He makes the Plan of Salvation way too complicated: wield the power of Satan to detect water --> science is therefor wrong --> the Book of Mormon is therefore true --> repeat this logic over and over again on a blog and somebody who might be in danger of leaving the church might stay. Instead how about this: Go on a senior mission and bear testimony of the Book of Mormon.

[Rivendale]

I’d like to extend a public invitation to DCP to travel down to Texas and repeat his successful water dowsing feat.

How are you going to test dowsing when he can remote view the entire area first?

If dowsing actually worked, Oil and Gas companies would be able to save literal truckloads of money by just having some guy

Wait for it.

They do.

That right-wing guy in my neighborhood has a rod in his garage that he borrowed from his friend who worked for the city. It has a very specific name and I'll let you know if I can remember it. Maybe I can work it into a conversation and get a pic later. It's some kind of antenna. Kept it on his work truck. Think of it like a shovel. You get to the job site, grab the shovel and dig and hit a rock. Damn it, you toss it aside and grab a pick. The fact the shovel failed doesn't mean shovels don't work. That antenna might be pulled out as a first pass and "boom!", or it could be reserved for later after nothin' else worked. Where happens to lie in the stack of junk could be as much of a factor as any. There is no exact formula for when the shovel vs. the auger vs. the post-hole digger vs. the hand spade deploys. The worker in this case is a product of 'workin' man' culture (which may be significantly right-leaning) and isn't thinking about implications of such a device actually working.

He might know enough about electricity to get shocked and so what's electricity vs. some other force the antenna can pick up from the water or gas or whatever? That right-wing guy isn't especially superstitious and has a sense of humor about it, but he believes it enough it's worth a try. It's like any other tool, maybe it will work maybe it won't. He doesn't read science journals or know what "statistical significance" means. He doesn't think about it any deeper than that. If he had a single neuron in his body capable of thought, he'd wonder how the implications stack up against his beliefs as a Christian. While the tide could be changing here, at one time all of these practices were considered occult. My best chance of dissuading him from this or anything else is to prove my point through the Bible, which has occasionally worked with him (unless it comes to helping the poor or any social issue, even though his pastor is deeply involved with helping refugees).

Mormonism has the same beliefs about the occult. Everyone has heard that story about a priesthood leader interfering with the operation of a Ouija board. The fact that dousing works for Dan proves that his priesthood is ineffective. The fact that Dan wields the power of Satan so thoughtlessly should not only concern himself but his priesthood leaders. He makes the Plan of Salvation way too complicated: wield the power of Satan to detect water --> science is therefor wrong --> the Book of Mormon is therefore true --> repeat this logic over and over again on a blog and somebody who might be in danger of leaving the church might stay. Instead how about this: Go on a senior mission and bear testimony of the Book of Mormon.

I agree people use it all the time. In my area a water witch is kept busy dowsing for water when people build outside the city limits. He charges $300 for about an hours work and he uses two coat hangers bent at 90 degree angles. He is kept busy and guarantees his work and gives the rate the well will produce and the depth of the well needed. He also is contracted by several cities to dowse older properties to find the water lines. I asked him to describe his process to find the old underground pipes. He said the first thing he does is look for the outside spigot and dowses from there.
In Vermont they are widely used and they can even seperate Uranium from the water too! https://theamericanscholar.org/the-dowser-dilemma/

[drumdude]

I think that your summary is at least roughly correct. And, of course, there are people (e.g., on the Peterson Obsession Board) who refuse to consider even the possibility that there may be some validity in the phenomena. I would be astonished if there were no such folks in decision-making positions within the CIA, the U.S. Army, and the Department of Defense.

Daniel,

If you think this stuff is possible, put your money where your mouth is. Test your claim.

If you're unwilling to do so, you're either intellectually incurious, or being deceitful. Because you know the moment you put it to the test it will all collapse from your assumed 50/50 chance, to something much much lower.

[I Have Questions]

Peterson stood to gain $1 million dollars if he demonstrated the validity of dowsing, remote viewing, prophetic insight, seer stones, etc.

…the James Randi Educational Foundation offers $1 million “to anyone who can show, under proper observing conditions, evidence of any paranormal, supernatural, or occult power or event.”

As the foundation notes: “To date, no one has passed the preliminary tests.”

Did Paul H. Smith put forward his remote viewing capabilities? If not, why not?

So the million dollar challenge has been terminated due to nobody ever being able to pass even the preliminary stages. But that doesn’t mean Dan cannot set up an independently controlled experiment to test dowsing and to test Paul H. Smith's claims in practice. But he won’t. Because ultimately he recognises it’s folly.

From one of the modules that the James Randi institute offers (for free):

DOES IT WORK?

More than 20,000 dowsers are operating in the United States alone, and even more in Western Europe. They are sometimes even hired by governments and big corporations. Yet the evidence shows that dowsing is superstition, not science. So why has dowsing not been completely abandoned?
Some people believe in dowsing because they notice that dowsers often seem to find what they are searching for. In most parts of the world, you can dig a hole almost anywhere and hit water if you dig deep enough. People have an unconscious tendency to selectively gather information that is consistent with their expectations or beliefs. This tendency, called confirmation bias, can make it difficult to critically examine all of the available evidence.

Because of this, we often cling to beliefs in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

[Nolan]

Darth Vader could not only remote view, but he could remote-force-choke.

[Marcus]

Darth Vader could not only remote view, but he could remote-force-choke.

[malkie]

Darth Vader could not only remote view, but he could remote-force-choke.

Woe betide those of us who, unwisely, are not hiding in a cowardly way behind impenetrable aliases.