$1,000,000 for anyone who can dowse.

There are tests supporting dowsing just as there are tests not supporting it.

What were the conditions of that German test?

"There is. It's a physiological phenomenon called ideomotor action."

No, it is not...this is what I thought, but it's plainly not.

"My challenge is not intended to be a scientific study. It's just a challenge."

This sums up my point. Why don't you conduct a scientific study, if you really care to disprove dowsing, do it with science...not a monetary based challenge.

Farewell
 

Sandsted said:
There are tests supporting dowsing just as there are tests not supporting it.

A handful, but the overwhelming majority have demonstrated failure.

What were the conditions of that German test?

It's well-documented on the web.

"There is. It's a physiological phenomenon called ideomotor action."

No, it is not...this is what I thought, but it's plainly not.

If you have another theory for how dowsing works, then present the theory. To be scientific, it needs to be testable. It is not up to me to present a theory for how dowsing cannot work.

"My challenge is not intended to be a scientific study. It's just a challenge."

This sums up my point. Why don't you conduct a scientific study, if you really care to disprove dowsing, do it with science...not a monetary based challenge.

I don't access to a large number of local dowsers to make such a study feasible. I have considered working with a university psychology dept, but that would likely mean testing non-dowsers (students), which would elicit protests if it showed failure, even though one of the few "positive" studies that is widely touted did the same. Another option is to take my challenge to a large-scale treasure hunt/show, and try to attract a large number of dowsers. I'm open to suggestions.

- Carl
 

Hmmmm...I don't know what you could do.

I guess, what I've found to be the most likely theory is the rod moves due to the subconcious movements of the wrist. These subconcious movements are trained reactions. They are trained to react when over what you are searching for.

Take for instance water, perhaps your body picks up those subtle electromagnetic fields, something in the right side of the brain trigers those trained reactions. You feel this, it is not seeing the rod move, it is feeling the very small subconcious movements. The rod is just a tool to amplify that. Now, concerning how the body...or rather the brain can pick up where objects are...like it does...is a question I still ask. Science does not, at the moment, explain this, but it can not dismiss it...this is the mystery of the brain...one of the mysteries...there are thousands of them.

Anyway...the point is that, I believe, they are trained, subconcious reactions.
 

Sandsted said:
There are tests supporting dowsing just as there are tests not supporting it.

What were the conditions of that German test?

"There is. It's a physiological phenomenon called ideomotor action."

No, it is not...this is what I thought, but it's plainly not.

"My challenge is not intended to be a scientific study. It's just a challenge."

This sums up my point. Why don't you conduct a scientific study, if you really care to disprove dowsing, do it with science...not a monetary based challenge.

Farewell
Sandy,
This is the third time you've bid goodbye to this post, but it's tough to leave on a high note when everything you've brought to the table is completely incorrect. You like to respond to posts like you've done research on the subject, but a quick tour of the net offers contradictory evidence to all of your statements. Try it yourself. Go to www.yahoo.com or www.google.com and type in dowsing test.
You'll find the results of all the tests that have been presented here. I even provided some links further up to make it easier for you.
 

No Af, I just sometimes add farewell at the end of my posts...kind of a...nice...good-bye for the moment. Just a respectful end to my post.

The NET, does offer a lot, but I know of many things that people don't put on the NET. I've read of many tests, dowsing tests, where they seem to support dowsing.

These I've read in various dowsing books. Now, you may cringe at that statement because, dowsers are unreliable, untrustworthy folks...right? These are reliable tests though, not conducted by dowsers, let me tell you. Some are like testing a woman gambler who uses dowsing at horse races, taking the names of the horses and dowsing for which one to bid on. She did this in many different, foreign races, using the list of names alone, and she did I believe have a success rate of like 77% or 80 or something. So they concluded that she does fair better then chance guessing, does this prove dowsing? No, it does not.

But this, and other real dowsing tests, aren't on here, I've looked for them.

Other important things like mooring stones aren't on the net.

You realize that there are over 400 mooring stones in North America, and several thousand in Europe, Iceland, etc...? Yet, there is not one, single photo of a mooring stone on the Net. There isn't even really any information on them, other then some articles telling what the hole is in the stone, a triangular, flat bottomed hole.

This is a project I hope to start in the future, record the mooring stones location at latitude and longitude, elevation, photograph it and name it "A23" for example.

And then put these on the web for everyone to see.

But, anyway...

again,

Farewell
 

I'm starting to question your research abilities, Sandy.

http://www.s8int.com/page36.html

http://www.whereproject.org/node/59

http://www.rgzm.de/navis2/harbours/friedman/caesareanew/Basin/fig5MooringStone.jpg


And I found many sites dedicated the mooring stones and their history and significance, if you'd like me to post those as well....
 

Well Af, the first link you provided is hardly a picture of a mooring stone...if it is even the type I am speaking of...I can't tell because the photo is pretty poor.

The second, is not the type of mooring stone I speak of.

The third...I don't even know what it is, but again...it is not the type of mooring stone I speak of.

All photos on google, under "mooring stone", are not what I speak of...
 

Well, if you're not happy with that, then you have to ask yourself, "If these mooring stones are so important, how come no one has felt an overwhelming urge to take photos of them to share with others?"

You can ask the same question about the dowsing tests you referred to. "If these tests show dowsing in a positive light, then why aren't they readily available?"

Isn't it funny how a skeptic can produce results of dowsing tests that seem to disprove dowsing, but a believer can't produce a test result that says the opposite? Why do you suppose that is, Sandy?
 

Af, do you limit yourself to only evidence that supports your side of the argument? I don't, I've read these tests you speak of, but do I need to post them? No, you're aware of them...yet are you aware of the other side of the story?...apparently not. This...is why I find tests supporting it and you don't...I look to both sides of the argument before forming a conclusion.

Secondly, concerning the mooring stones.

These are stones, used to moore a ship. An iron peg (which two mooring stones have been found with pegs implace) would be placed in the hole which would be enough to hold the ship on the shoreline. They have the nickname "Get away stone" because if they needed to get away quickly they can just row out and the weight of the ship rowing out will pop the peg out of the stone.

These are the surviving records of where these ships once were ancored! Do you feel this is important?! I do! Other then finding the ship (and dowsing) there is no way to tell where the ships were, these mooring stones, most of the time, also signify where a habitation site was...which has led to the discovery of many viking and European artifacts! Like in North America, artifacts such as swords, halberds, spear tips, fire steels, alter rocks, alter stones, petrified wood from ships, axe heads, rune stones, fortified walls, stones buildings, sukker-saks, ancor stones, and hundreds of other artifacts have been found BECAUSE one knew where to look by the evidence of a mooring stone.

Do not say they are not important. Mooring stones are probably the greatest evidence left by Vikings. Sure there's a rune stone here and there, but these are the stones, which moored their very form of travel.

In conclusion, yes they are important and they are over looked.

So, Af, I'll use your form of logic. Isn't it funny how such important things like mooring stones and dowsing could be over looked?
 

Am I saying that mooring stones don't exist? No, I just find it odd that no one considers them important enough to photograph and share with others. So, yes, I do find it odd it's been overlooked.

Am I saying that dowsing cannot be proven? Yes, and I can produce test results that have shown this. And, yes, I find it odd that there are no tests to the contrary.

Where's your proof? And please reply with something other than, "I've read of such tests."
 

Why don't you...look to the other side of the argument Af.

One must know one's enemy better then he, for if this is so...he shall surely be the victor.

And, I didn't say you said mooring stones don't exist, you didn't even say they weren't important...but this is what is inferred by your proposing I ask the question why no one has photographed them.

Which they have been photographed, in books, and I have many myself, I've worked with...ah I'd say about 30 or so.
 

Sandy,
I've been trying to look at the other side of the argument. The problem is, there doesn't seem to be an "other side."

Other than many posts saying that "I can dowse, but I don't have to prove it," and those filled with unscientific nonsense, I can't even get a dowser to tell me how dowsing works!
 

Did I not just tell you above? Did I not give a theory for dowsing?

Dowsing is not unscientific. Just because science can't explain dreams, are they unscientific. By your previous logic concerning dowsing I must conclude that they are. And it appears that if something is unscientific then it most likely doesn't exist (by your logic). Therefore, am I to conclude that dreams don't exist?

Please, refrain from such statements in the future. Dowsing is not unscientific and you stating it repeatedly does not justify your conclusion.

Now I'm going to go to bed and (by your logic) be fooled into thinking I actually had a dream.

God natt
 

Hey Sandsted....As usual I am enjoying you logicical approch to different idea's. It seems that some people are not open to new or old idea's.

After reading the old accounts of who Darwin was I have lost all interest in his THEORIES.

Randi offers $100000 and Carl offers $25000 to anyone who can Dowse. These people can't understand why no one is falling for these challenges. I think it is a matter of these people not being trust worthy.

Someone new ask a question and are called dummies or stupid. Wonder why they don't return? I have told Carl how to get some dowsers to show him what they can do. He will not get the answers he is seeking usless he plays nice to the dowsers. The ADA has a lot of members.

To days plan is to start following an old old old underground stream bed using Blue Clay to bait my rods...Art
 

aarthrj3811 said:
Randi offers $100000 and Carl offers $25000 to anyone who can Dowse. These people can't understand why no one is falling for these challenges. I think it is a matter of these people not being trust worthy.

Once again, Art reverts back to calling people untrustworthy. I'm curious, but do you have a different system of debating besides ignoring facts and name-calling?
 

Once again, Art reverts back to calling people untrustworthy. I'm curious, but do you have a different system of debating besides ignoring facts and name-calling?

You have never been to a Dowsing Demonstration so you do not know how the Skeptics act. In order for someone to ignore facts there must be some to ignore. ...Art
 

Sandsted said:
Did I not just tell you above? Did I not give a theory for dowsing?

Dowsing is not unscientific. Just because science can't explain dreams, are they unscientific. By your previous logic concerning dowsing I must conclude that they are. And it appears that if something is unscientific then it most likely doesn't exist (by your logic). Therefore, am I to conclude that dreams don't exist?

Please, refrain from such statements in the future. Dowsing is not unscientific and you stating it repeatedly does not justify your conclusion.

Now I'm going to go to bed and (by your logic) be fooled into thinking I actually had a dream.

God natt
I'm really curious what God Natt means, but we can get to that later.

First, let's stop putting works into my mouth, eh? Trying to tell others I said something that I did not is tantamount to lying. This is the first time dreams have been brought into the discussion, and they do not belong here, but I know that you enjoy getting off topic. It does tend to lure people away from the facts, right?

Back on topic. Dowsing is unscientific. Dowsing is grouped together with astrology, tarot, ouija and palm-reading by the greater part of the population. All unscientific. You can posture and pose with theories of how dowsing works, but you can't prove any of these theories in a scientific manner.

An unproven theory is a guess, Sandy. You guess that electromagnetic fields send signals to your brain that cause small movements in your hands that the rods amplify. You guess that all nature of items in the ground emit fields that you can somehow detect unaided.

I guess that dowsers are a self-deluded bunch, but that doesn't make it true. It's an opinion, not a fact. Your opinions on the matter of dowsing does not make them fact.

The fact is that there has never been a dowser who has proven his or her ability in a controlled experiment. You say you've read of such an occurrence, but have never posted the publication's name or author. Seeming to remember something you read sometime in the past is evidence of nothing, Sandy.
 

Sandsted said:
"An unproven theory is a guess..." If a theory was proven it would no longer be a theory, it would become a fact, and if it was proven to the point that it is of the status that it can never be denied or broken, it would become a law. So no, a theory is not a guess. It is an educated coherent group of general propositions used as principles of explanation for a class of phenomena. A guess is an opinion that one reaches or to which one commits oneself on the basis of probability alone or in the absence of any evidence what so ever.

Nope. An unproven theory is a HYPOTHESIS. Many theories have been proven. A "theory" is a name given to a subject attempting to explain a phenomenon, whether or not that phenomenon has been proven. For example, the THEORY of gravity. It has been proven -- by the very fact that you are not able to float away. It is still a theory. The theory of evolution has been proven -- by the fact that you do have webbing between your fingers, you do have body hair, you do have an appendix, you do have a tailbone, even if all of these things have become vestigial. You don't need them. What, you are saying that "God put them there to test our faith?" Electric theory has been proven by the very fact that you are reading this -- yet the laws that explain electricity are still called a "theory."

Before you start throwing terms such as "theory," "proof," "fact," "law," and "evidence" around to refute scientific study, I suggest you find out what those words REALLY mean in a scientific sense of the words. A scientific theory consists of the following phases: 1)hypothesis, 2)experimentation or observation, 3)examination of data, 4)conclusion. And depending on the conclusion, the theory is either proven or dis-proven (and scientists are willing to accept either outcome.) But, no matter the conclusion, it is still a "theory." What we are actually examining here is the "theory of dowsing." The hypothesis is "dowsing works." We are now trying to make observations or conduct experiments in order to have data. Once we have the data, we can examine it to conclude whether our hypothesis is correct or not. We are still trying to accomplish phase 2, so let's not yet jump to phase 4. (But even when we do finish that phase, if ever, it will still be a "theory" -- just one that has either been proven or disproved.)
 

Sandsted said:
Dowsing is not unscientific. Just because science can't explain dreams, are they unscientific. By your previous logic concerning dowsing I must conclude that they are. And it appears that if something is unscientific then it most likely doesn't exist (by your logic). Therefore, am I to conclude that dreams don't exist?

Now I'm going to go to bed and (by your logic) be fooled into thinking I actually had a dream.
Dreams, by their very nature, cannot be considered scientific or unscientific. They can't even be considered an object, for that matter.

Something unscientific can very much exist. You dowse by carrying two rods and walking around waiting for something to happen. This is a very real occurrence. But the beliefs surrounding this act can be considered unscientific because they cannot be proven or repeated through experimentation.

I suppose you can conclude that dreams don't exist, but don't try to suggest that I feel the same way.
 

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