the amazing randi

[EddieR]

You have many valid points Carl. However no-one successfully dowses consistently or even most of the time, on the contrary.

Oddly, many dowsers (esp water dowsers) claim they are successful 100% of the time.

p.s. ¿ I wonder how many try out for positions in the baseball, leagues, for those few that are selected for further intensive training? In my USAF Aviation Cadet class in the 50's, there were approximately 2500 applicants, yet only 25 of us were chosen. Does that mean that the others were without equal Pilot / Officer Qualities, or was a bit of luck involved and gradually decreasing qualifications? So it goes with dowsers. Very few have fairly consistent abilities, none 100% of the time.

Although skill plays the biggest role in these cases, I'm sure a few "luck" out.

An interesting dowsing experiment was Betz's "Sheunen" tests. He started with ~500 experienced dowsers and ran them through a pretty good double-blind test. 43 did better than chance, so he re-tested those. In round 2, a very few did better than chance, so he re-tested those. And they failed to exceed chance. Did these dowsers proceed through the tests due to skill or chance? If you look at the design of the test, statistics predicts a Gaussian distribution that results in a percentage that perform better than some threshold, if chance is at work. And that was exactly the outcome. This is why we do repeated tests, to separate skill from luck.

Self-testing is notoriously difficult to do and fraught with unintentional pitfalls. However, I'm working on an MFD design that may change the mind of even the most staunch LRL proponent. Actually, I doubt it, but it is a good way to do self-tests.

Actually, that sounds like all that happened was the dowsers were tested over and over until they performed poorly, then were just considered "lucky".

Going by that line of reasoning....Babe Ruth hit a lot of home runs....but he also struck out A LOT. So when he hit a baseball out of the park, over and over, in the direction he indicated, that was just luck, right?

 

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[aarthrj3811]

Actually, that sounds like all that happened was the dowsers were tested over and over until they performed poorly, then were just considered "lucky".

Going by that line of reasoning....Babe Ruth hit a lot of home runs....but he also struck out A LOT. So when he hit a baseball out of the park, over and over, in the direction he indicated, that was just luck, right?

Actually…Randi has never tested any one…That’s right no one has been able to test for the million dollars….Now you ask me why you have saw him on TV testing people….He has made a few Info-commercials to raise money for his foundation..Just fake commercials by fake man and these guys love what he does….Art

 

[Slim King]

Randi's partner in the JREF is going to FEDERAL PRISON for FRAUD !!!!!! randi and this illegal alien founded the james randi Educational Foundation as an illegal non-profit organization. Randi knew the whole time his buddy was an illegal alien from South America so they continued to scam the Pseudo-Skeptics out of over 10 Million Dollars ... all a big swindle ... Now They Have Been caught!!!! On May 29th the crook will be sentenced to prison... He's already pleaded guilty ... The whole Million Dollar Challenge was a swindle to get everyone's donations ... It worked!!!! $$$$$$$$$$$