| • Science | • People | • Locations | • Timeline |
| Contents | ||
Dowsers, sometimes known as diviners, also use a forked branch of a tree, bent pieces of metal or plastic wire, or a small pendulum. Some people use no pointing device at all.
Dowsing has existed in various forms for thousands of years. The form used today probably originates in Germany during the 15th century. Then it was used to find metals. The technique spread to England with German miners who came to England to work in the coal mines. An extensive book on the history of dowsing was published by Christopher Bird in 1979 under the title of The Divining Hand.
Dowsing is often explained as being due to the human body having a sensitivity to electric or magnetic fields (the senses of electroceptionElectroception is the ability to receive electrical impulses (and make something useful of them). Many fish have an electroception sense, believed to be associated with the lateral line system. Sharks apparently have an electroception sense; a problem wit and magnetoception . Dowsers often claim that this supposed sensitivity somehow causes small movements in their hands. The purpose of the rod, dowsers claim, is that it magnifies these slight hand movements, making them more easily visible. Some claim to be able to dowse with their hand alone, without needing a rod. Such claims are so far still unverified.
A skeptical theory of dowsing is that the seemingly involuntary movements of the piece of metal or wood are due to the ideomotor effectThe ideomotor effect involves small bodily movements that occur involuntarily and subconsciously, rather than by deliberate decision. When magnified in certain circumstances this unexpected behaviour can have the appearance of being a supernatural occurre. In other words, the dowser inadvertently creates such movements him/herself. James RandiJames Randi (born Randall James Hamilton Zwinge August 7, 1928), more often known as The Amazing Randi is a stage magician, skeptic, and opponent of pseudoscience (including homeopathy). He is perhaps most famous for the One Million Dollar Paranormal Chal is one proponent of this theory.
Dowsing is the most common claim to Randi's offer of one million dollars for the demonstration of something paranormal, but as of 2004, all attempts (which run into the hundreds) to demonstrate dowsing have failed, even under very relaxed conditions. Invariably, dowsers still believe in their abilities, even after they have failed in the tests that were co designed between JREF and the dowser.
While the proponent's explanations are still unverified, the ideomotor effectThe ideomotor effect involves small bodily movements that occur involuntarily and subconsciously, rather than by deliberate decision. When magnified in certain circumstances this unexpected behaviour can have the appearance of being a supernatural occurre has been thoroughly described and demonstrated countless times, with predictable and repeatable results. It is interesting to note that skeptics offer the ideomotor effect as evidence dowsing doesn't work, while dowsers often cite small movements in their hands as the reason why it does work. Both sides see the same evidence as supporting their own claims.
Dowsers often explain their failures as follows: 'Dowsing is not a tool of science. Another name for dowsing, "divining", gives us a clue. One of the real problems that science has is that - when dowsing for intangible targets - the results are not repeatable. Just as different people "see" God differently (thus we have Jews, Moslems, Hindus, Pagans, not to mention Evangelical Christians, Methodists, Catholics, Anglicans - High Church and Low Church -, Congregationalists, Mormons, etc. etc.), dowsers "see" intangible targets differently. So to call dowsing a pseudoscience or protoscience are misnomers. Dowsing is a spiritual tool, not a scientific one.'
Commentary: in tests, dowsers look for tangible things, not intangible ones, such as minerals or water, which the dowsers themselves claim to be able to detect. It is unimportant 'how' a dowser sees things, it only matters that they can (or claim to be able to). So far no dowser has ever been able to prove this claim. Even dowsing for intangibles things, however, can be scientifically tested, as long as those things are supposed to objectively exist. One could, for example, ask several dowsers independently whether an 'aura' is associated with a particular object or person, even if there is, from a scientific viewpoint, no definition of an aura or method to measure one, or even proof of its existence. If all of the dowsers always agree, that would be proof that they are detecting something that objectively exists. If some of them sometimes agree, then statistical tests must be applied. No scientific test of dowsing in this sense has ever produced evidence for the perception of intangible objects.
It is however correct to say that dowsing is not pseudo-science. In pseudo-science, scientific sounding jargon is used and explanations sometimes sound farfetched but possible. Dowsers however give no coherent explanation of how it is done, apart from frequent mentioning of magnetic fields and auras. Dowsers 'believe' they can dowse, thus making it more a matter of religion then science. While every dowser who has ever tried to prove his/her claims has failed completely, they unvariably continue to believe in their abilities. This makes it even clearer that dowsing is a paranormal belief, and it does not seem likely that science and dowsers ever come to terms.
Most dowsers claim to be able to find underground water. To them, the unproven claim that they often succeed demonstrated that dowsing works. To the sceptic, such as James RandiJames Randi (born Randall James Hamilton Zwinge August 7, 1928), more often known as The Amazing Randi is a stage magician, skeptic, and opponent of pseudoscience (including homeopathy). He is perhaps most famous for the One Million Dollar Paranormal Chal it merely shows that there is a lot of water under the surface of the earth. Randi claims that water can be found under 90% of the earth's surface. A bigger challenge for a dowser, Randi says, would then be to find a spot without water. Randi's notion is not backed by geological evidence. According to geologists, there is a little water under 100% of the Earth's surface, but in the vast majority of locations (on land) the amount of water is trivial. Only a minority of spots yield water in any significant quantities. Finding a good spot for a well, the geologists say, requires a detailed survey and good scientific interpretation. When we hear of a dowser claiming to have located a series of successful wells, it would be better to question the veracity of the claim, rather than say that wells are easily found.
There also seems a cultural preference attached to dowsing. While waterdowsing is the most common, dowsers in Great-Britain often look for 'magical' lines, connecting ancient (Keltic) monuments, such as StonehengeStonehenge is a Neolithic and Bronze Age monument located near Amesbury in Wiltshire, England, about 8 miles (13 km) northwest of Salisbury. It is composed of earthworks surrounding a circular setting of large standing stones, known as megaliths. There is. In Germany, and to a lesser extent the surrounding countries, dowsing is popular to detect so called 'earth-rays'. These alleged rays emanate from deep within the earth. Being on an earth-ray hotspot is supposed to cause all kinds of negative effects, from sleeplessness to cancer. In the USA, dowsing for precious metals and oil seems to be more popular then elsewhere on the planet. This may be due to the history of the goldrushes that have taken place in the USA and the American dream of striking it rich.