(How) Do divining rods work?

[Matt1970]

They work. My grandpa has a ranch and a guy came out to dig for a well and used dowsing rods to find water.

Try drilling for water and not hitting it.

Sorry for quoting myself but let me just elaborate. The water tables are vast, stretching for miles and miles. If they were so narrow that you could only find them with a divining rod, then odds are there wouldn't be enough water to pump up the pipe of your well. If I were using the rods I would make them cross at the easiest spot it is for me to get my drill truck in and then start at it.

 

[Stg-Flame]

Redacted

 

[Soundmanred]

TC, they do work. .

Have them teach you and go get that money!
http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/1m-challenge.html
Just don't tell them about it, they may take if for themselves.

 

[SMOGZINN]

TC, they do work. Working in the oil field, we see a lot of older guys use them and they work. It was explained to me once, but I don't remember what he said. Long story short, they do work and there is a reason why - it's not just lies or magic like the ignorant would like to claim.

If I remember, I'll ask one of the older mechanics in our shop how they work since he used to trace conduit lines for oil wells and he used the divining rods. I'll let you know as soon as I find out.

You know why it is always the older guys that use them? Because they were there when the pipe they are 'dowsing' for were laid. The dowsing rods are just snipe hunting. They are leading you on.

Dowsing has been thoroughly investigated by science and it is all bunk. There is no known force that could cause the interaction, and no one has ever been able to demonstrate a ability to do better then random in a controlled test. So we can neither observe the phenomenon nor find a theoretical reason to think the phenomenon exists.

 

[lehtv]

TC, they do work. Working in the oil field, we see a lot of older guys use them and they work. It was explained to me once, but I don't remember what he said. Long story short, they do work and there is a reason why - it's not just lies or magic like the ignorant would like to claim.

Dang. I'm convinced.

 

[Matt1970]

You know why it is always the older guys that use them? Because they were there when the pipe they are 'dowsing' for were laid. The dowsing rods are just snipe hunting. They are leading you on.

Dowsing has been thoroughly investigated by science and it is all bunk. There is no known force that could cause the interaction, and no one has ever been able to demonstrate a ability to do better then random in a controlled test. So we can neither observe the phenomenon nor find a theoretical reason to think the phenomenon exists.

He got you. There are no conduit lines for oil rigs. We all know they run on perpetual motion.

 

[Delited2meetU]

Water has properties that act atomically (explains surface tension), react with our energy/conciousness and is that path they work by, very little understood about that capability of man and the true workings of the universe.

 

[SMOGZINN]

Water has properties that act atomically (explains surface tension), react with our energy/conciousness and is that path they work by, very little understood about that capability of man and the true workings of the universe.

So your supposition is that all of our advanced technology came about by luck? If you actually believe that we understand very little of the true working of the universe, then that is the only explanation for extremely complex processor chips like the one in the computer you are reading this on.

 

[Jeff7]

This is probably the single most disappointing thread I've read on this forum

"I saw someone use rods and find something" /= proof

"Some buried things generate magnetic fields" does not explain why one should supposedly use coat-hangers, pvc pipe, or even wood as detection devices over sophisticated scientific instruments.

And unless I've missed it, none of the believers in the rods has addressed why multi-national gas and oil firms ignore the rods, but your local 'old timer' farm hand has supposedly mastered them

Sheesh...

EDIT:



This is also true of, say, chemotherapy. That doesn't make it untestable. It should be trivially easy to have the people who claim it DOES work for them to do some tests where they show a statistically significant improved rate of success, even if that falls short of 100%.

You'd think their shareholders would push for that sort of thing as well, rather than wasting millions upon millions of dollars on complicated technology to scan for underground deposits.
They'd rather spend $500 on a whole lot of pairs of magic sticks, and enjoy the boost to the bottom line.
It's XKCD's "economic argument."


Or it could even replace any number of scanning technologies available, since dowsing can allegedly find darn near anything - underground walls, rocks, voids, bodies, pipes, water...

 

[Lepton87]

Can someone explain to me how people can ignore the argument that something has never been shown to work in double blind trials? How can they rationalize it to themselves? If something does work, why can't nobody show it in double blind trials even when offered an enormous reword for doing so? It seems like a brain defect to me.

 

[lehtv]

Water has properties that act atomically (explains surface tension), react with our energy/conciousness and is that path they work by, very little understood about that capability of man and the true workings of the universe.

Does anyone else not understand what he's saying? I kind of feel like the above sentences have no rational thought behind them whatsoever

 

[oynaz]

It seems like a brain defect to me.

It is.

 

[Essence_of_War]

Does anyone else not understand what he's saying? I kind of feel like the above sentences have no rational thought behind them whatsoever

Looked like a heaping helping of word-salad to me.

 

[Matt1970]

Water has properties that act atomically (explains surface tension), react with our energy/conciousness and is that path they work by, very little understood about that capability of man and the true workings of the universe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_c6HsiixFS8

 

[SMOGZINN]

Does anyone else not understand what he's saying? I kind of feel like the above sentences have no rational thought behind them whatsoever

I think he is talking about psychic powers, maybe a little of pyramid energy, and there is probably some of the mystic force of crystals in there as well. He probably saw a double rainbow.

 

[Hugo Drax]

The fake divining rods never work, people try to go the cheap route and buy the fake ones.

Also you need experience in using them. But now electronic equipment does the same job as divining rods so you do not need them or specially trained people to use them anymore.

 

[DSF]

The fake divining rods never work, people try to go the cheap route and buy the fake ones.

Also you need experience in using them. But now electronic equipment does the same job as divining rods so you do not need them or specially trained people to use them anymore.

Not sure if serious, as they say.

 

[MongGrel]

You know why it is always the older guys that use them? Because they were there when the pipe they are 'dowsing' for were laid. The dowsing rods are just snipe hunting. They are leading you on.

Yep.

Now go find me a Sky Hook.

 

[ussfletcher]

Sure divining rods work. They work in the same way a Ouija board works. That is to say people clearly move or control them and claim some form of supernatural forces are acting upon them.

 

[umrigar]

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/fucking-magnets-how-do-they-work

 

[nOOky]

I'm trying to decide what's more troubling, the fact that someone can get away with scamming people that should know better, or the fact that the people being scammed swear up and down that it works.

 

[123jordan126]

Is it possible dowsing rods work? Perhaps.
Is it PROBABLE that they work? Not in the least.

There's no doubt that the human brain is capable of incredible things, but most of the people that make claims that dowsing rods work explain them using pseudo-science nonsense, such as "It's your subconscious mind communicating with your conscious mind".

Sorry, but I choose not to subscribe to a claim that suggests all humans are born with some innate psychic ability. Nothing should be treated as true until it's proven so. All studies in controlled environments have shown dowsing to be false. Dowsing has no scientific basis or explanation.

Maybe humans have some type of ability to detect very slight disruptions in a magnetic field much like birds, stingrays, or honeybees do, but it seems there's no evolutionary need for such an ability as we don't exactly have the ability to stride along the depths of the ocean or fly through the skies over great distances. So until dowsing is proven scientifically, it's false.

 

[LoveMachine]

Why won't this thread die?

 

[John Connor]

No crap! Die already!

 

[MongGrel]

No crap! Die already!

I wonder.