Skeptic investigations: CHILDREN TEST DOWSING

IN HONOR OF JAMES RANDI! Let's face it, I have a bias against apparent supernatural things like this, so I had my gullible niece and nephew test it. I challenge all of you to make your own videos testing claims and lets improve our testing methods and hopefully have a collective work.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Dowsing
• religion
• jesus
• atheist
• skpetic.

[just0ten]

awsome video, i really enjoyed the part where u informed your daughter that the rod was now dectecting clocks, fish tanks etc and the moment u spoke it changed. excellent demonstration of the ideomotor effect.

just one question what was ure daughters thoughts of the experiment were, did she understand what was happening and accept the reasons / results ????

[Subfightr]

@just0ten Yay a comment! Thank you! It's my niece, she was originally positive they worked, then once I was able to prove it was just her thoughts translating to the rod she just thought it was a neat trick. The nephew however he seems to think they are real, he was led to the bathroom when searching for ghosts and he now thinks someone died in the tub.. I would like to test prayer next, can you think of a way to do this? I would like to try to not be rude but no matter what people will get mad.

[MindofaJedi]

Dowsing seems pretty ridiculous no science to explain why it would work . Its right up there with ghosts and vaccination .

[diohuni]

Nice one!! Love the way the dowsers come out to play.

Either extremely stupid, or a complete mental block. They need science every minute of every day, but they cannot see it here.

But, come on. many have an economic interest in sustaining the fraud. It;s still a fraud whether knowing or unknowing if you sell it on. Like Scientology etc etc etc. There's enough evidence against to not make it a real debating point anymore. Just something to be shut down forthwith.

[PeterThenn]

@PeterThenn

Cont.

There may be something to Psychic Phenomena,

but most people who claim to be Psychic are Delusional or Frauds.

Especially those who advertise in the Phone Book.

:)

[PeterThenn]

I personally feel that the subconcious mind picks up on cues that the concious mind does not and that is how most divinations work, if they work at all.

I have dowsed for water using a forked stick held in both hands with the odd end facing straight forward.

It went down over an underground stream that I did not know was there.

And no matter what I tried it would not stay in a level position.

It seemed as if something was pulling it down.

[Mistraker]

@cody1800212 Considering you type like a four year old with Parkinson's, and your reasoning abilities are roughly equivalent to that of a concussed ground squirrel, somehow I doubt that you're the more educated one in this conversation. I'd be fairly surprised you have the wherewithal to move through the day without shitting your pants or stabbing yourself in the face when eating with a fork, let alone having completed any level of education or held down gainful employment.

[Mistraker]

@cody1800212 The only way copper and water react is that water helps copper oxidize, turning it that lovely shade of green you see on domes on buildings and so on. Copper doesn't move on its own to point at water. If it did, this would have been demonstrated very simply by scientists many times over. It doesn't operate as a magnet, or LIKE a magnet, or any other invalid comparison you choose to make regarding magnets. It's bunk, and you keep badmouthing Randi because you damned well know it.

[Mistraker]

@cody1800212 James Randi has the money. In fact, it started with a lot less money than that, and got larger as he got donations for it. Dowsing rods require the supernatural to work, as a functioning dowsing rod would conflict with basic natural law and observable reality, so you should be able to win the money, right?

The simple fact is, you won't get the money, because dowsing rods don't actually work, and you know it, which is why you're bashing Randi instead of trying to win the money.

[Mistraker]

@cody1800212 Water isn't magnetic. Magnets do indeed produce current when passed through a wire coil, as the magnetic field induces the electrons to move. This is the conversion of kinetic energy into electrical energy by use of a magnetic field. None of this helps the case of dowsing rods, as, alas, water isn't magnetic, and copper doesn't point at water.

[Mistraker]

@cody1800212 James Randi has a million dollar reward for anyone who's able to demonstrate any supernatural claims. Dowsing rods working to find water would fit into this. The tests are conducted entirely fairly, and Randi is not the judge. You work with him to pick a panel of experts, who devise a simple, controlled experiment which should easily enough show the validity of your claim. If you can actually find water with a dowsing rod, a claim utterly unsupported by science, you'd be a rich man.

[Mistraker]

@just0ten If prayer has an effect on the physical world, then that effect is something that we can measure. If it has an effect, say, on sick people on the hospital, making them heal faster, we can measure that against a control group, like we do a medical treatment. It's a fairly straightforward kind of test. In fact, it's been done a number of times. The only variation from statistical norm were people who'd been told they were being prayed for, who did poorer.