[meteorite-list] OT: Einstein on dowsing

[JoshuaTreeMuseum]

Rob,
Your last statement is not true. It's very hard to find scientific
studies involving anything even remotely connected to the "paranormal" 
(gasp!).
Except in Russia serious scientists won't even consider studying such
tomfoolery. There are a few studies, you have to dig deep to find them.
 Look into the German studies cited here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3ADowsing

Here's the abstract of the Betz study:


WATER DOWSING IN ARID REGIONS:
REPORT ON A TEN YEAR GERMAN GOVERNMENT PROJECT (1)
>From the Journal of Scientific Exploration
Stanford University Stanford, Ca.
Stanford, Ca. USA , March 27, 1995
 In an article published in the current issue of the peer-reviewed Journal 
of Scientific Exploration, a science journal with the editorial offices at 
Stanford University, Professor Hans-Dieter Betz, a physicist at the 
University of Munich, presents the results of a German government sponsored 
program to test and apply dowsing methods to locate water sources in arid 
regions. This ten year project involved over 2000 drillings in Sri Lanka, 
Zaire, Kenya, Namibia, Yemen and other countries and is thus the most 
ambitious experiment with water dowsing ever carried out.
 While an adequate water supply is not a major problem in most 
industrialized nations, it is estimated that water pollution is responsible 
for some 80% of all diseases in Third World countries. Lack of high quality 
drinking water affects approximately two billion people on a worldwide scale 
and is a problem that is growing, according to the United Nations.
 The enormity of this problem led the German government to initiate a long 
range program via the GTZ(Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Technische 
Zussammenarbeit or German Association for Technical Cooperation) to explore 
innovative water detection methods in arid regions. Motivated by both the 
high cost and modest success rate of purely conventional hydrogeological 
methods, the GTZ project teamed geological experts, experienced dowsers and 
a scientific group led by Professor Betz to monitor and evaluate the 
results.
 The outcome was striking. An overall success rate of 96% (by dowsers) was 
achieved in 691 drillings in Sri Lanka. Based on geological experience in 
that area, a success rate of 30-50% would be expected from conventional 
techniques alone.
 But the overall success rate is not the only indication that the dowsing 
phenomenon is of considerable practical use. According to Betz, what is both 
puzzling but enormously useful, is that in hundreds of cases the dowsers 
were able to predict the depth of the water source and the yield of the well 
to within 10 to 20 percent. We carefully considered the statistics of these 
correlations, and they far exceeded lucky guesses.
 Numerous conventional explanations for the success of dowsing-located drill 
sites were carefully examined by Betz in a series of reports summarized in 
the article. Virtually all of the drill sites were in regions where the odds 
of finding water by random drilling were extremely low, thus eliminating the 
success by chance hypothesis.
 Another argument sometimes advanced is that dowsers get subtle clues from 
the landscape and geology, perhaps without even being consciously aware of 
their highly developed detective skills. This too was ruled out in various 
ways, the most impressive being the ability of dowsers to locate underground 
sources, often 100 feet down, whose streams are so narrow that misplacing 
the drill site by a few feet would yield a dry hole. Such precision is far 
beyond any know geological indicators.
 The scientists also carried out laboratory tests, placing water pipes 
underground or in a test room one story below where dowsing subjects were 
asked to walk around and find the artificial sources of flowing water. Such 
idealized tests were not successful enough to account for the real-life 
drilling results. This led Betz to hypothesize that it is not some unknown 
biological sensitivity to water that underlies the phenomenon.
 Betz conjectures that there may be subtle electromagnetic gradients 
resulting from the fissures and water flows creating changes in the 
electrical properties of rock and soil. The dowsers somehow sense these 
gradients in a hypersensitive state.
 Says Betz: I'm a scientist, and those are my best plausible scientific 
hypotheses at this point. But there are two things that I am certain of 
after ten years of field research. A combination of dowsing and modern 
hydrogeophysical techniques can be both more successful and far less 
expensive than we had thought. And we need to run a lot more tests, because 
we have established that dowsing works, but have no idea how or why.
1. The American Dowser, Fall 1995, Volume 35, No. 4 The American Society of 
Dowsers
This work was published in The Journal of Scientific Exploration, / Stanford 
University - Unconventional Water Detection, by Hans-Dieter Betz, 1995.

There are also some French studies supporting dowsing.
-------------------------------------------------------------
As for as believing in things without supporting evidence, I don't know if 
you've
read any of my posts here, but I'm the ONLY member of the List that doesn't
believe in any form of life anywhere in the known Universe, not even a 
single cyanobacteria
or virus, or anything living anywhere. Why? Because there is no evidence to 
support it.
I'm very skeptical about the existence of black holes and exoplanets because 
of the thin evidence
supporting them. They're very neat theoretical constructs, but actual 
things....I dunno.
What I do believe are my own two eyes. I want you to hold two L-shaped rods 
over an iron
meteorite and tell me what happens. It has nothing to do with belief, only 
simple observation.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Phil Whitmer

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I firmly believe that Einstein recognized that there was nothing
special about the material construction of the dowsing device, be
it metal, forked sticks, pendulums, what-have-you. To suggest that
~only~ metallic dowsing rods work actually undermines a dowsing
proponent's argument. *Any* device that magnifies the dowser's
minute muscle twitches (whether voluntary or subconscious) will
suffice.


When people say they believe in dowsing, what they are really
saying is that they believe in a human sixth sense -- for instance,
the ability to detect minute fluctuations in electromagnetic
fields. I think it would be very exciting if it could be
conclusively shown that some individuals can repeatably
demonstrate such an ability in a scientifically controlled and
statistically valid experiment. That, to this day, no one has
succeeded in doing so should at the very least raise an eyebrow
in those who are so sure that dowsing really works.

--Rob