[HN Gopher] National Forensic Academy teaches to dowse for the dead
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National Forensic Academy teaches to dowse for the dead
Author : riedel
Score : 5 points
Date : 2022-03-17 19:38 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.themarshallproject.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.themarshallproject.org)
| FastEatSlow wrote:
| My engineering teacher showed us last year how to use dowsing
| rods, it was very odd watching the rods cross over a puddle. The
| article focuses heavily on the historical "witching" use case for
| these, which is of course nonsense, but it makes sense that
| dowsing rods work for decomposing bodies, considering that
| there's not that much difference between a dead body and a puddle
| of water.
|
| We don't know how or why dowsing rods work over bodies of water,
| but they're good enough for our water companies to use. If it was
| completely luck, then they (hopefully) wouldn't do it.
| goodusername wrote:
| Dowsing has in fact not been proven to work. There is instead
| overwhelming evidence that it does not work better than chance.
|
| Wikipedia sums it up nicely, with citations: -- The motion of
| such dowsing devices is generally attributed to the ideomotor
| phenomenon,[7][8][9] a psychological response where a subject
| makes motions unconsciously. Put simply, dowsing rods respond
| to the user's accidental or involuntary movements.
|
| The scientific evidence is that dowsing is no more effective
| than random chance.[10][11] It is therefore regarded as a
| pseudoscience. -- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dowsing
|
| For an entertaining time, check out the late James Randi and
| his debunking of dowsing
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