>>DOWSING AND MAGNETISM
I have spent several hours examining "The detection of
magnetic fields
caused by groundwater, and the correlation of such fields with water
dowsing", a 57-page monograph by Chadwich and Jensen, published by
Utah
State University in 1971, to which I was referred by dowsing advocates.
When carefully considered, that report is singularly unconvicing.
As their principal line of
evidence, the authors found a tendency
of people tested for dowsing ability to choose similar locations--
that
is, the places where people thought they noticed "something unusual"
were
not randomly distributed along the test lines. The authors postulate
that
the agreement among those tested was caused by the presence of
ground-water-induced irregularities in the surrounding magnetic field,
an
interpretation for which they present no convincing evidence whatsoever.
Outdoor locations such as theirs (unless intentionally and specially
otherwise constructed) are very apt to be conspicuously non-uniform,
with
greener grass here, a tree on either side there, a view of a distant
building from here, a patch of daisies or bare ground there.
To expect
people to choose points AT RANDOM along such an outdoor line is to
ignore
the fact that genuine randomness is an ideal that real people
usually
cannot achieve without the use of accessory mathematical tools.
People who
don't know what is expected of them will probably make more or less
similar
guesses about what they OUGHT to be doing, and thereby choose similar
locations.
Experts have advised me that
the theory underlying the
interpretation of the authors for those results is flawed in major
ways.
Making very generous assumptions about a general situation (a
HUGE
confined stream of moving groundwater, containing more ionized particles
than distilled water, yet remaining drinkable), it is conceivable that
the
most sensitive of modern magnetometers MIGHT be able to distinguish
between
the presence and absence of such an underground flow. The
signal-to-noise
ratio, arising from the many natural fluctuations in the earth's magnetic
field, however, means that for a human sensory system also reliably
to
detect that magnetic stimulus becomes extremely implausible,
particularly
when one realizes that there is no persuasive evidence whatever
to suggest
that humans have the physiological capacity to detect and respond
even to
quite strong magnetic fields. Even a boy-scout, when trying to
find his
way, is advised to rely on his hand-held magnetic compass and not on
such a
hypothetical physiological magnetometer!
I note with emphasis that
physicists like Betz and colleagues in
Germany, who undertook very extensive experiments on water dowsing
(1990),
tested and rejected the idea that dowsers might detect and respond
to
relatively strong magnetic fields. Those failed experiments even
convinced
that group of dowsing enthusiasts that the notion of human magnetic
sensitivity was not persuasively supported by their own experimental
evidence. If they weren't convinced, I see no reason why, at
this later
date, one should entertain the notion any further, as Chadwich and
Jensen
had advocated.<<
| My expert informs me that there are relatively large temporal fluctuations (hour to hour) in the strength (and pattern?) of the earth's field, in addition to whatever spatial anomalies that might arise due to iron deposits or the like. |
for more dowsing information:
http://www.phact.org/e/dowsing.htm