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I'd also love to see these studies that showed dowsing was successful more often than can be accounted for by random chance, in true controlled conditions. I think it's something more akin to cold-reading -- people remember the "hits" more than the "misses" and so they say it works, but seem to forget that just as often it didn't work. So having read too many challenges that expert dowsers have failed in controlled settings, I'll continue to say it's bunk -- until someone comes up with a peer-reviewed study that says otherwise.
But it's a fun activity, I suppose, so there's not much harm in it. Unless you're the person paying to drill a well in the spot where a dowser tells you, and you don't find anything.
You are free to say what you want and believe what you want. Do a search of your own to see the studies. Put a phrase in your search engine such as Scholarly studies on dowsing, if I do it and post the links then the doubter can say I posted only what I wanted to, this way you read them for yourself, both the positive and the negative.
Since reading this post, I have been, and every time I find one study that claims it worked, I find others that cite flaws in that study, and improper statistical analysis (such as looking at a group which as a whole performs no better than chance, then picking out a handful and claiming they did much better than chance...this is like tossing a coin 1000 times and getting about 50-50 heads and tails, but then looking at a series of 20 tosses in a row that were all heads and claiming something weird was going on). And most of the studies promoting dowsing were published in various paranormal journals.
ETA -- I meant to say "since reading this THREAD, not meaning just the previous post.
Here's a common theme coming up when I read analyses of studies supporting dowsing -- most dowsers were no better than chance, and the few that were touted as having extraordinary success achieved it in only some trials, while in other trials they did no better than chance. Thus what seems to be happening is, like I said before, a case of remembering the "hits" and forgetting the "misses" and thus painting a picture of success. So some dowsers, sometimes, get it right, but other times, they are wrong. And most dowsers don't ever do better than chance. Now, tell me, if you went to a doctor who treated 1000 patients with terminal illnesses, lost 975 but experienced total remission with 25, would you say he was successful? That's what the studies I keep finding seem to be to me. Sometimes we see a pattern in the noise and give it unnecessary meaning. It's just the way our human brains work.
My opinion is that the movements of whatever dowsing tool is used is due to subconscious thoughts. The dowser believes, for whatever reason, that water (or whatever he's seeking) is in a spot, and indirectly causes his tool to move. If a person is walking around outside, he might be seeing things in the environment which clue him in to what he's seeking. If for water, the location and type of vegetation can be a clue to underground water. Or geological information. So perhaps these people are skilled at finding water based on these clues, but the idea that using a dowsing rod (or whatever) is what finds the source doesn't have evidence. The dowser would be just as successful walking around and saying "how about here?"
I'm still looking for an example of dowsers being led to an area while blindfolded, and walking around unable to see natural features in the environment. I haven't found one yet, but I'll keep looking.
I'm keeping an open mind, but not so open that my brain falls out. (no offense meant...it's an old saying in science that I think is funny)
