Questioning The Conclusions Of Science

[naomi24]

This question arises from the discussion in R&S on the dubious practice of Water Divining. Sometimes the conclusions of science result not from positive evidence that the subject is invalid, but from absence of evidence. Whilst I know the scientifically minded will say ‘until evidence is forthcoming, I won’t consider the possibility’, but the question is do those who accept the conclusions of science ever waver and consider the possibility that evidence could exist that science has missed – or has overlooked – or is currently technologically incapable of recognising or testing?

[LazyGun]

Personally, I will await verifiable repeatable evidence to show that dowsing works better than random chance. I have not seen any yet.

And there is still this - if dowsing "works" that must surely mean that it will be more successful than random chance when finding whatever it is you are dowsing for, no? In other words, a real world effect. And that can be observed and controlled for. And all the studies conducted so far show that it works no better than random chance. And in that situation, why do we even think its a phenomena at all?

[jomifl]

Questioning the conclusions of science is in principle a good idea however there is a problem with it. The problem is that in the view of some people scientists are incapable of questioning themselves as it is tantamount to lifting yourself by your own bootlaces. However non-scientists do not understand how science works so are not competent to question it's conclusions. As soon as someone understands how science works they are de facto a scientist and are thus ruled out as they interested parties.
It doesn't matter how many qualifications someone has in scientific subjects, an understanding and appreciation of science really only comes from doing it to the satisfaction of your peers. Knowing scientific stuff is just not enough, you have to be able to apply scientific principles to determine what is true and what is false ie. to devise ways of testing hypotheses and to make the tests work.

[mibn2cweus]

LazyGun
@ mibn - Does your positid pyscho- physiological effect offer a greater success at finding water - or minerals, or oil, or anything else, come to that - that random chance?

If so, it should be demonstrable in a controlled trial, no?
21:57 Sun 28th Jul 2013

I don't have sufficient knowledge to draw an objective conclusion either way LG and therefore I retain an open mind however bizarre and unlikely dowsing appears at first glance. Although at this point I'm not prepared to buy into the premise that dowsing actually 'works' neither am I armed with sufficient knowledge to dismiss the possibility that there might actually be some correlation between the process of dowsing and the dowser's alleged success.

As for locating substances other than water, the same principal would apply. Given ones current knowledge of where it would most likely be found and experience with finding it dowsing might provide the dowser a point on which to focus their abilities and attention. As I stated in my previous post, testing dowsing is fraught with the complexities of duplicating the real life conditions in which dowsing is alleged to produce results.

We know more than we realise and quite often less than we think. Objectivity is the process by which we discern between what we believe we know and what we actually know in fact.

[LazyGun]

I am, obviously, not getting my point across.

If dowsing works, then for it to be considered a real and true phenomenon,it must allow the dowser to determine whatever it is they are dowsing for successfully more frequently and consistently that random chance would, surely?

That would be a real world phenomenon and something that could be demonstrated under controlled conditions, surely?

If not - if it cannot do better than random chance, background noise, in other words, - why are we even considering it as a phenomenon?

[naomi24]

Jim, //Presumably, all the experimental evidence in the link I gave you, that shows that dowsing seems not to work in a mysterious way, didn't suit his agenda either, since he made no mention of any of it. //

He is clearly someone who has attempted seek answers from beyond the point where other scientists have abandoned research – and I have not said it works in a ‘mysterious’ way. If you can get the notion of the paranormal out of your head, you might understand what I’m saying. (I thought you were fed up with this discussion anyway).

LG, //And all the studies conducted so far show that it works no better than random chance. And in that situation, why do we even think its a phenomena at all?//

However randomly it works, logically it shouldn’t work, so we should be questioning why it works at all. That’s my point. All these odd things that millions of people claim happen shouldn’t be dismissed completely because current tests prove negative. They are claiming something for which science can find scant evidence, but a negative result is not proof that it doesn’t happen, and that is what science ought to acknowledge. Whilst I do understand the stance that science takes, rationally, most people don’t expose themselves to ridicule for no reason and therefore I really would like to see science extend its boundaries by installing a ‘matters pending’ tray in its office. There is no middle ground – It’s either ‘yes, you’re right’ or ‘no, you’re wrong’ – but I would like to see more ‘don’t know’ – because science is not infallible and sometimes it doesn’t know.

Jom, does that mean that anyone who isn’t qualified shouldn’t presume to question results? That seems a bit of a dangerous path.

Douglas, congratulations. :o)

[LazyGun]

@ Naomi But no one has said science is infallible, or if they have, that would be wrong. When something like dowsing is discussed, the scientific stance is to look for evidence to support the claims. And trials suggest that it is no better than random chance in doing what it is supposed to do. So we assign it a low probability that something actually is occurring, until some new evidence comes along that might give greater support to the notion.

One striking fact from the recounting of anecdotal evidence comes out; In all the stories, the dowsers are 100% successful. We rarely hear about a dowser having to try more than once, or that fails entirely. Thinking about it,I have never heard anyone say that. Under those controlled conditions I was part of, both as a participant wannabe dowser and then as an observer, it simply did not work - and those who were convinced of their own dowsing ability were utterly surprised that it had failed them, despite getting the twitching or crossed antennae or whatever.

So if it worked that well, why does that level of success plummet until it becomes no better than a kind of background noise of random chance when carried out under controlled circumstances if it is a genuine,repeatable, real world phenomenon?

So I am still not sure that it has in fact been shown to work, and in a way thats the point.If we say that it happens no better than random chance, then that equates to someone going into a field, selecting a site at random and saying "dig there".If they were to do this, we might expect them to get lucky and actually be right at least some of the time. If dowsing offers no better a success rate than this - and that is what the evidence to date suggests - why are we even considering it to be a phenomenon?

So scepticism remains warranted, unless and until some better evidence to support it as a phenomenon comes along.

[naomi24]

LG, I agree that scepticism remains warranted – that was never in question. What I do question is the seemingly blanket conclusion that what these people report is necessarily false.

[LazyGun]

Dont you find it odd though, Naomi, that we never hear anecdotal stories of dowsers failing? I mean every anecdotal story I have ever heard about dowsing, at least from those that believe that it works, or have done it themselves - not that I have a file or anything, you understand - the dowser has always been successful, usually at first go. Don't you find that an extraordinary claim - a 100% success rate?

So I would not just dismiss out of hand anecdotal evidence or personal observation; its actually potentially quite interesting, hence my own attempts and involvement, but nothing I have seen, nor the sum of the evidence to date, actually seems to support the notion. And all the confounding factors surrounding personal recounts remain.

[jomifl]

Naomi, I know that some people would find some of my previous pst contentious, patronising or even arrogant. Just to be a bit more arrogant, I get the impression from many of the posts on AB that a lot of people struggle to use logic in their daily lives let alone understand what science is. I have worked with many well qualified scientists (doctorates, masters, Oxford /Cambridge University lecturers etc.) and some of them don't understand what good science is. Fortunately the way science is organised the good scientists usually guide and regulate the poor scientists so that bad science either doesn't get done or gets rejected and the poor scentist become better scientists. The conclusions of science are not arrived at via an agenda of trying to prove something, rather they are arrived at as the only reasonable conclusion possible from the information available.
The depth of knowlege and dedication to the truth of most scientists is astonishing and they consider options that most people wouldn't know existed before arriving at their conclusions. I would challenge anyone to read a scientific paper published in a reputable scientific journal and find an error in the conclusions.
Re. piezo-elecricity of bone, no surprise there, most materials are piezo-electric to some degree, even wood is. I do not see how electrical 'fields' can be generated by water bodies and I don't see how bone would react mechanically to a stationary field and if it did how the minute flexing of bone would have a significant effect on the musculature.. Even if it did it would surely make the rods move in the same direction and not cross, To me it doesn't even seem to be a starter.

[naomi24]

LG, I do find the claim that it works 100% of the time quite extraordinary – and I certainly have my doubts about that - but I think there are a few posts in the two threads that say it doesn’t work every time. I can quite understand your point of view in that since you’ve seen no evidence you remain sceptical, but I’m very pleased to hear that you don’t dismiss the claims out of hand. That seems to me to be the rational and sensible approach.

Jom, I know the conclusions of science are not arrived at via an agenda of trying to prove something, but am I to assume that in your opinion people who aren’t qualified in a particular subject have no business discussing that subject because what they say is automatically considered to be of no consequence?

[jim360]

" ...therefore I really would like to see science extend its boundaries by installing a ‘matters pending' tray in its office. There is no middle ground – It’s either ‘yes, you’re right’ or ‘no, you’re wrong’ – but I would like to see more ‘don’t know’ – because science is not infallible and sometimes it doesn’t know."

I think this picture is the fault of the media and of scientists in roughly equal measure. Actually there is a great deal more uncertainty in Science, but for one reason or another it never really comes across. In the media this is probably because people want a definitive answer even when there isn't one, and uncertainties no matter how small are magnified out of all proportion. The problem is that often these uncertainties are too subtle really to be described in words. "Yes or no" is far too polarising, while, "don't know" is far too vague. There are more options to the spectrum, such as "almost yes", "very nearly almost yes", etc.. You need numbers to describe what is going on fully, and a lot of people just don't like seeing numbers, or don't seem to understand what they mean.

Meanwhile some scientists when dealing with the media probably give the answer the media want too much, rather than the right one. At any rate, "bad science" is practised by scientists as much as non-scientists. This is covered, too, in that book I keep recommending -- and it has as much to say to scientists as it does to the general public.

The strictest and most accurate answer with regards to how dowsing is seen by science would be something like:

"A large body of experimental evidence indicates that, to within a high degree of confidence, there is no measurable improvement in success in finding water between those people who use dowsing techniques, as compared with using a random approach to do so. Therefore, with no consistent evidence to the contrary, dowsing can be said to add nothing to the process of searching for water."

Maybe I should have said that earlier.

[jomifl]

Naomi, I am not saying that people who aren't 'qualified' shouldn't discuss a subject but people who aren't informed do on many occasions come up with red herrings and cloud issues to the point where reasoned discussion becomes impossible and what reason there is gets lost in th noise. One of the bugbears is anecdotal evidence, this is presented all the time as proof of a phenomenom when statistically it is near meaningless. I have said many times on AB that the human senses cannot be trusted sufficiently to constitute proof except in exceptional circumstances. There are so many ways in which our senses betray us and the ways that memories can be conflated and help us remember what we want to.

[jim360]

"...does that mean that anyone who isn’t qualified shouldn’t presume to question results? That seems a bit of a dangerous path."

I think it is a dangerous path too, and I've tried to avoid saying this as a result. On the other hand we can turn again to probability to phrase my views best: Given that most scientists make a career of studying the world carefully, the probability that, as a whole, they understand how things work is far greater than the same probability for people who have not been so careful, or for people who have not studied the world so extensively.

It is worth noting that over the years science has made a number of mistakes, and many of these have been noticed and corrected -- but the people who noticed those mistakes, and corrected them, or improved upon the picture, have always been scientists. When Science is found to be wrong, that is because Science discovers that it is wrong. Ultimately, Science is self-correcting.

[jim360]

Further to my last post, a more important fact than education is of course what you actually say and do with that. If people make demonstrably mistaken statements, then they are mistaken no matter what educational background they have.

One mistake I think you have made, for example, is in your description of what an experiment should do:

"...experiments should be conducted in circumstances that replicate those of the claim..."

Very few scientific experiments meet this statement. The basic reason for this is that the world is too complicated to study all at once. While such an experiment might be useful to confirm whether or not svejk might be telling the truth about the outcomes of his dowsing, it would not say anything about the process behind it.

A more reasonable goal of experiment is not just to establish whether or not someone is lying, but to see why it is that they are "telling the truth" -- if not, as seems likely, the whole truth. So, an experimental programme to investigate dowsing realistically would need to be far more controlled than just copying what svejk does. In particular, it should distinguish between my hypotheses, that dowsing is basically an ideomotor effect, and his, that there is more to it than that.

How does my suggested program achieve this? Firstly, it would need some refining, of course -- you can hardly expect me to design a perfect experiment in a period of about ten minutes when I was very tired. You shouldn't dismiss it out of hand either, because one part of the tests described in that link I gave you:

http://undeceivingourselves.org/S-divi.htm

included a control phase to show that the dowsers could find water when dowsing with " ... containers that had their contents clearly visible. All diviners confirmed that their divining abilities were working well." In principle, then, there should be no reason why dowsing doesn't work equally well over bath water (although one refinement would be to take it outside and bury the container under a few feet of soil) -- because those dowsers certainly didn't think otherwise.

With that in mind, my programme up to some refinements is a lot more reasonable, and has the benefit that it can test one part of the theory at a time.

More generally, all experiments do this -- that is, very few experiments in science ever take place in the full "real world". The real world is uncontrollable, and inherently unanalysable, so to make any real progress you take a theory to the lab and remove as many uncontrollable factors as possible, and focus on just one or two factor that you can control. In our case, we can try to isolate, examine and discard or confirm the possibilities of:

-- any physical connections between the dowsing rod and the water;
-- whether the material of the rod has any influence;
-- importance of the height of the rod;
-- importance of the person using the equipment;
-- importance of the terrain to results;

and so on, and so forth. You could not hope to test all this in a single experiment and come up with any meaningful conclusions about dowsing, other than the aforementioned fact that you would confirm svejk's observations to some extent (that he found water), but not learning why he was able to make that observation. Instead, by separating possible contributing factors from each other and testing each in turn, you might be able not only to see whether or not dowsing contributes to the process of finding water, but also how it does, if it does.

In summary, I think you haven't fully understood how the scientific method works, or how to apply it, and I'm not sure I agree with your interpretation of the data either. Both of these considerations are far more important than educational background.

[jomifl]

A well designed experiment isolates all the possible parameters where possible and tests each one in turn. The geographical and environmental factors are just some of the possible significant parameters and would be tested too if there the other parameters don't account for all of the phenomenom.

[naomi24]

Jim, //Actually there is a great deal more uncertainty in Science, but for one reason or another it never really comes across.//

I know that – and I’ve said that - but one of the reasons it doesn’t come across is because people like you prefer to give the impression that science does actually know it all and is infallible. And I know all the arguments against dowsing – we’ve been going round in circles with them - so there’s really no need to attempt to rephrase them.

//One mistake I think you have made, for example, is in your description of what an experiment should do:

"...experiments should be conducted in circumstances that replicate those of the claim..."//

Depending upon what you’re testing, setting up an experiment in different circumstances can work – but since we don’t know what is involved here, you must, as far as possible, replicate every aspect of that which is being claimed – otherwise the experiment cannot be deemed valid. For all we know this might involve geological features, the presence of specific minerals, or metals, different types of soil, etc, etc., and therefore hanging rods over a bath covered in plastic and turning the tap on simply isn’t going to work. I suppose the real experiment would be to carry out the test in a place where this has been claimed to work, with the same tools, and in similar weather conditions. Logical? To me it is – but perhaps to you not terribly scientific.

Jom, //One of the bugbears is anecdotal evidence, this is presented all the time as proof of a phenomenom when statistically it is near meaningless.//

I haven’t presented anecdotal evidence as ‘proof’. It isn't. I’ve simply said that even though science has failed to find any real evidence for it, in my opinion, in the light of the plethora of anecdotal evidence, it shouldn’t be dismissed completely simply because the tests conducted so far have failed to ascertain why so many usually intelligent and rational people claim this works.

[jim360]

I have never said that science knows all, nor that it is infallible, nor did I imply it. It is simply that science is less likely to be wrong than Joe Public, given the care that it takes to avoid making errors. That is a far distance removed from infallible.

[jomifl]

Naomi, I haven't said that you personally have claimed that anecdotal evidence is proof.
Being intelligent and rational is all very well but mankind has been that for millenia without making very rapid progress. The scientific method and instrumentation has addressed the problem of self delusion and dodgy senses. The composition of the sun was not arrived at by waving sticks at it.

[naomi24]

Jim, I didn't say you said it - I said you prefer to give that impression - or at least you appear to.

[naomi24]

Jom, thank you - and I realise that.