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?

[jake-the-peg]

Yes - Riemann looked at is as a curiosity but it turned out to be hugely important in General Relativity didn't it?

Hardy would have been most cross - beautiful pure mathematics prostituted by application in the real world!

[Hypognosis]

Given that we live in the age of Geophysics equipment, I'm curious as to how the topic of dowsing even cropped up in the first place. (Not sure what website "R&S" is).

Resistivity measurements depend on variations in soil moisture content. You would think that, if they can detect ancient buried ditches, they'd be great at detecting underground streams. Who needs dowsers?

Interestingly, the last episode of R4's "The Bottom Line" included an executive from a UK water company who revealed that they have used dowsers. By "used", I take it that payment of some kind was involved, which worries me a great deal. Pseudoscientific flim-flam is generally harmless, if frustratingly time-wasting for the denizens of online forums like this but doing it for money is straying into fraud territory.

Or it it that proffessional geophysics teams charge enormous amounts to do what a Water Company might want them to do?

[naomi24]

R&S - Religion & Spirituality - a sub-section of Society & Culture here on AnswerBank.

http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/Society-and-Culture/Religion-and-Spirituality/Question1260794.html

[ludwig]

// Take, oh I don't know - Telepathy. ......................
It is, simply put, implausible by any known scientific mechanism to date. //

Every scientific principle we now accept as fact was at some point implausible by any know scientific mechanism to date. That doesn't prove telepathy to be true. It just means that you shouldn't assume current scientific assessment of plausibility to be the last word in what's real and what isn't.

[Khandro]

Hypognosis; //Pseudoscientific flim-flam is generally harmless, if frustratingly time-wasting for the denizens of online forums like this//
I regret to learn that your time is being wasted.

[jomifl]

Impressive display of jargon and name dropping khandro.. There is however more to it than that.

[Khandro]

jomifl; Explain how "I regret to learn that your time is being wasted." is an 'Impressive display of jargon and name dropping' please.

[Hypognosis]

Thanks, naomi. I was looking at column, on the left, but not seeing that category listed.

@Khandro,

I don't regard it as being a waste of my time. It's analagous to being pedantic about someone's spelling, or pointing out (to jim) that an atom with "three protons" is a lithium atom (or isotope). It's only a waste of a person's time if they are taken in by nonsensical ideas. If money is involved then it's a consumer issue, which is another area of interest of mine.

Nevertheless, I still find unexplained phenomena entertaining, so I have no wish to extinguish all debates on such topics, as that would prevent me from learning anything new as well as possibly alienating myself from people whom I would otherwise be asking questions of, about their personal experiences.

[jomifl]

Khandro, I hopeyou are just being deliberately obtuse as the alternative would be a profound disappointment.

[jomifl]

^'you are' :-)

[Khandro]

jomifl; I'm not sure how giving a reference can be construed as name-dropping. Anyway, I hate name-dropping, - as I was only saying to Prince Charles the other day.

[jim360]

I think it was someone else who did the "helium with three protons" thing. Hopefully I don't make such an elementary mistake usually!

With regard to ludwig's:

"Every scientific principle we now accept as fact was at some point implausible by any know scientific mechanism to date."

I don't think you can say this, really. Scientific principles now accepted as fact were often not even considered before. Examples being quantum mechanics -- no-one in 1850, or even in 1880, was saying "I think that the world of the very small is a fuzzy mess governed by the laws of probability," let alone being ignored for saying so. There are other examples, too, but I'm not really going to make an exhaustive list.

As a contrast, ideas such as telepathy, and water divining, and others, have been around for centuries. But pursuing them doesn't really go anywhere. Again and again, the claims don't stand up to scrutiny -- and they have been implausible to all known scientific mechanisms to date. This is unlikely to change. Still, you wouldn't bet against someone in another fifty years' time claiming that they could read minds, or divine water, and so on. It will never go away.

[pixie373]

No, as long as people believe in a theory, there will be others trying to prove or disprove it. As some are not even convinced by evidence, it can go on forever

[jim360]

No as in you agree with me or no as in you don't?

[mibn2cweus]

I will forever recall the results of my one and only experiment with constructing home made dowsing rods. They invariably led me back to the scene of the crime leaving me with an unrelenting feeling of shame and guilt over the senseless waste and ruin of two perfectly good coat hangers. :o/

[pixie373]

I agree with you, jim

[larrythelamb]

This is perhaps an interesting contribution to your thread, Naomi. I am a construction site manager and I was trying to locate an Atplas unit ( a receptacle for a Water Board meter) in a footpath . It had been inadvertently covered over with Tarmac when the path had been constructed. One of my site engineers produced a pair of dowsing rods from his vehicle and told me to use these to find it. Now I am a real sceptic and was very reluctant to make a fool of myself, but he was very insistent that I tried. The dowsing rods were L shaped and he gave me 2 plastic straw-like tubes to drop the short parts of the rods into. Apparently you need to make sure that the rods are free to move without manipulation from the hands that are holding them. I walked to the footpath in the area that the Atplas unit was most likely to be and the rods moved from being straight in front of me until they crossed over, almost forming a letter X. As I moved a couple of feet away the rods returned to the straight in front position again. I repeated the exercise in all directions with the same result, much to the hilarity of guys from the Water Board who needed to fit a meter in the unit, as well as the ground workers who were going to have to expose said unit for the Water Board.
The engineer was delighted and said that " X marks the spot! ". We subsequently started digging and the unit was buried exactly where the rods suggested!! I should point out that there was a water main running all along the path, but the rods crossed over only directly on top of the " missing " unit.
My one and only experience of water dowsing, but my engineer said the rods had proved a useful addition to his high - tech toolkit.... very strange.

[vetuste_ennemi]

Are you saying that the dowsing rods were good at locating the unit, but bad at detecting the water main, Larry?

[mariner2]

I would have thought the sientific mind, unlike the religious one for example, is always open to new evidence. Virtually every scientific concept has changed and evolved as we learn more about it and those changes are accepted and become the norm as the evidence is assessed. Scientists have no axe to grind by burying their heads in the sand surely?
Religious doctrine (for example) on the other hand is faith based and ignores all evidence that contradicts it, and actually holds up this ignorance in the face of evidence (or lack of) as some kind of virtue.

[larrythelamb]

Not sure what was going on, vetuste. All I know is that the rods crossed over on top of the unit. The unit itself is a kind of hollow plastic composite tube which is connected directly onto the water main....in this case the main was about 1 metre down with gas, electric and BT cables all under the footpath. Why the rods crossed over when they did, I've no idea, but they certainly were not manipulated by me. Very strange indeed.