Predicting a baby's gender

[naomi24]

I don't quite know how to word this, and I know it's going to sound daft, but when women are pregnant, their friends often dangle a metal necklace or a needle and cotton over the bump to detect the gender of the unborn child. If the item swings back and forth, the baby is deemed to be a boy, if it goes round and round, it's a girl. I can honestly say I can never remember it coming up with the wrong result. It seems like hocus pocus, but since hocus pocus is just that, there must be a logical explanation. Does anyone have any idea what it could be?

[ummmm]

Try it :-)

[naomi24]

Ummmm, I will - and I'm going to try it on a man who has never had children and who never will have. That should make for an interesting experiment.

[albaqwerty]

think I'll try it on the OH when he's not so grumpy. Will let you know the results in 2020

[naomi24]

That bad, eh, albaqwerty? :o)

[albaqwerty]

ach he's a permament grump lol but he's my grump :D

[heathfield]

Naomi - I not only believe in it, I've done it for myself in the past. Using divining rods, (bits of bent fence wire), I was able to recover my car keys that I'd unknowingly dropped on a heather-covered hillside, I've located the position of a leak in the mains water supply to my house, (which allowed me to dig a small hole for the repair, and saved me having to dig up the whole of a 15-foot paved pathway). So yes, I know it works. And so do the heads of major organisations. Next time you see a gas or electric company digging up the road, ask if they ever use diviners to find their pipes and cables. Ten to one they'll say 'yes'. Have a look at the following website. If it's all tosh, then how come there are so many successes with the method? The problem is, it isn't accepted since it can't be ''scientifically proven''. But there again, neither can love, yet who would deny its existence?

http://www.denverspir...unity.org/Dowsing.htm

[fredpuli47]

So Heathfield , it works for metal divining (car keys) as well as water divining, and not just for water itself but the point where water is escaping from a (metal?) pipe ? Remarkable (and scientifically unproven ). Does it not work for love ? No? Pity. Every time we needed to know we could dangle a bit of bent metal, or a twig, over the object of our affections.

[chakka35]

The short answer, naomi, is Yes, nonsense. Anecdotal evidence (which isn't evidence anyway) is worthless. Double-blind tests show that it and dowsing (the same ideomotor effect, as jake says) do not work.

With dowsing for the sex of babies it's even easier to fool the unwary, since the charlatan is going to be right half the time (not allowing for multiple births). As others have said, naomi, it's an odd thing for you to be on about. What will be next? Magnetic bracelets? (Say yes to that and I'll tell you a story!)

[rov1200]

Talking of water diviners they were in the news this week. A British company was making a packet selling them to the Iraqis to detect explosives in trucks etc and in the majority of cases failed to work.

Maybe its not the diviner rod that is majic but the person holding it. That does make some sense.

[naomi24]

Chakka, Of course I know it doesn't work - and I'm not going on to magnetic bracelets either - although someone else might like to :o)

Actually, with Heathfield's conclusions and Rov's suggestion, this could be quite an interesting debate. Any thoughts anyone?

[LazyGun]

What I don't understand about these persistent claims regarding dowsing is this ; How come, in all the years that dowsing has been practiced, for all the materials it has been claimed have been successfully dowsed for, like the ridiculous explosives detectors used in Iraq, but most commonly water - why is there no reliable, controlled evidence supporting it? ( Not a single, verifiable reproducible, controlled trial in all the literature searches i have done - admittedly not exhaustive, but still).

How come not one of these hugely talented dowsers has not trousered James Randis 1 million dollars?The few that have tried have failed- spectacularly. Fact is, all evidence presented in support of dowsing is anecdotal or very poor "trials" from decades ago at best.

And while we are at it, would any of those supporters of dowsing like to propose some sort of biologically plausible mechanism by which dowsing is supposed to work?

Show me a plausible biological mechanism, show me some modern, credible, scientifically controlled, reproducible trials and I might have some time for the idea, Until then, its bogus - like homeopathy.

[naomi24]

LG, that's precisely what I was after with this question. A plausible biological mechanism.

[naomi24]

Sorry, dunno.

[heathfield]

The most common theory as to how it works is that the person doing the dowsing is, somehow, deep down in the subconcious, aware when whatever they are seeking is present. It's said that this sensing can result in very small muscular movement. Except in the case of particularly sensitive dowsers, these muscle movements are almost undetectable. But the swing of the weight on a thread that you're otherwise trying to keep still, or the change in balance of the diviner's rods that you're trying to hold steady, show that the tiny muscle movements are there. The weight and the rods simply allow the muscle movement to be readily observable.

[rov1200]

You are right Heathfield. Muscles are composed of muscle fibres each triggered by an electrical pulse at a set frequency. Therefore with a small weight this will instigate some of the neurons to fire and a small movement of the muscle. Obviously though if this was totally correct the dowsing rod would swing all of the time. Therefore some extra brain input is necessary to halt the swing and move on command.

[LazyGun]

So Heathfield and Rov - what you are both describing is the ideomotor effect - and I agree, that is very likely the explanation of the "twitch" that effects the dowsing rod/pendulum/apparatus that is used.

What it does not do is offer a biologically plausible mechanism for the link between the object or person being dowsed for and the dowsers subconscious ( or conscious) that prompts the "twitch" in the first place.

Nor does it really explain why, if the effect is genuine, there are no reliable, credible, scientifically controlled trials of dowsing.

In the absence of an explainable link and reliable data to suport such a hypothesis, I remain sceptical of the success of dowsing - "Nature" best summed dowsing up for me - ideomotor effect, triggered subconsciously or otherwise by visual cues, expectancy effects / cognitive bias,sheer probability and finally biased post hoc interpretation of degree of success.

[naomi24]

So some people somehow subconsciously sense the presence of water - I imagine you mean just as an animal might sense the presence of water. OK. It happens in nature so I can accept that could be an explanation, and following the same line of thought perhaps some people can sense a pregnancy - but that's rather different to sensing the GENDER of an unborn child, isn't it?

[chakka35]

Ouija boards, divining rods and baby forecasters work the same way: the ideomotor effect, whereby the operator subconciously moves the object according to what he or she is thinking. In the case of ouija boards this is easily shown by blindfolding the experimenters, whereupon they produce gibberish.

Diviners have their own ideas of where water might be on a particular stretch of land and they're sometimes right, but it is nothing to do with the rods. When they are tested on plain land with buckets of different materials, including water, they fail miserably.

With babies, as I've said, it's fifty-fifty, which gives an impressive number of correct guesses.

[heathfield]

It's a wide-ranging subject, and far too detailed to go into explaining everything in the space available here. I'm totally astonished at Jake's report that 'dozens' failed a test. It's reckoned that about 85% or more of people have the ability - it's just that they've never been shown how to do it. And it's not just looking for water, but pretty well anything. e.g., In my army days, one wet weekend, taking 4 inverted waste bins, I had the other guys place an AA battery under one of them at random while I stood outside the room. Using divining rods, I correctly told them which bin it was under time after time. Then I had them try, and to their surprise, they all succeeded too. (Except for one, who declared it witchcraft, and wouldn't take part). But no, it doesn't work all the time. It can sometimes demand a degree of concentration on what you're looking for that isn't available. The state of mind influences the results. If you imagine what you're looking for is in front of you, you'll get an indication it's there. If instead you imagine it's not there, you'll get no result. So the mind has to be open, simply concentrating on what you're looking for. The advice I would give to all non-believers is to be shown how to hold the pendulum or rods, and TRY IT FOR YOURSELF! The chances are, you'll succeed.