I'm astonished by the responses to my post about dowsing. Not only is dowsing alive and well, it's wormed its way into the work of police departments and water sanitation.

Likewise many people swear up and down that the experience of dowsing is intrinsically compelling and if I'd just try it I'd feel this and maybe be a bit less certain that it is nonsense.

After all we do not know everything about the world.
And maybe it works in some logical way we have yet to fully understand. etc.

I could chase down the studies on dowsing (which have been done)
I could explain about confirmation bias, gambler's paradoxes and the workings of the human mind.
I could enter the debate.

I don't want to do this.

The interface between the mythical and the material can be porous in our minds. Pretending that this isn't the case is a kind of self delusion.

But if there is a hypothesis that can be tested, as with dowsing, I don't have much tolerance for the myth.

We need to let it go.

@futurebird My guess for why this one persists: it's fun to faff around with a wobbly stick. It's very simple "magic" with no skill or work needed (fake work in scamming people still takes effort, typically). And there's not yet a non-bullshit way to do what it pretends to, so magical gibberish sneaks back in

I don't think it's going anywhere, unfortunately

@sinvega

I have a soft spot for rituals. I have a soft spot for myths. I struggle with the ways to keep them around, to treat them with respect without allowing them a place in material decisions that might put us in peril.

I would love it if someone would teach me the art of dowsing. I want to know all about it and buy in for the experience.

But seeing no way it can work, and no evidence but the inconclusive? It shouldn't be taken as a science.

Is that too much to ask?

@futurebird not at all! If it was a silly fun thing to play pretend with the kids while you're doing the random trial and error / slow methodical bit by bit search, I can sort of get that

but adults atually thinking that it works, even paid professionals, when it's been getting fully debunked since the 16th century? come ON

@sinvega

That is why I don't feel like going through the debunking. And there hasn't just been DEbunking. There has also been desperate proper bunking too. People trying their best to show that it works. Because if it did work, even just a little wouldn't it be wonderful?

@sinvega

And if it did work, you could harness that power (let's say that dowsing was better than random chance by just a few percent) by simply increasing the number of dowsers. Have 100 people out there with the rods and through the power of statistics you could squeeze certainty from the noise.

No one does this.

One must wonder why.

@futurebird

Even cheaper: a dozen drones with dowsing rods. Surely we have sensors and motors sensitive enough.

@sinvega