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Tony Polson wrote:
wrote:

Mary Fisher wrote:
In fact
there is already such a bet available, I think you can win $1000000 if
you can show that you really can dowse. James Randi has had an offer
of this amount outstanding for many years and no one has won it.

Is it worth a bit of your time for $100000?

It wouldn't attract me.

I wonder why James Randi (never heard of him) is doing it? What point is
there?

The point he is making is that it doesn't work.

So what experience do *you* have?

Or do you just take at face value one man's blandishments "that it
doesn't work"?

Almost anyone - even you - can be taught in a few minutes to locate
underground cables and other services with two pieces of metal rod.

It's easy. It's quick to learn. And it works.

.... and when tested under proper conditions it *doesn't* work.

I remember playing at dowsing at school in the sixth form once. (Wow,
that was a few years ago). We quite quickly convinced ourselves that
we could do it and played at demonstrating it to each other for quite
a while.

The someone actually came up with a proper testing mechanism and it
turned out that we couldn't do it.

It's very, very, very easy indeed to fool yourself and others around
you about things like this. The tests you need to do to decide
whether dowsing (or similar things) are real are quite subtle.

--
Chris Green