Tag: Double-Blind Testing

June 20, 2016

A Skeptic’s Guide to Dowsing

This article first appeared as a Vic Skeptics discussion pamphlet and again here in 2010.
The full range of our discussion pamphlets can be downloaded from our  USEFUL INFO page.

Dowsing, (also known as Divining) is widely practised in Australia. Dowsers claim the ability to detect useful substances in the ground using processes which are not able to be explained by current scientific principles.

The most frequently dowsed substance in drought-prone Australia is water. Many Australians can claim a friend or relative who is a water-diviner.

Australian Skeptics have long been interested in dowsing. It clearly lies within the range of paranormal activities which come under scrutiny. Australian Skeptics offer a sum of money, (currently $100,000) to anyone who can demonstrate paranormal ability of any kind. Our only stipulation is that candidates must pass a proper scientific test, the protocols of which have been agreed upon by all parties before the test commences. Most acceptors of this challenge have been water-diviners; probably because they are genuine people who believe in their abilities, and are as interested in being tested as we are to test them.

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August 17, 2011

Previous Product Reviews

or,

Blasts from the Past

Given that many of our readers have only recently become acquainted with us, we thought we’d revisit some of the more entertaining product reviews that Vic Skeptics has performed in past years.

The Electrostatic Gravitator

Our mate Barrie Johnson combines his two greatest loves, electronics and fossicking: and he knows a bit about electronics – most of his working life was spent as electronics maintenance officer in a major Melbourne hospital.

Barrie Johnson with gold nuggets

In semi-retirement in the early 2000s, Barrie opened a business in the heart of the Victorian goldfields,  servicing and repairing  detection equipment. One day a friend brought in a flash-looking device called The Electrostatic Gravitator.

He’d been so impressed by a prominent advertisement in a glossy American fossicker’s magazine that he bought one, notwithstanding its considerable expense. Unfortunately, once unpacked it failed to live up to expectations.

Barrie promised to look into it (literally). What he discovered was a maze of components and wires. The weird thing was that most of the circuits were open. Things weren’t connected to other things.

Barrie concluded that not only could the Gravitator not work, it was never designed to work. He reported back to his disappointed customer, then went to the trouble of posting a warning to the magazine that it was hosting ads for a dubious product, including technical details. That, he thought, was that.

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