Posted by John Nichols on February 20, 2005 at 20:51:11 from 165.91.196.86 user Mcneacail.
In Reply to: Re: dowsing still in use posted by andyb on February 17, 2005 at 16:52:45:
Dear Andy B:
In academic circles we call comments such as contained in your post - peer review. Professor Callum would have been well aware of the process of peer review and the usual response.
Of course I am well past the usual engineers’ response of cursing and wishing all sorts of calumny upon the reviewer. I got past that at the age of 41 during my PhD cycle. The fact that the Editor who caused that last outburst of anger was English and he dropped dead of a heart attack 24 hours after receiving my comments taught me a lot. It also caused more than one or two jokes in masonry circles. I was extremely sad at the death as he was a great old soul and a former member of English Regiment number 1 ( I wonder how long before there is a post explaining what I am leaving deliberately cryptic here). I had even made a date to see him in Spain for a drink.
The first principal of scientific theory is to develop a hypothesis. Dick had a hypothesis that what had been found was gold. The hypothesis can be correct or incorrect – no other choice otherwise it is not a well founded hypothesis. A scientist should not care which is true otherwise you will match your work to what you want to believe which is not good.
The proving of the hypothesis should be based on observable fact or logic or such.
So if I make a Hypothesis that
1+1 = 3 and then set out to test the hypothesis.
First I would constrain the number to the set of Real numbers.
Second I would observe that the set of real numbers is closed under addition
Third I would observe that 1+1 is 2. So I can replace the left hand side (LHS) with two
Therefore
2=3 is the revised hypothesis.
But for the real number line 3>2 therefore the statement is absurd and by observation the hypothesis is false.
But if I make a Hypothesis that
1+1 = 10 and then set out to test the hypothesis.
What about if I constrain the numbers to the binary set only.
In short hand 1+1 = 2 is known to be correct in the reals, but the real number 2 is expressed as 10 in the binary number system so this statement is true. Even though most people would assume reals and state it is false.
I observe that I can not dowse. Yes I have tried it – no I feel naught.
I have a good friend who is a boy scout master and a really nice likable guy. He says he can dowse and his wife who is a very good chemist says he can do it. ( I found this out at midnight (Friday night) whilst discussing Andy B at an all night barbeque (like the charcoal prep in PP)).
So we have a hypothesis:
Some human beings can dowse.
It is either true or false. It should be provable one way or the other. Personally I do not care which – although I also consider there are too many people who say they do it to make it an interesting challenge to work out what they think is happening.
Now whether or not the product of the hind quarters of a bull have anything to do with this hypothesis is irrelevant.
So the next step is to agree on the facts we do know and test from there.
Observation 1. The earth has a measurable magnetic and gravitational field.
So can we agree on this observation? If so I can move on – if not what proof is required.
JMN