Posted by I. Disagreewithandyb on March 03, 2006 at 19:24:31 from 86.130.127.169 user Peter_H.
In Reply to: Re: History of Science (was Map dowsing) posted by andyb on March 03, 2006 at 11:39:19:
Well partly. Andy said, about religion:
It’s what you do, who you do it with and who it has an impact on is more important than what you believe.
No, it isn't, actually. Well it might be so in Anglicanism, but not in many of the other major faiths. Belief is all-important. As it happens, today I visited a synagogue* for the first time in my life. It was a informational tour, and I could see that although the synagogue certainly is a 'meeting place' (that's what the word means), the core belief in the Word of God (as written on the scrolls), the Torah, is central to everything in Orthodox Jewish life. Judaism certainly is a 'belief system'. So is Catholicism - you have to believe in the 'real presence', otherwise- no go. People really do believe, and people like me who do not really ought to respect the weight and centrality of this belief.
Mention of Catholicism brings me back to 'map dowsing' - is it a 'miracle', like those at Lourdes, in France? I say - no. The point about the documented but unexplained cures at the Shrine at Lourdes is that there is a scientific avenue offered to us to go down - the likelihood of a 'placebo' effect. That effect is quite real and has been known to the medical profession for centuries, although it seems that there is still much more to know. The Church itself stresses that it is their 'faith' that cures sick pilgrims and not the water (which is usually filthy). Medical science would say that the placebo effect is essentially physical but triggered by the brain. It is possible that science and religion actually coming together here? I don't know, but you have to recognise the feelings of wonderment, baffled awe, expressed by Dick at the stars.
However, I still cannot see that any placebo/belief principle can be relevant to map dowsing because there is a totally external end product. Water either is or is not present at position A on the map, and no amount of belief will create water there. You can either detect it or you can't.
*Princes Road, Liverpool, if anyone's wondering. A lovely building, but the guide did go on a bit and I found myself mulling over the Tarboard discussion, hence this over-long posting when I got back home. Enough already.