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Re: Lets Blow this Dowsing Lark off Finally!
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I notice the main condition of the challenge is that the test must be acceptable to Randi. Perhaps he might never decide one to be?

I also wonder what would constitute an acceptable test of Kevin's theory. That he could walk a straight line--even blindfolded--sounds kind of irrelevant to me. Birds fly enormous distances in more or less straight lines (Great Circles, of course) and we don't get unduly excited about that. Maybe we SHOULD, but we don't. Kevin might be sensitive to geomagnetism, or the bearing of infrared energy on his face, allowing him to orienteer exceptionally well.

That Kevin might be able to find previously unknown stones also seems to have little to do with his main theory. A stone can be seen by all; the "lines" to, from and around it can't be. Kev might be finding a stone by any of several methods already mentioned. Lines aren't necessary.

Henry Lincoln was working on a theory much like Kevin's when he (Lincoln) wrote "Key to the Sacred Pattern." (I can't find my copy of that. I'm going to be really pissed if that's lost; we bought it for my mother in Rosslyn Chapel bookstore.) I'd be much happier to see Kev demonstrate by mapping that the sites lie on some kind of grid than to see him demonstrate dowsing. In the long run, the dowsing thing is a red herring. In the absence of another means of detecting the "lines," a statistically meaningful preponderence of sites on a grid or pattern that couldn't be established by random chance would be the best "proof" of his theory.


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Posted by BuckyE
7th April 2006ce
03:30

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