As a kid I remember TV shows such as Blue Peter having men (it was never women as I recall), walking about with
two bent wires - usually coat hangers on bits of wood, and known as Divining Rods - one in each hand, walking around fields searching for
water/oil/gold whatever.
Its called Dowsing or Water Divining and has been practised for centuries, and the modern version as described above was first recorded in 15th Century Germany (where it was used to attempt to detect metals), with either metal rods or the Y shaped bit of wood.
Now largely on the TV, the 'diviners' usually failed, but with attempts to find water in particular, there was some occasional successes. Now whether that's because in Europe water is fairly common, or because it works, I can't say. Scientific blind testing to-date, suggests that it's the former rather than the latter, and its considered to be a pseudoscience. But there's no denying the belief amongst many people that it works.
But the last group of people you would expect to believe in this mumbo jumbo are engineers. However a recent survey has found that a majority of the UK's water companies confirmed that their engineers still use the technique. While a few of the remainder said the equipment was not standard-issue equipment but ..... well, engineers will be engineers.
Severn Trent Water said "Older methods are just as effective than the new ones, but we do use drones as well, and now satellites. We don't issue divining rods but we believe some of our engineers use them." The other water companies gave very similar responses.
A handful, Northern Ireland Water, Northumbrian Water, South West Water and Wessex Water denied categorically that any off their engineers used them .... or rather admitted to using them. It would be interesting to see if the relative success rates of detecting water pipes and underground leaks, varied between those who admitted to diving rod usage and the categorical deniers.
Superstition and magic live on in the strangest of places ....
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| Dowsing Common Sense? |
Its called Dowsing or Water Divining and has been practised for centuries, and the modern version as described above was first recorded in 15th Century Germany (where it was used to attempt to detect metals), with either metal rods or the Y shaped bit of wood.
Now largely on the TV, the 'diviners' usually failed, but with attempts to find water in particular, there was some occasional successes. Now whether that's because in Europe water is fairly common, or because it works, I can't say. Scientific blind testing to-date, suggests that it's the former rather than the latter, and its considered to be a pseudoscience. But there's no denying the belief amongst many people that it works.
But the last group of people you would expect to believe in this mumbo jumbo are engineers. However a recent survey has found that a majority of the UK's water companies confirmed that their engineers still use the technique. While a few of the remainder said the equipment was not standard-issue equipment but ..... well, engineers will be engineers.
Severn Trent Water said "Older methods are just as effective than the new ones, but we do use drones as well, and now satellites. We don't issue divining rods but we believe some of our engineers use them." The other water companies gave very similar responses.
A handful, Northern Ireland Water, Northumbrian Water, South West Water and Wessex Water denied categorically that any off their engineers used them .... or rather admitted to using them. It would be interesting to see if the relative success rates of detecting water pipes and underground leaks, varied between those who admitted to diving rod usage and the categorical deniers.
Superstition and magic live on in the strangest of places ....
I think it was John craven newsround not blue Peter.
ReplyDeleteProbably. Thanks for the comment.
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