The National Institute for Discovery Science Shuts it Pseudoscience Doors

SkinWalker

SkinWalker

Archaeology / Anthropology
Moderator
http://www.nidsci.org/

Robert Bigalow said:
We at the National Institute for Discovery Science have come to a time in which a decision must be made as to the direction of the Institute. We have labored long and hard, coming to the conclusion to place NIDS in an inactive status.
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Before becoming president and founder of the National Institute for Discovery Science, Robert Bigalow was a long-time financer into "research" of such topics as dreams, meditation, hypnosis, out-of-body experiences, telepathy, and the ever-popular subject among college students, drug-induced altered states of consciousness.

Bigalow gave millions to University of Nevada at Las Vegas to fund "research" in these areas, never concluding anything of scientific merit. His penchant for UFOs and longing for proof of post-mortem existence have been somewhat of an embarrassment to many of the faculty and staff at UNLV and UNLV has removed all references to Bigalows work since the closing of that program in 2002.

The NIDS website bit the dust on October 15, 2004. Apparently, all the pseudoscience "research papers" that they self-published and "peer-reviewed" in-house went as well.

I looks to me like they simply couldn't provide valid answers to the rigid questions of real science. I remember one of their articles that was referenced in this very forum on the scientific basis of "dowsing" for water. The article was pure garbage and offered nothing in the way of science or reproducible experiments.

Good Riddance.
 
SkinWalker said:
http://www.nidsci.org/



Before becoming president and founder of the National Institute for Discovery Science, Robert Bigalow was a long-time financer into "research" of such topics as dreams, meditation, hypnosis, out-of-body experiences, telepathy, and the ever-popular subject among college students, drug-induced altered states of consciousness.

Bigalow gave millions to University of Nevada at Las Vegas to fund "research" in these areas, never concluding anything of scientific merit. His penchant for UFOs and longing for proof of post-mortem existence have been somewhat of an embarrassment to many of the faculty and staff at UNLV and UNLV has removed all references to Bigalows work since the closing of that program in 2002.

The NIDS website bit the dust on October 15, 2004. Apparently, all the pseudoscience "research papers" that they self-published and "peer-reviewed" in-house went as well.

I looks to me like they simply couldn't provide valid answers to the rigid questions of real science. I remember one of their articles that was referenced in this very forum on the scientific basis of "dowsing" for water. The article was pure garbage and offered nothing in the way of science or reproducible experiments.

Good Riddance.
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Skinwalker, could you offer me a reproducible experiment that proves black holes exist?

If you can't, does that make you a nut for believing they do?
 
I'm not a physics major nor a math whiz, but I know enough of the subject to know that it is the math that is reproducible, which proves the existance of blackholes. In addition, the math predicts their existance, which is confirmed by looking at the blackhole's neighbors and observing predicted effects. Also, the process is responsible for the release of x-rays and gamma rays (also predicted) which are then observed.

So, yes. There are reproducible experiments proving the existence of blackholes.

There are no reproducible experiments that support 'dowsing for water,' ufo's, the afterlife, esp, remote viewing, or the hypothesis that aliens are mutilating cattle - all topics that NIDS claimed to do "research" on.
 
SkinWalker said:
There are no reproducible experiments that support 'dowsing for water.
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There is reproducible experiments that can be done with respect to dowsing. And there is a great deal of data to be studied from dowsing events in the past. Dowsing is not an exact science. Also there is evidence that UFO's do exist. Definition Unidentified Flying Object.
 
With respect to dowsing, give a citation.

With respect to UFO's, I'm referring to the colloquial assumption that UFO=alien spaceship. I should have clarified.
 
Starman said:
Dowsing is not an exact science.
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"Exact science' is a rather odd phrase, even if it is commonly used. Which sciences would qualify as "exact"? And how far from "exact" does something have to be before it ceases to be a science?
Also there is evidence that UFO's do exist. Definition Unidentified Flying Object.
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I find that a rather useless definition.
Of course there are "unidentified" flying objects, just like there are "unidentified" people walking down the street. When a flying object is unidentified, it means that we don't have enough evidence to identify it yet, or that we don't have enough evidence to identify it ever.

To say that "there is evidence that UFO's do exist" is equivalent to saying "there is evidence that I don't know the name of every person on earth."
 
It is possible to suggest that some people can "sense water", however this is due to gravity of a water body and the fact that such a body isn't static like a permanent magnetic field.

You might suggest it preposterous, but just remember that the moon causes the tidal shifts across the planet, so water is obviously effected by magnetics.
 
A bunch of guys saying that dowsing is real and demonstrating a test that can be reproduced are two different things. What you provided wasn't a citation but a website.

This would be closer: Betz, H (June 1995). Unconventional Water Detection: Field Test of the Dowsing Technique in Dry Zones: Part 1. Journal of Scientific Exploration Vol. 9:1, article 1.

From the website you linked said:
To discover the depth of a water stream underground some dowsers use a long rod, made of either iron or a fresh cut poplar pole. This pole is held by one end near the located underground stream, the other end of the rod is allowed to oscillate up and down directly over the stream. The number of oscillations are counted and this is the approximate number of feet below the earth where the water will be found.
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The author neither offers detail as to what the significance of a "popular pole" is nor does he provide data on other tree species. Nor does the author indicate what the causation is of the "ocillation" of the pole in relation to the depth of the water. He only says that a dowser can tell the depth by how many times the pole bounces. Oh, yeah... he says "ocillate" instead of "bounce."

Come on, man. You can't really accept that this website is proof of dowsing, can you? If so, it explains why some people might be willing to read about alleged alien spacecraft (flying or crashed) and accept it as truth.

Others (Vogt and Hyman 2000; Hyman 1996; Enright 1996; Randi 1995) have conducted tests on the dowsing techniques as described by Betz and others, but have come up dry. No pun intended. Their findings were that Betz's tests were subject to bias and unscientific data (probably involving his key dowser, Schröter (Betz, 1995:16). Betz seems to offer as evidence only that Schröter conducted the dowsing and that he was successful.

Betz says, "no prospecting area with comparable sub-soil conditions is known where such outstanding results have ever been attained." But he doesn't successfully demonstrate that the same results couldn't have been achieved in the area he tested by chance or intuitive observation of the landscape.

When Betz does use a test, he makes use of Schröter again. Schröter is the weak link in Betz's data. Otherwise, Vogt, Hyman, Enright, and Randi would have yielded similar results. Hell, he even has Schröter "test" his abilities again by going over the test site after a team of hydrogeologists have made their attempts. At the very least, that eliminates possible choices for Herr Schröter...

Finally, if Schröter was so good, why doesn't he simply make a little cash from Jame Randi's challenge? If he isn't the materialistic type (that type doesn't really exist), then he could donate the money to some hungry kids and offer credibility to his friend Betz.

If Betz really wanted to conduct a scientific experiment, he would have set up a double blind experiment and the "dowser" wouldn't have been permitted to have full reign of the conditions of the experiment in the way that Schröter did.

Sources

Betz, H (June 1995). Unconventional Water Detection: Field Test of the Dowsing Technique in Dry Zones: Part 1. Journal of Scientific Exploration Vol. 9:1, article 1.

Enright, JT (June 1996) "Dowsers Lost in a Barn." Naturwissenschaften, 83(6):275-277.

Hyman, Ray (1996) Dowsing, in The Encyclopedia of the Paranormal edited by Gordon Stein. Buffalo, New York, Prometheus Books, pp. 222-233.

Randi, James (1982). Flim-Flam! Psychics, ESP, Unicorns, and Other Delusions Buffalo, New York, Prometheus Books, pp. 196-209; 252-325

Vogt, E; Hyman, R (2000) Water Witching U.S.A. 2nd ed. Chicago, University of Chicago Press
 
SkinWalker said:
A bunch of guys saying that dowsing is real and demonstrating a test that can be reproduced are two different things. What you provided wasn't a citation but a website.
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Well I think dowsing is more along the lines of faith than a exact science. It can be studied by science but it will not yeld conclusive results and therefore dowsing would not be considered scientific fact.
 
It is possible to suggest that some people can "sense water", however this is due to gravity of a water body and the fact that such a body isn't static like a permanent magnetic field.
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Stryder, are you implying that human beings can detect a negative gravitational anomaly associated with a subsurface void (through which water may or may not be flowing), or are you saying that they can detect a positive gravitational anomaly associated with water occupying the pore spaces in an aquifer (in contrast to air-filled pore spaces)? Or are you saying something else all together? Whatever you're saying, I have a nagging suspicion that you haven't really quite thought it through.

You might suggest it preposterous, but just remember that the moon causes the tidal shifts across the planet, so water is obviously effected by magnetics.
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Gravity? Magnetics? Again, what are you saying? The tides are caused by a combination of the Moon's gravity and the centrifugal 'force' caused by the Earth orbiting the centre of gravity of the Earth-Moon system. Where do you think magnetism comes into it?

If anybody on this forum thinks that they can successfully demonstrate dowsing under scientific conditions, then they should have a look at www.randi.org, where they might just be able to claim $1,000,000. I believe hundreds of dowsers have attempted it but, needless to say, the prize remains.
 
Starman, scientific study of dowsing HAS yielded conclusive results. You're completely correct about it being more a faith than a science.
 
Stryder said:
You might suggest it preposterous, but just remember that the moon causes the tidal shifts across the planet, so water is obviously effected by magnetics.
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You're confusing your energy fields again Stryder. So far, there are no known interactions between gravitational and magnetic fields.

And while liquid oxygen might exhibit paramagnetism, water doesn't, so water is _not_ affected my magnets.
 
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