h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hey rommi!
Lot of talk going on about your pendulums!
Keep up the good work!


My pendulum is definately moving in a clockwise direction today.

btw

are obelisks place on top of ley lines as well?

CKS

hi chikki &

yes as I understand it some obelisks are placed on top of Ley Lines

romani

I would also like 2 say thanx jimster for your useful help i,ll get on to makin the changes asap

also thanx 2 jane & Z for your support

romani

Hello
I'm just off to have a look at the entry...but I noticed you mentioned lay lines. I don't know if you know but could you tell me if this is true : I heard some people thought Milton Keynse's roads where laid out in sympathy to lay lines.

Researcher PSG

hi researcher psg

I,m sorry but that I dont know, although I know of Ley Lines & how to find them this is one particular subject that I dont have all the answers to.

but if you live in that particular area it would be easy enough to find out for yourself using a pendulum if you wanted to try & experiment with one

I have made the changes now that Jimster recommended, plz take a look

romani

Hello
I've had a look and it definately has promise. My points are mainly structural, can I suggest pulling all the stuff about what to make a pendulum from into a section seperate from the intro. Also I found the bit about control questions good, I also liked the fact you say how you work with the pendulum is unique to you, but I've thought about it and (I might be wrong) I think you should emphasise the fact that you haven't to look for answers otherwise you might influence the result (Actually I might have missed a bit, sorry if that's the case).

Jimster made most of the good points, the stuff above is just my thoughts, such that they are.

Researcher PSG

p.s. sorry if I'm covering old ground, but I felt there where too many posts to go through and stay awake.

Whoops, took to long writing.

No I don't live anywhere near Milton Keyne's, it was just a news story I heard an age ago and I thought you might know more than me on it.

I'll have another loook and see if I've missed anything.

Hello Me again
Looked through, it reads alot better in most of the sections. I think, personally, I would do a short bit in the intro about what people tend to look for when they dowse with pendulums (as you seem to have included a bit about this in the ley lines, and some people may not look there). I definately would split what makes a good pendulum from the intro to the subject, but again that is a personal opinion.

But apart from these little quibbles I can't think of anything major wrong with the entry. And it seems that it is a good basic explaination to the uninnitiated.

Hope all these posts look helpful rather than irritating, they are mean't well.

Researcher PSG

hello again PSG

well like you I too am very tired & I have to go offline again soon

referring to how to make the pendulum, well I am at this moment working on an article which im going to call "Dowsing Tools & how to make them" in this im going to put all the different dowsing tools & what they are used for, which is why I did,nt really want to put too much detail in this one, if im making sense & not rambling with exhaustion.

as for the other point re: influencing the pendulum I will bear that in mind

as for the Ley Lines due to being busy with other things lately my interest & study of them has had to go on the back burner for a while, so I dont have all the answers in that particular subject, but then again I wonder if anyone else has either,

thankyou for taking an interest in my article

romani

Jimster wrote: "Perhaps because he's a cynic, NAITA is criticising the *subject* of the entry, whereas the *belief* in pendulum dowsing does exist, and is factual, so this entirely qualifies for the Edited Guide."
I'm sorry that I came across as criticising the subject, and I never intended to "bully" neither the entry nor the author. Although it isn't an excuse, my tirade was caused by frustration with my inability to get my meaning across to romani, and it appears I still haven't succeeded. I will try again to list the actual statements I feel need amendment, and my suggested alterations.

I think you need to adapt Jimsters suggested intro somewhat, not because it's wrong in any way, but because it doesn't fit with the sentence that follows it.
"Throughout history, humanity has experimented with many different ways to fortell the future and reveil the hidden. One such way is dowsing, using implements such as divining rods and pendulums to locate hidden water, ore or lost objects, and to get answers to questions."

I also think you need to state more clearly that this is a belief, that although shared by many even today, has never stood up to scientific scrutiny.
"Dowsing still has many believers today, although the practice is questioned by the scientific community and no dowsing ability has manifested itself in any of the attempted scientific tests."

This is the _very_ least this entry needs. In addition you should qualify some of your more direct claims:
"Its flexibility will allow us to determine where particular energies are coming from."
This is pseudo-science, and would be best left out. The 'energies' involved are not a part of the world of science, but can only be 'detected' by dowsing.

"There have been excellent results obtained using Pendulums correctly for all these functions as well as other uses."
"Dowsers claim excellent results have been obtained..."

"By reading a pendulum, this means, how to understand the way in which the pendulum is communicating with us."
"Reading a pendulum, means interpreting the movement of the pendulum as a yes/no response to the dowsers query."

"Remember, Ley Lines are the Earths natural Energy lines, they are like invisible electricity cables hidden in the Earth."
Once again I have to point out that this is pseudoscience. These so called 'energies' can only be mapped by dowsing, and according to dowsers the discovery of ley lines proves dowsing works. Circular argument.

"Ley Lines are believed to be natural 'energy' lines in the Earth. Their existence has not been verified scientifically, but dowsers believe they can detect them and claim they correspond to trade routes and that historic and pre-historic landmarks are often placed where they cross."



The belief in dowsing and ley lines is a fact, but so is the failure of dowsing in all attempted scientific tests. You prefer to believe this means the tests were flawed, I prefer to think it means dowsing is all wishfull thinking. Please try to reflect this controversy to a greater extent.

I tihnk the 'belief' element is kind of inherent in the text, to be honest, and doesn't need additional explanation. After all, we don't expect science entries to have disclaimers like:

'This entry is based on current scientific thinking, but as the greatest thinkers on the planet used to think that the Earth was flat, we're not that arrogant as to assume this is going to hold much weight in the future either'.

I would suggest, though, one other small addition. In the final section, I'd suggest it should read 'they are believed to be like invisible electricity cables hidden in the Earth' - the mention of belief again adds a little balance without undermining the belief in the practice.

Dare i just briefly interrupt the flow of positive energy and constructive comment to say how stunned i am that this thread is well into its 4th page without the slightest pedantry over the plural form of these esoteric instruments.

there, now i've got that of my chakras, you can get back to the job in hand.

Well, not for me to fight the PTB. But...

Statements like: "There have been excellent results obtained using Pendulums correctly for all these functions as well as other uses." have a very definite taste to me.
15 years ago there was a fad, in Norway at least, where the 'radiation' from 'ley lines' was blamed for almost everything. Mapping these lines and moving your bed accordingly, or purchasing or making some sort of blocking device was supposed to heal you of every ill. At that age I believed what I read when these people claimed this was a well documented phenomenon that stood up to scientific testing. After all, something doesn't have to be explained for it to be scientific, it just has to be meassurable. Only later did I realise that these people were happy presenting anectodal evidence as proof and using single cases as success stories when selling their wares.

To protect those who, like me back then, believe what they read, the lack of scientific proof for this practice deserves a more prominent place in this entry.
If the PTB disagree, well then my fight has just started.

NAITA - skeptic
Join A873038

Ooh, I do hope we're not getting into a fight - I'm just enjoying the discussion.

I just like the idea of presenting material and allowing others to make up their own minds. After all, no one is being forced to believe in anything here, just as no one is being forced to believe in other theories, like, um... gravity!

This 'radioactive ley lines' sounds very like Feng Shui to me - it's something that can be said 'works' to the extent that it encourages people to clear out their clutter, which *miraculously* makes people's living space better. But if it's being used to encourage people to buy ley-line-compliant products, I think that's a bad thing. There's only so far you can go to protect the gullible, I suppose.

I know people who swear they've seen numerology, astrology, crystal-reading and many other old-faith practices produce results that appeared to be successful, and although I have no proof either way, I do find it fascinating, and I'd never want to close down the discussion on it just because of worries about that lack of proof. I suppose, to put it another way, I've never actually *seen* an atom - for me, atomic science is a matter of faith because although I've not seen evidence of it with my own eyes, I trust that others have.

I think there's enough documentary evidence to suggest that there's the 'possibility' that there's something in this, which is something that readers can dismiss if they want; it's not as if this is something Romani has just made up, after all. I'm just looking at nurturing this entry in a way that preserves the point of it, in just the same way that I'd encourage an entry about Darwinism without it *necessarily* having to include a lot of concessions to creationists.

I'm not an expert, but both www.m-w.com and www.dictionary.com list
speculum, interregnum, spectrum and continuum with -ums and -a as plural endings, but only -ums for pendulum.

I couldn't come up with more -um words (and the friend I asked only came up with 'gum' and 'sum' and 'opium') but Scrabble Junction http://home.att.net/~bachtal/Lists/Special/UMtoA.htm has a list of words with um-a plurals, and 'pendula' isn't listed.

So I think we can safely say that use of 'pendula' isn't recommended.

Unfortunately for me, I don't enjoy this kind of discussion, I think everyone should just bend to my will, instead of agitating me by being obstinate.

I can project an appearance of civility and peacefull disagreement however.

The difference between believing in dowsing and beliving in the atom is in the form of evidence for and against.

Pro-atom: 100 years of scientific studies
Con-atom: they are too small to be seen, so no one can say they exist

Pro-dowsing: The claims of practitioners
Con-dowsing: All scientific tests of claims made by dowsers


"I think there's enough documentary evidence to suggest that there's the 'possibility' that there's something in this, which is something that readers can dismiss if they want"
And I think that the 'documentary evidence' doesn't stand up to scientific scrutiny, and that the readers shouldn't be presented with the statement "There have been excellent results obtained using pendulums correctly for all these functions as well as other uses." without some information about how these excellent results were obtained and recorded.

The comparison with creationism and Darwinism doesn't really fit, in my opinion. It is possible for those to co-exist in many ways, either by claiming evolution was god's mechanism for creation, or by claiming the inscrutable, omnipotent being created it 6000 years ago and made it look 5 billion years old to confuse us atheist scientists. OK, there are a lot of pseudo-scientists who like to poke at the rough bits of evolutionary theory and claim they have proven it wrong, but most of those are the kind of people who don't separate between a fact and a 'fact' (some guy said this on TV once).
Creationism cannot be tested, dowsing can, and all scientific tests of dowsing have shown that when the dowser knows the result he gets a 100% positive result and claims the conditions are perfect, and when a double-blind tests follows with all other factors equal, the dowsers only get chance results.

I'd go on with a rant about the conclusions the test subjects usually reach, but it would offend the gullible.
I'll get my viewpoint across, even if I have to post it as a conversation and must pop it to the top of the list every day.

I'd be worried that posting to the thread every day to push your own view might be perceived as being anti-social, Naita. I think you have a lot to contribute to this subject, and it's clearly something you feel strongly about, but I'm not sure suppressing someone else's view (to the point where they feel discouraged) is the right way to go about it.

Have you considered writing a separate entry for the opposing view that could sit alongside this entry, should it be picked? It'd certainly be a more constructive way of getting your viewpoint across.

As for the plural version of the word, the stem of the word does come from the Latin, but it seems to have evolved away from the um-a ending. Language is another thing that's more organic than scientific.

I wasn't really serious. And I didn't mean this thread, I meant adding a thread to the eventual Edited Entry. And would it really be so anti-social to keep it at the top? I could probably recruit some of my fellow skeptics (A873038) to help me... Hmm, ok, _that_ would be a bit anti... something, at least. I _could_ write a separate entry, but my since my view can be condenced into just a few sentences I'd feel that it would belong 'in' the entry, if not spread throughout it. However I will hammer together an entry tonight, just for fun.

Does natia's posting here class as flaming?

The overall consensus of posts so far seem to be positive apart from natia's 'rabid skepticism' against anyform of belief.
Go look at all the projects on belief at the mo, shud give natia a rough idea how much people support the variety of beliefs outside the scientific or skeptic community!

if the way the guide is edited and put together is not too yr liking natia pls shut up or ask for further convos to be had outside of peer review rather than Humiliating (intentionally or not) in peer review.

Jimster, a quick question -
is there an average number of posts to get an item from pr into reccommend? just wonder if there is those stats available as this thread is just about to clock a 100 post! must be way above average due to natias rantings.
I'm also waiting for his fellow skeptics to turn up and support his actions here or post a resignation from a community that supports the actions of it's founder!
So think I'll just sit back and watch this thread grow!

I'm not trying to inflame natia, but i just want him to see how other people have judged his actions!

And Natia! count to 10 before u post if yr upset!

z

Sorry, misunderstood you there Naita. Just being a little bit protective of a Peer Review newbie, that's all. Yep, starting your own thread under the approved entry is probably okay - just... avoid the caffeine for a bit, eh?

There's no real average number of posts, Zarniroop. Some slip right into the Recommend queue with very few posts, some take a good few months of honing and refining. It's very rare for newbies to get things straight in, just because it takes a while for people to get the 'tone' of the Community.

Naita has actually raised some very good points about making entries balanced (although at times they've perhps been a little too close to pushing the balance in the opposite direction), but at the end of the day, most comments in Peer Review are advisory; willfully disregarding the suggestions could lead to it becoming a 'Scout-free zone', but I honestly don't think that's the case with this entry. It's looking good to me.

What does everyone else think? Any other suggestions to improve this?

Jims