Where's Wiseman?

June 1, 2009 4:32 AM

Richard Wiseman's Psychic Twitter Experiment starts today at 3pm UK time.

May be he'll have better luck finding psychic powers than with this recent attempt

posted by fearfulsymmetry (20 comments total)

@fearfulsymmetry I had a feeling you would post this.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 4:53 AM on June 1, 2009 [1 favorite]

Never heard of 'im. I'm glad to see he is/was an amateur magician. If you've ever performed the lamest trick for anyone (especially kids) you know how important that is. The will to believe that This Time It's Really Magic is incredibly power.

I have personally been involved in preliminary tests for JREF on several occasions, including a double-blind test of dowsers (featured in Richard Dawkins' TV series Enemies of Reason)

We had to dig a new line from the house to the sewer last week. The way they locate stuff like underground pipes and valves and such is by documented angles and distances from above-ground landmarks, which they did.

Then the guy from the city also had to locate the sewer line (or something--I wasn't personally there and I heard all this from someone who doesn't know how it all works....like I do.) He broke out his dowsing rods and started walking back and forth. Apparently he's serious. The plumbers even complained "do you know how many extra holes we have to dig every time you do that?!"

If I were that guy's boss, I'd tell him to knock it off, assuming it doesn't count as a religion the crazy beliefs of which are protected by either law or invisible knapsacks.
posted by DU at 4:56 AM on June 1, 2009 [2 favorites]

Hopefully this will be incredibly power.
posted by onya at 5:02 AM on June 1, 2009 [2 favorites]

I knew this was going to happen.
posted by From Bklyn at 5:32 AM on June 1, 2009

I'm seeing something about a -ford or a -shire...am I close?
posted by Potomac Avenue at 5:38 AM on June 1, 2009

Back in 1927, for instance, the BBC tested its audience's telepathic ability by asking 25,000 radio listeners to guess what actions were being performed by a biologist and a mathematician locked inside an office.

There's a joke about the biological functions of mathematicians in there, but my psychic powers are failing.
posted by Dr Dracator at 5:42 AM on June 1, 2009

It wouldn't be an experiment designed to confirm the existence of psychic powers without massively flawed experimental design!
posted by Pope Guilty at 5:53 AM on June 1, 2009 [3 favorites]

Psychic Mechanical Turk Hotline here I come!
posted by srboisvert at 6:25 AM on June 1, 2009

Decades back, they didn't have slick electronics for locating underground goodies. They had maps, and they had dowsers. They would consult the maps while the brass was looking (anyone with a white construction hat) and drive stakes. After they left, the gang would bring out their dowser, and they dug where the dowser pointed. As systems go, it worked pretty well, and the dowser was nearly always right. There were more dowsers then, because the skill was passed from father to son as it was considered convenient to know.
posted by unrepentanthippie at 6:32 AM on June 1, 2009

Someone...famous...Hellen...Hellen...Keller? No. Old Yeller? Clara Peller? Hard to tell they're reaching...it looks like they're cooking on a stove. Wait, they're in a building - an office. Filing. Someone whose last name ends in "-eller" is engaged in filing something...
posted by Smart Dalek at 6:41 AM on June 1, 2009 [1 favorite]

They didn't use slick electronics to locate my underground goodies either. At least for the sewer connection point, my f-i-l located it dead on using two tape measure distances from the front corners of my house.

Also, I taught dowsing to my sons but refused to tell them if it really worked. They are very skeptical (at least of their lying father) so I knew there wasn't much danger of their completely falling for it. Still, since I wouldn't explain, they were unsure. The experience of not being able to explain something but refusing to call it magical builds character.
posted by DU at 6:43 AM on June 1, 2009 [2 favorites]

Dowsing is fascinating because even when you explain the ideomotor effect, they still insist it's real. Even when you demonstrate empirically that they can't, some still insist.

(Also, if you really believe dowsers do something special when they find water, go read up on what a water table is.)
posted by Pope Guilty at 7:06 AM on June 1, 2009

Can't wait for the MindFreak (Criss Angel) to start doing some Twitter Tricks.
posted by rageagainsttherobots at 7:56 AM on June 1, 2009

I'm so totally going David Blair on this one.

It's over! I'm free! Can't feel any of my extremities. Next up: Twittering my thaw, degree by degree.
Posted three minutes ago

theyre comin w/hacksaws now. wont be long
Posted twenty minutes ago

@hanktwill921 no i wont go to the ice castle for rest aftr this ha ha
Posted forty-five minutes ago

so this is how jack nichlsn felt at end of shining
Posted an hour ago

fingrs frozen, getng harder to txt. damn lack of t9 on this fon
Posted two hours ago

@yrmom0069 how do I eat and breathe? cant say. you should really just relax.
Posted over six hours ago

Imagining volcanoes, and lava, and August in Phoenix. So far mind over matter is working.
Posted one day ago

All the people gawking at me look so funny thru the ice. Hello funny faces!
Posted over a day ago

I am twittering at some dude who is twittering at me. Sup @passingbystander9
Posted over a day ago

Ice block fully sealed now. I am officially Chilly Willy. Awesome!
Posted over a day ago

Okay, this is it! I'm gonna go live in a block of ice for a day. The best stunt ever.
Posted over a day ago
posted by Spatch at 11:02 AM on June 1, 2009

Thinks: bollocks.
posted by Guy_Inamonkeysuit at 12:11 PM on June 1, 2009

I'm so totally going David Blair on this one.

My psychic powers tell me you meant "David Blaine" here.
posted by Sidhedevil at 12:41 PM on June 1, 2009

Dowsing is fascinating because even when you explain the ideomotor effect, they still insist it's real. Even when you demonstrate empirically that they can't, some still insist.

(Also, if you really believe dowsers do something special when they find water, go read up on what a water table is.)

I think its fascinating because researchers always get the results they predict. Always. Because skeptic or believer, their experiments are terrible, undersampled, and designed with an axe to grind. Paranormal research on *both* sides is a bad joke and proceeds from a bunch of arbitrary assumptions (like the one above that dowsers don't know about the ideomotor effect, when many do; or that there's a "skill" as in pro-dowsing German experiments) before they even get started.

Paranormalists are probably wrong because of Occam's razor, but crediting skeptics for this insight is like crediting somebody for a striking out toddlers with a fastball at a t-ball game.
posted by mobunited at 3:05 PM on June 1, 2009

"I see England, I see France, I see ..."

Nope. Nothing else. Just England or France.
posted by storybored at 6:38 PM on June 1, 2009

My psychic powers tell me you meant "David Blaine" here.

I'd ask "Yeesh, what was I thinking?" but you'd probably have that answer, too.
posted by Spatch at 5:25 AM on June 2, 2009

Well I was correct in the first test.... Vegas, here I come!
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 8:50 AM on June 2, 2009