Don't ever believe dowsing

[Bj]

Yesterday, we have contractors putting in fiber between buildings. They needed to find a junction underground where one building connects to another. They had this old map they went by, but it is so inaccurate, it put the place to dig in around a 20 foot radius. Guess what they resorted to using? [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dowsing"]Dowsing [/ame]

They came in about an hour before we started, and 'found' a spot. They marked an area about 4'X4'. We dug the whole section out. 4' deep we found the PVC pipe that goes to the junction.

So we start following the pipe, hoping it was just out of reach. We keep going about 8' across, then they come back, look at the map, try their little 'method' again, which put us roughly 10' out from where we where at. (18' off original)

We dug another 4'X3' area, and we dug 4' down, no pipe, so I continued (just in about a 1' radius at the end) 2 more feet just to be sure and we went back to our original trench.

We continued 3 more feet and found an elbow that turned right into the junction. So much for their 'hi-tech' method of finding the junction... :facepalm:

 

[River Crab]

:rofl:
What kind of dowsing were they using!?

Anyway I know dowsing, and I believe some things about it, but the idea of building contractors using it sounds absurd!

If they did that in Washington DC, it would likely be a roulette between electrocution, gassing, and a water supply breach, and a heavy fine with all of them.


Truthfully though, their dowsing sounds pretty good, if they found the pipe on the first try. What they probably did was REFUSE to believe their dowsing, leading them off course when they tried again. It's a common story with dowsers, really; you have to trust your subconscious, that's what the whole of dowsing is about.

I think they went back thinking, "We haven't found it yet so I must've been wrong. I'll try again and see if I get it closer."
Subconciously thinking, "This is taking long, so I'll try again. It's got to be along this pipe and so it'll probably be further in that direction."
Of course they weren't expecting the pipe to TURN! :lol:

Should've trusted their own intuition; quoting Urwumpe (who was quoting someone from NASA),
"Better is the enemy of good enough."

Again, this is a really common story, but I'm surprised to hear it perfectly repeated by someone who ended up not believing the dowsing result. So personally I think your post title is kind of ironic. Just something to think about.


But there's a better lesson in all of this: do some decent recordkeeping, for god's sake!