Assignment 2
Analysis of Pseudoscience vs. Science
1st Author
1st author's affiliation
1st author's email address
2nd Author
2nd author's affiliation
2nd author's email address
You are expected to work in groups of two.
Your text should not be shorter than two A4 pages written in usual text format.
Prepare for the discussion in class!
1. Please give a short description of the Betz - Enright discussion given in articles [1- 3][1].
2. What were the motivations for a massive experimental program undertaken in Germany 1987 and 1988 and investigating dowsing?
3. What qualities of Munich physicists made them particularly suitable for study of dowsing?
4. What are the potential problems of dowsing experiments in general?
5. What was the relevance of Munich experiments for health-care?
6. Describe the experimental set-up of Munich experiment. What was the purpose of preliminary testing? What was the professional magicians roll?
7. Which aspects of sound experimental design were built into the critical testing?
8. Comment on the idea of “earth rays” and an attempt of “rational” or pseudoscientific explanation of dowsing advocated by believers in dowsing.
9. How do you explain the fact that medicine is more open for alternative methods then e.g. physics? Do you know of the examples of former pseudoscience that was later on incorporated in science?
10. Why is “applied pseudoscience” much more common than “theoretical pseudoscience”?
11. Do you believe that the discussion about the details of the statistical interpretation of the Betz results for the best dowsers can be decisive for the possible scientific legitimacy of dowsing? Relate to Poppers theory of demarcation.
12. Visit professor Betz web site with his list of publications at http://www.sferics.physik.uni-muenchen.de/index.html. What might be the reason that professor Betz does not mention his research report on dowsing in his list of publications? Visit also professor Enright’s web site http://psy.ucsd.edu/~vislab/Jim.html. What are your comments?
13. How would you explain the fact that dowsing existed all over the world during history and that it survived until today?
REFERENCES
[1] Water Dowsing: The Scheunen Experiments, J. T. Enright, Naturwissenschaften 82, 360-369 (1995) See also http://www.phact.org/e/dowsing.htm
[2] Dowsing Rewiewd – the Effect Persists, H-D Betz, et al. Naturwissenschaften 83, 272-275 (1996)
[3] Dowsers Lost in a Barn, J. T. Enright, Naturwissenschaften 83, 275-277 (1996)
BETZ REPORT BOOK
H. L. König und H.-D. Betz, ERDSTRAHLEN? Der Wünschelruten-Report
Wissenshaftlicher Untersuchungsbericht, Eigenverlag H. L. König und H.-D. Betz, München, 1989
ADDITIONAL READING
[1] Testing Dowsing, Failure of the Munich Experiments, Skeptical Inquirer January 1999 http://www.csicop.org/si/9901/dowsing.html
[2] Dowsing - Science or Humbug? http://www.lysator.liu.se/~rasmus/skepticism/dowsing.html
[3] Dowsing (a.k.a. water witching), Skeptic’s dictionary http://skepdic.com/dowsing.html