Category:Spinal Dog
Spinal dog is the narrator of a story about the dowsing reflex. He draws upon his own personal experience of having his spine severed from his cerebrum. He feels very strongly that psychological arguments that attempt to disprove dowsing are erroneous.
To show that the body can respond to electomagnetic stimulation from outside the Cerebrum he points to the thousands of dogs who have been asked to display the "scratching reflex" by granting their lives and personal discomfit.
Spinal dog has a firm speculation that the nervous system is able to detect a wide range of signals independent of the "Brain". He points to recent speculation in the book "Your Body is Your Subconscious Mind" as some evidence that the sympathetic nervous system has more nerves in the solar plexus than any other part of the body.
Spinal dog is a firm believer in postivistic science. He and thousands of his colleagues have been providing scientific data that could be measured and repeated. He has expressed his shame at the most popular skeptics as being radical believers who are guilty of poor science in an effort to maintain their cultural agenda. When you have you spine severed for the sake of science you sort of transcend cultural bias.
Observations on Dowsing, By Spinal Dog, M.D.
more spinal dog info: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/pagerender.fcgi?artid=1465804&pageindex=29
Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.
Mark Twain
Bertrand Russell argued that individual actions are based upon the beliefs of the person acting and if the beliefs are unsupported by evidence then such beliefs can lead to destructive actions.
Junk Science and the Law: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2843/is_4_25/ai_76881169
1852;1:147-153.
William B. Carpenter: http://www.nahste.ac.uk/isaar/GB_0237_NAHSTE_P0139.html
Ideomotor Action
- http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/ideomotor.html
- http://www.barrettdorko.com/articles/ideomotor.htm
Michel Chevreul
"to mistake illusions for realities, whenever we are confronted by phenomena in which the human sense-organs are involved under conditions imperfectly analyzed."
Chevreul used this principle of expectant attention to account for the phenomena of dowsing, movements of the exploring pendulum, and the then current fad among spiritualists, table-turning.
call loopholism -- the tendency to seek out each and every loophole in a skeptical account as a way to protect one's belief in a cherished supernatural or pseudoscientific claim.
Ray Hyman, Ph.D.
Many pseudo- and fringe-scientists often react to the failure of science to confirm their prized beliefs, not by gracefully accepting the possibility that they were wrong, but by arguing that science is defective.
Ray Hyman, Ph.D.
http://www.greatdreams.com/dowsing.htm
2.1.2a The Neurophysiological Response.
This theory postulates that the reaction is produced when the brain senses the dowsing force (of whatever nature) and thus sends a motor response to the hands., which produce a slight twist or tilt of the device. As the dowsing device is in a state of unstable equilibrium it acts as a good amplifier of small movements. The tremor in the hands easily produces a recognised dowsing reaction. (Miller (1999), Hansen (1982).)
(Excerpted from Chadwick and Jensen, 1971.)
3.2.2d 6 Conclusions of the Report.
Chadwick and Jensen concluded that:
As no wells were drilled, it had not been proved that dowsing is an efficient method for locating water. However, the correlation between magnetic field gradients and dowsing reactions was highly significant. The data suggests that dowsing rods act as an amplifier for this response. Nearly all those tested possessed this ability
Pages in category "Spinal Dog"
The following 3 pages are in this category, out of 3 total.