Drought Inspires a Boom In Pseudoscience, From Rain Machines To 'Water Witches'

merbs (2708203) writes Across drought-stricken California, farmers are desperate for water. Now, many of them are calling dowsers. These "water witches," draped in dubious pseudoscience or self-assembled mythologies—or both—typically use divining rods and some sort of practiced intuition to "find" water. The professional variety do so for a fee. And business is booming. They're just part of a storied tradition of pseudoscientific hucksters exploiting our thirst for water, with everything from cloudbusters to rainmachines to New Age rituals.

1st post

[deadweight]

Dowsers? They need THIS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A... [wikipedia.org]

Could try sacrificing virgins

[BenSchuarmer]

but it's California, so they may be hard to find.

Not surprising

[ericloewe]

It sounds like a typical reaction:

"No, I'm afraid we can't fix this. We're going to have to work around our problem... Conserve water, reuse wa.... No, no! Don't pay the fucking witch doctor for a rain dance!"

Re: A fool and their money (Witching Sticks)

[Waterwatcher]

A single locating flag wire bent at an angle works EVERY time for buried infastructure. Some use two wires, but I use one. It works every freaking time. Not sometimes, not occasionally, every time. I can find gas lines, water lines, sewer lines, co-axial lines, you name it and it is buried it can be found using witching sticks. The main problem is that you can not identify what you pick up while locating, which is why I then confirm the locate with some other source such as an map or line locator.

But the main point is that it works.

Re:It's OK to attack mythology and superstition...

[mythosaz]

To quote Cecil Adams:

Fighting ignorance since 1973 -- It's taking longer than we thought.

Re: A fool and their money (Witching Sticks)

[tompaulco]

Gas lines, water lines, sewer lines, coaxial lines, electric lines can all be found with a minimum of effort without witching sticks. All you have to do is go to a random spot, any old spot, it doesn't even have to be within 1000 miles of a human settlement, and dig. If you do not hit one of the above, you will at the very least cut the only fiber connection to an entire continent.

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