Divining Rods and DCP

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_Themis
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Re: Divining Rods and DCP

Post by _Themis »

Daniel Peterson wrote:The responses here illustrate pretty well why I don't judge this a serious place for discussion.



More excuses for why you only engage trivialities, and spend a fair amount of time on them here. One would think trying to engage in substance would be preferable no matter what they think of this place or it's participants.
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_Daniel Peterson
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Re: Divining Rods and DCP

Post by _Daniel Peterson »

Meaning I've got to respond to everybody on every topic, at their demand?

High price. Little benefit.

Hmmmmm.
_Themis
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Re: Divining Rods and DCP

Post by _Themis »

Daniel Peterson wrote:Meaning I've got to respond to everybody on every topic, at their demand?

High price. Little benefit.

Hmmmmm.


LOL More excuses for not engaging in substance.
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_Daniel Peterson
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Re: Divining Rods and DCP

Post by _Daniel Peterson »

Themis wrote:More excuses for why you only engage trivialities, and spend a fair amount of time on them here. One would think trying to engage in substance would be preferable no matter what they think of this place or it's participants.

Given DrW's incessant preening of himself on his passionate love of facts (so unlike me), his relationship to reality (so much closer than mine), and his rationality (so far superior to my own), along with his factless, even counterfactual, depiction of me as hostile to science, what real purpose would be served in attempting to reason with him?

Seriously. What would be the point?

You spend your time your way. I'll spend mine the way I choose.

Trying to change the mind of a smug dogmatist for the amusement of a small and hostile audience isn't high on my priority list.
_Corpsegrinder
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Re: Divining Rods and DCP

Post by _Corpsegrinder »

Trying to change the mind of a smug dogmatist for the amusement of a small and hostile audience isn't high on my priority list.

Your 7100+ posts at Mormon Discussions say otherwise, Dan.

I have no interest in conversing with you, not because I nearly went to Caltech as an undergraduate or spent time at the Volcanological and Seismological Observatory of Costa Rica or entered BYU as a mathematics major with a life-sized photo of Albert Einstein on my dorm room wall, but because I don't find you intellectually serious on the issues you say you want to discuss. You're dogmatic, ill-informed, and prone to sloppy, self-serving distortions.

Blood pressure, Dan, blood pressure.

Okay, so let’s move the focus away from DrW and his “dogmatic, ill-informed" and "sloppy, self-serving distortions” (wow, you're a nice guy, Dan) and look at another scientist. If an when Thomas Eagar ever adds his testimony to Mormon Scholars testify, he will most likely do so in accordance with the following:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology engineering professor Thomas W. Eagar was at first unwilling to acknowledge the concerns of the movement, saying "if (the argument) gets too mainstream, I'll engage in the debate." In response to Steven E. Jones publishing a hypothesis that the World Trade Center was destroyed by controlled demolition, Eager said that adherents of the 9/11 Truth movement would use the reverse scientific method to arrive at their conclusions, as they "determine what happened, throw out all the data that doesn't fit their conclusion, and then hail their findings as the only possible conclusion. (Emphasis mine.)

If he does, won’t it tend to detract from the credibility of his “testimony” as a scientist? When subjected to close scrutiny, how can his or any other scientist’s testimony possibly add to the credibility of the Church?
_LDS truthseeker
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Re: Divining Rods and DCP

Post by _LDS truthseeker »

OK, enough DCP bashing. Now getting back to the topic of the thread before it was high jacked; I'd like to discuss the relationship I've observed with those that claim divining rods work compared to the effectiveness of using of seer stones.

With the divining rod phenomenon, we find thousands of people that believe, even today, that divining rods can be used to find water. Yet, this claim can be scientifically tested and it fails every time in controlled testing.

Although the dowsers admit that the tests are fair, they continue to believe in their dowsing ability even after they repeatedly fail them during controlled testing. The dowsers have no good answers for their failure. They just know it works for them in uncontrolled environments but not in controlled environments. Their “successes” in uncontrolled environments may be due to the ‘remember the hits and forget the misses’ approach to dowsing. If they found 10 spots and dug ten wells and didn’t find any water and then struck water on their 11th well, they would probably say they were successful at finding water with their dowsing stick and probably never even mention the 10 failures that preceded the success.

I submit the analysis of seer stones could benefit from the analysis of the dowsing experience. With seer stones, many people (at least back in Joseph’s time) believed in seer stones even though there doesn’t seem to be much evidence at all that they really worked.

Joseph was actually paid to look in his seer stone and tell people where to dig for buried treasure. Joseph would kick back and let the workers dig for the treasure while he probably started thinking of what excuses he can tell them when they don’t find any treasure.

Joseph never found any real treasure for any of his employers. He did find a tail feather once though. Gee that was impressive and of course it would have been “impossible” to have planted that there ahead of time.

The only thing close to a success was when he found stick pin on the porch after Martin Harris dropped it and asked Joseph to peer into his stone and find it. My, that was impressive as well. I don’t suppose that’s the only way to find an object just dropped on the ground.

At any rate, in a controlled environment I submit that a seer stone would be about as helpful as a Divining Rod in locating treasure or discerning God’s will or anything else that you would normally use a rock or stick for. But of course the believers would still say it worked but just not in controlled environments. Thoughts?
_Buffalo
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Re: Divining Rods and DCP

Post by _Buffalo »

Irrational people always have an excuse for why their irrational beliefs don't and shouldn't stand up to scientific scrutiny.
Parley P. Pratt wrote:We must lie to support brother Joseph, it is our duty to do so.

B.R. McConkie, © Intellectual Reserve wrote:There are those who say that revealed religion and organic evolution can be harmonized. This is both false and devilish.
_Themis
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Re: Divining Rods and DCP

Post by _Themis »

Daniel Peterson wrote:
You spend your time your way. I'll spend mine the way I choose.



I never said you couldn't. I was just noting that when discussions of substance come up, you usually do not participate like you do all the time with many of the trivial discussions around here. I will also note that this is not meant to be bashing DCP.
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_Themis
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Re: Divining Rods and DCP

Post by _Themis »

LDS truthseeker wrote:
The only thing close to a success was when he found stick pin on the porch after Martin Harris dropped it and asked Joseph to peer into his stone and find it. My, that was impressive as well. I don’t suppose that’s the only way to find an object just dropped on the ground.


Whats interesting is the Joseph was on the ground looking for the pin before being asked to use his seer stone. I suspect Joseph knew Martin would eventually ask and probably had already found it, hidden it under a branch, and then just waited to be asked. What a great way to continue to trick people into believing you actually have some kind of supernatural power.

At any rate, in a controlled environment I submit that a seer stone would be about as helpful as a Divining Rod in locating treasure or discerning God’s will or anything else that you would normally use a rock or stick for. But of course the believers would still say it worked but just not in controlled environments. Thoughts?


I agree that it would not work any better then chance under testing, but what choice do apologists have but to say it did work for Joseph, but maybe it didn't for anyone else. The evidence that he used it in the production of the Book of Mormon is obvious and so it cannot really be abandoned without also abandoning the Book of Mormon.
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_LDS truthseeker
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Re: Divining Rods and DCP

Post by _LDS truthseeker »

Themis wrote:I agree that it would not work any better then chance under testing, but what choice do apologists have but to say it did work for Joseph, but maybe it didn't for anyone else. The evidence that he used it in the production of the Book of Mormon is obvious and so it cannot really be abandoned without also abandoning the Book of Mormon.


The church reportedly has several of Joseph's seer stones in their vault, including one he used for translating the Book of Mormon. I don't suppose the church would be up for an experiment?
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