err.. really? (magnetic egg sexer)

[chris]

How can this work?

MAGNETIC EGG SEXER hatching eggs, chicks, chickens | eBay UK

[BigShot]

In short... divination.
Make of that what you will.

[chris]

I would have just replied with "" but it was too short.

so:

[Suechooks]

Theres a guy lives around here who claims he can sex eggs. I met him at one of our local breeders' and have meant to ask next time I'm buying eggs there for all females!

[jessmorris]

I'm sure I read somewhere that folk used to use a stone/crystal whatever on a piece of string and suspend it above the egg. If it twisted one way twas a hen, the other a roo. Hmmm.

[BigShot]

I think this about sums up my view on things like that...
... xkcd: The Economic Argument

[polo]

I saw that too - on Ebay was it?? He he

Whose going to volunteer to test it???

[petal]

i had someone phoned me recently asking for ready sexed eggs, the silly c.w!

[its hilly]

I tried the crystal over one lot of eggs, then the chicks, and ringed the 'boys'.
90% accurate. Two out of the whole batch were wrong.
Its circles for girls, side to side for boys. Very very difficult to keep your hand totally still. I had mine on a book pile with someone else putting the eggs under.

But I've practised dowsing before, can't use wood rods but can use use metal rods or a crystal.

[BigShot]

I tried the crystal over one lot of eggs, then the chicks, and ringed the 'boys'.
90% accurate. Two out of the whole batch were wrong.

Not beyond the realms of chance... particularly if hatchlings usually have a particular percentage split of male to female that you're aware of.

Very very difficult to keep your hand totally still.

Beyond difficult... it's practically impossible.
The real test is to get a string and a weight and try to keep it perfectly still without dowsing. It'll move.

But I've practised dowsing before, can't use wood rods but can use use metal rods or a crystal.

I've got to admit, I'm as sceptical as they come about dowsing... especially in the light of the experiments done to test it.
I have at least one dowser in my family, and if I had to guess I'd put one, possibly two others down as dowsers. At least 4 are convinced it works. While I'm unconvinced, I do find it very interesting.
One thing in particular that's caught my attention recently relates to beekeeping.

What were you dowsing for and what did you find?

[Hilary B]

Dowsing, like most aspects of 'supernature', is simply a matter of natural laws that we can't yet figure out. Many people are subconsciously aware of things that science can't yet explain how it could be known. The essence of tapping that knowledge is to by-pass the conscious mind, which is why it doesn't work very well under 'laboratory conditions'.
90% accuracy on gender-dowsing, 2 wrong, that means there were 20 tested. It's a small sample, but not tiny. I can't remember the details of how to work it out, but I rather think the odds against getting that result by 'chance' are actually quite high, probably hundreds to one.
If, after testing several batches, the score remains over 80%, that would be THOUSANDS to one against chance.
The main reason dowsing isn't used on a large scale, well a combination of reasons, one is that there are not an enormous number of people who are really good at it, another is that large scale operations are working on large areas, and if you think about the method in dowsing, it doesn't lend itself to large areas (there have been successes working from a slow-flying aeroplane, but on the whole the dowser has to have his or her feet on the ground).

Yes I was recently re-reading "Supernature" by Lyall Watson, and yes I do find most of his conclusions fairly convincing. If it works, 'quite a lot of the time', then it is bad science to say "we can't explain it so it isn't happening". I say (with Lyall) that if it works and we can't explain it, then there is a law of nature we don't know, so let's go find it!

[julesapple]

Right, for the sake of a fiver, I've just bought the magic gadget. The only eggs we have to sex are quail, being raised for BoP food, so we can try those and also our non-fertile eggs from the girls. It says in the listing that it works on older chickens, so we'll see what it does with our established hens.

If nothing else, it'll be good for a giggle! Watch this space.....

Jules

[roitelet]

Just a word on dowsing. I knew a dowser who produced some amazing and very accurate results and I have had a go myself with metal rods and that worked too.

When the local commune workman came to inspect the septic tank he asked where the overflows ran. As I didn't know out came the dowsing rods and he found them.

It is also supposed to work to work out the sex of a human baby. Done with a wedding ring on a thread. I don't know if anyone has done it on my Granddaughter yet but I will ask and the result will be known at the end of June when I become a Great Grandmother

[BigShot]

If it works, 'quite a lot of the time', then it is bad science to say "we can't explain it so it isn't happening". I say (with Lyall) that if it works and we can't explain it, then there is a law of nature we don't know, so let's go find it!

It's bad science to write something off because you don't understand it. That's very true.
It's also bad science to make the jump from "something is happening" to "it's a law of nature" and go looking for it.

Ockham's Razor suggests introducing as few variables/unknowns as possible, and introducing unknown laws of nature is an unnecessary variable at the start. It may be that it's a valid one, but there are others which need eliminating before it can be considered.
The variables that already exist are the area being dowsed, the dowser and the dowsing rod/pendulum/other. More than enough to be getting on with.
How do we know it's a law of nature and not simply the dowser going on their knowledge of what they are dowsing for (including knowledge they don't know they have), subtleties in the landscape and so on?

This is why I'm unconvinced. Nobody seems to be looking at the dowser and how they know where to find things, and are instead looking at the act of dowsing.

There's a beekeeper who recently published a book about keeping bees on ley lines. He didn't say it in such explicit terms, and there's a lot of very bad science in his argument, but it seems he believes keeping bees on ley lines reduced varroa problems. The problem is, he's been keeping bees naturally for a LONG time, and it seems he's done nothing to eliminate his husbandry or his own knowledge of where hives seem to do better than others for reasons of shade, aspect, microclimate and so on. I fail to see how we can attribute anything to leylines, "underground rivers" and so on when we've not eliminated the dowser from the equation.

Similarly the septic tank example above... was the guy genuinely "dowsing" or has he in fact seen so many septic tanks in so many situations that he knows roughly where the outflows will go just by looking?
I can see where drains run in housing estates without even looking for the grids and manholes. It doesn't need any rods though... just an understanding of how it works, familiarity from frequent exposure to finding them and a subtle gradient over the area.

Just as the hardline unbelievers will write off dowsing out of hand, it seems to me that the willing believers accept it out of hand too.

[Hilary B]

I accept it because I know of instances of it working. Ley-lines are something I am less than convined about. Get hold of a copy of Supernature, and read it through. He makes a lot of sense (although he does place more credence than I would in publications from Soviet-era Russia).
As for the septic-tank thing, I would say a really effective sense of smell (possibly at below conscious level) is a more likely explanation than 'knowing how they go', but either way, the dowsing taps into subconscious knowledge (which is what most of Supernature is about). There are well recorded instances of the subconscious knowledge not being explicable by our current scientific 'rules', which says to me that there are some 'rules' yet to be found, and surely to deny that there are things yet to be found is just the kind of arrogance that held science back when Galileo was investigating the way things work?