My old Petrology professor did a demo with a dowser and the dowser couldn't find the glass of water. I have seen dowsing work out in the field though. The farmers should be free to try which ever method they choose.

Dowsers employ many of the same techniques as cold readers. Part of the game is to get the customer to accept failure as a different kind of success. Its all snake oil, plain and simple..

Years back I knew a water well drilling co. owner. He often used dowsers before drilling. It was safer and cheaper, fewer misses. Better for the customers.

My mining engineer mentor could dowse water and did so for clients all over Nevada, both ranchers and large mining companies. He was also co-inventor of the heap leach method of recovery. He told me he did not know how he did it, but he did. Thought it would be explained by science one day. I have seen two men dowse gold in the field. It is amazing to watch it done. Not everyone can do this anymore than they can throw a 100 mph fastball and hit the corner on a 3-2 pitch, or hit a speeding receiver in the corner 50 yards down field. Metal detectors detect gold, and proton magnetometers find treasure on the sea floor and gold deposits, too. Dowsing is similar in it's scientific methods but not yet explained. I know miners who are superb detectorists but few others can match them. Have watched a gold dowser at work. I challenged him, he won. I know a man who found a million $ pocket, too. We have much to learn yet.

The market will put the divining people out of business if they are always wrong. Why would people in the same area keep hiring them if they are wrong? What are the "scientists" afraid of?