Iraq Swears By Dowsing Rod Bomb Detector 652
jggimi writes "According to the New York Times, more than fifteen hundred remote sensing devices have been sold to Iraq's Ministry of the Interior, at prices ranging from $16,500 to $60,000 each. The devices are used for bomb and weapon detection at checkpoints, and have no battery or other power source. Sounds great, but according to a retired United States Air Force officer, Lt. Col. Hal Bidlack, they work on the same principle as a Ouija board — the power of suggestion. He described the wand as nothing more than an explosives divining rod. Even though the device has been debunked by the US Military, the US Department of Justice, and even Sandia National Laboratories, the Iraqis are thrilled with the devices. 'Whether it's magic or scientific, what I care about is it detects bombs,' said Maj. Gen. Jehad al-Jabiri, head of the Ministry of the Interior's General Directorate for Combating Explosives."
Now you know (Score:4, Insightful)
where those billions and billions of dollars went.
Confirmation bias (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure, it finds bombs, but youre spending hours wandering around and forgetting about the time you didnt find a bomb.
In a target-rich environment? Sure! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:This kind of upsets me (Score:3, Insightful)
Works very simply (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This kind of upsets me (Score:3, Insightful)
Why should our good men and (and a few women) have to die to 'help' these people?
I agree insofar as "these people" refers specifically to "heads of Ministry of the Interior's General Directorate for Combating Explosives" who are wasting a lot of money, refusing to admit they bought snake oil, and then handing them out to Iraq's own good men (and probably not many women) who are putting their lives on the line.
Because those people are assholes and any country deserves better than that.
Bugs Bunny (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone see the Bugs Bunny cartoon [youtube.com] (@6:40) where he was working on an assembly line during WW2? He had a little hammer that he would tap bombs with to see if they were good or not. Of course one after another was a dud, until finally...
I guess if your divining rod detects a suicide bomber... then what? They detonate? I guess it is 100% effective in that case. Bomb detected.
Perhaps they work as a deterrent (Score:2, Insightful)
In fairness, it might be possible that these wands are actually functioning as a *mild* deterrent, if some of the terrorists have been fooled into thinking that the wands will detect their bombs. This is not enough to justify their cost or the foolishness of relying on them alone to detect bombs, but at least it might mean that the wands aren't contributing entirely negative value to those who are using them.
Re:Another reason why (Score:5, Insightful)
they shouldn't be allowed to have the bomb.
Hmm ... you do realise that's Iraq with a Q, not with an N? The country with the nuclear weapons^Wpower program is next door.
So What? We use "Lie Detectors". (Score:5, Insightful)
Here in the U.S., a great many of our police departments and even federal agencies spend millions on a technology that is equally ridiculous and unprovable in any sort of peer-reviewed scientific study: Lie detectors. If we can have our lie detectors, then surely the Iraqis are entitled to their bomb sniffing dowsing rods.
The proponents of these devices, when confronted with the undeniable technical worthlessness of them, inevitably retreat to the claim that the actual benefits come from the psychology of having people being "investigated" by the devices believe that they are actually capable of something, and then watching their reactions.
Yeah, laugh at the people in Iraq (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Another reason why (Score:5, Insightful)
Right, because we're so much smarter than the Iraqis. We have never had dumb/superstitious people in charge of our military. Therefore they can't handle nukes and we can. /sarcasm
I'd argue that mutually assured destruction is dumber than what we're seeing here. Both are pretty shocking, but "magic bomb detector" risks at most several soldiers' lives, not, you know, everything.
In case you forgot, our leaders were the ones that relied on MAD. With all our eductation and logic, that is what we came up with. If this is the dumbest thing Iraq is doing coming out of Saddam's rule, with little recent history of competent leaders, they're doing pretty well. I wouldn't want them to have nukes, but we're not people who should have nukes either.
Re:So What? We use "Lie Detectors". (Score:3, Insightful)
True, but lie detectors do actually measure things. Heart rate, etc. They're not accurate, but they're not magical either.
This is completely retarded, instead of the lie detector's mostly retarded.
Something I learned from P&T:B.... Clench your ass muscle to fool lie detectors.
Re:This kind of upsets me (Score:4, Insightful)
That's the altruistic way of looking at it. If you want a more selfish reason to keep supporting them, try this one: the middle east is likely to be an important region of the world for years to come, until we find alternatives to oil. Don't you think it would be useful to have a contingent of power in the heart of the area? Cheney and Bush sure did.
In any case, it's silly for you to get upset about Iraq because we've been withdrawing according to schedule for many months now. If you don't like the schedule, that's fine, maybe you can come up with an argument against it.
Re:Water for Thought... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Works very simply (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:This kind of upsets me (Score:4, Insightful)
Because our 'good men' made the mess in the first place. If you make a mess, clean it up. That's good advice for a pre-schooler, and good advice for presidents.
It's also a recipe for an endless, bloody war. Especially when the populace doesn't want you there and the politicians you are supporting are massively corrupt.
Re:This kind of upsets me (Score:5, Insightful)
Before America showed up they had a tyrant dictator who had the good sense to stay out of religious disputes in an area where people with religious disputes are prone to making their case with guns and bombs, even if it means taking their own lives.
We then invaded this not-so-idyllic nation with not so much as a whit of an idea about what to do to turn such a place into a thriving democracy, when doing so would be plainly unfair to the minorities in the religious disputes.
Democracy works when reasonable people come together and are willing to make decisions and sacrifices for the betterment of all the people. It does not work, sadly, in nations where it has been forced into existence replacing an existing corrupt government that the people had no faith in, and no reason to believe in the new government.
Perhaps I'm oversimplifying, but it seems to me that the way to bring "peace" to the Middle East would be through reason, brutally slow diplomacy and encouraging expression of ideas and open debates, encouraging education of children male and female, etc. Basically, using the thin edge of the wedge. Instead we came in with guns and bombs, things these people are all too familiar with, and the ones who don't like us responded in kind.
Re:We do it similary here. (Score:3, Insightful)
much of modern forensics "science" is in a similar state in this country. Do you really believe they can match a smudged fingerprint to a single person with 100% accuracy
Ah, so the fingerprint process with, say 99% accuracy, is equivalent to the Iraqi M50/50 Bomb Divining Device. Right.
So until we are in a place where everyone has a basic understanding of scientific principles ...
I'd suggest you start with your own education. You clearly missed the entire section on probability and statistics.
Re:This kind of upsets me (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So What? We use "Lie Detectors". (Score:4, Insightful)
A quick search suggests that polygraphs normally outperform random chance. By how much seems to be highly variable.
It appears the scientific evidence is that polygraphy is not sufficiently sensitive or specific to be useful as legal evidence, but there's a big difference between a functional but inaccurate technique (i.e. one that outperforms guessing) and one that doesn't.
A likely placebo effect (Score:2, Insightful)
There is likely to be something similar to a placebo effect (in addition to confirmation bias and other psychological pitfalls) that will reinforce the idea that this works for officials there. If they believe it works, it is likely at least some bombers will, too. So it has a deterrent effect that is likely measurable. Therefore if they do some correlation studies later, they are likely to find places that do use these will have lower rates of incident (as long as you don't compare to places with actual bomb detection).
Show Me Statistics (Score:2, Insightful)
'Whether it's magic or scientific, what I care about is it detects bombs,' said Maj. Gen. Jehad al-Jabiri, head of the Ministry of the Interior's General Directorate for Combating Explosives.
I'd be interested to see some numbers on this. It's all fun and games until the other guy turns out to be right, you know.
Re:Another reason why (Score:3, Insightful)
You can't argue with results. Even if you would say that without the MAD doctrine we would have survived without major issues, it's impossible ot argue conclusively against that MAD didn't not work.
Re:Another reason why (Score:3, Insightful)
The thing that's a problem is the price tag! If they want to use dowsing rods, fine. It's not like the U.S. Army didn't try it too, but couldn't they just raid a dry cleaner?
From the Article: (Score:2, Insightful)
The Lebanese Army (Beirut), the Chinese Police (Bejing) , The Thailand Police (Bangkok) also acquired this equipment to detect all types of forbidden substances. This eas done to increase job results and to reach from now on a new level in terms of security and detection of threats.
I can't say I'm surprised, but I am DEEPLY disturbed.
Re:Another reason why (Score:2, Insightful)
You can't argue with results. Even if you would say that without the MAD doctrine we would have survived without major issues, it's impossible ot argue conclusively against that MAD didn't not work.
How do I apply the "correlationisnotcausation" tag to your comment?
Re:So What? We use "Lie Detectors". (Score:3, Insightful)
Also consider the history of the lie detector - it was adopted at a time when the FBI was infamous for being corrupt and taking kickbacks. Also consider the inventor, not an expert in any feild at all related to it but simply the guy that wrote the "Wonder Woman" comics.
It is a scam, one in the long history of snake oil scams where the trick is that the mark does not understand the principles of how the thing is supposed to work.
Re:Water for Thought... (Score:4, Insightful)
It is incredibly easy to be skeptical and cynical, until you have seen something that rivals the best magician's trick. From a guy who spent most of every day of his life by himself.
So did you believe the magician's claim that he has supernatural powers, too? If an old man with a stick and a talent for miming can fool you into thinking that dead wood can turn "into a straining, curving, living thing" and detect water, I've got a card trick to show you.
In my mind there was simply no way you could hold a branch and make it do that -- the branch itself wanted to do it, and did it.
I've located the source of the problem, highlighted above.
Re:This kind of upsets me (Score:5, Insightful)
It's funny, but people seem to be tolerant of their own messes more readily than somebody else's, especially when it's their country. I'm not saying we didn't make a lot of things better, but if you want gratitude for coming in and fixing somebody else's country, man, the bar is high. Especially when you have all kinds of ethnic and religious fault lines running through the country, which pretty much means every time you scratch your ass, millions of people on one side win and millions on the other lose.
My problem with the war all along was that once the original WMD rationale didn't pan out, there wasn't any kind of strategic focus. I caught some flack from my fellow liberals when I said, well, doing such and so is probably good, or the surge will probably reduce violence. But the problem was never that there weren't worthwhile things to get done. It was that the "and then what happens" part seldom got thought through very far, and the "and then after that" part about never. We would invade "and then we'd be greeted as liberators." Ok and what happens after that? We'd rebuild X schools, yeah that's good. But then what happens after that? If we use much higher troop levels, we can control violence better (well, duh). And then what? Actually the surge was probably the most promising piece of strategy in the war, because there actually *were* a lot of things we wanted to be able to do in the breathing space that gave us. But we didn't know *how* to do them and most of them didn't happen.
And there was never a sequence of milestones that ended like this: "and then Iraq was able to manage its own internal and external security and most of our guys get to come home." Maybe it wasn't humanly possible to envision a series of milestones like that, between the Kurds and the Sunni and the Shia and the outside interference from Iran and Jihadi groups. Still, much of the strategic thinking in Washington seemed to amount to this: we were fighting there so we could get to keep on fighting there.
That's the problem with sending our good men and women -- and even the *bad* men and women too like those shits in the Abu Ghraib photos -- to die.. It's not that there aren't imaginable goals that are worth the cost, or that even helping the people of Iraq isn't worth the cost. It's that without a better strategy, the only certain payoff for the death of one of guys has been that we get to send *more* of our guys to be killed. That's a mindset that has for any practical purpose accepted defeat, but won't admit it for political reasons.
Re:Water for Thought... (Score:3, Insightful)
Do you have some actual examples of unreasonable changes they've demanded? Every time somebody points me toward historical examples, it usually ends up with the claimant demanding that JREF front a bunch of money to pay for something. I'm interested in which case you're thinking of.
There's a simpler explanation for that, and it doesn't require malice: When you offer a million dollars to any kook who thinks he has magic powers, you're going to have to invest a LOT of resources in figuring out which ones are legitimate and which ones are people who just need medical help.
Re:Seen this before! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Water for Thought... (Score:2, Insightful)
1) You clearly haven't seen very many good magician's tricks. I was obsessed with magic tricks when I was younger and learned a lot of basic moves and techniques. But even with that there are some really, really simple tricks that use very simple props, or no props at all, that seem impossible and that I have no idea how to do. So when you say "In my mind there was simply no way you could _________" all I see is a huge red flag. It's called the Argument from Personal Incredulity, and it's a blatant logical fallacy. Someone who is not overly familiar with magic tricks, as I think might apply in your case, can see no way this effect could have been achieved without the claim being true. Someone who is moderately familiar with performance magic, on the other hand, can imagine quite easily that it could be the result of an illusion.
2) As for your "straining, curving, living thing" diving at the ground, I have to say, I'm shocked and the credulity of this statement. You think you can't make a branch held at two points bend and curve? Very small muscle movement is all it takes to make a freshly cut (and therefore flexible) branch move quite a lot, so it could seem like the branch was moving while the hands holding it stayed still. Combine that with the fact that it's been some time since this happened, I'd say it's entirely likely that you saw either an ideomotor effect or a skilled performance, and exaggerated it in your memory to the point where you remember it in a very dramatic light. Like I said, I used to study magic, and a huge amount of that is knowing how to take advantage of the remarkable human ability to remember things that didn't actually happen, or misremember things from how they really went down.
3) Just for the record, skeptical and cynical are not sister mindsets. I am so sick of people equating them, as I am actually quite idealistic on the whole, while also maintaining a healthy skeptical outlook. Skepticism only seems like a downer attitude when it pops someone's bubble by pointing out something they really want to be true isn't actually, and they get all petulant and bent out of shape about it.
It is funny you mentioned magician's tricks, though. You know, there's a reason there's so much overlap between skeptics and magicians. It's because magicians know how easy it is to do "impossible" things, and don't accept claims based solely on how something "appears" to happen.
Re:This kind of upsets me (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, I don't buy into the notion that we wanted to go in and "steal" the oil. It's perfectly reasonable to have a strong interest in the stability of the unstable region that produces your energy supply. In fact, if our leadership wasn't interested in the Middle East for the oil, they'd be ignoring their duties. When people from certain countries bitch that we're only interested in their oil, I often can't help but think, "Yeah, it's a real shame that we don't hang out with repressive backward thugocracies more often... just for the company."
Depending on how you look at it, stopping a monstrous regime is either icing on the cake or a good excuse for doing what you wanted to do anyway. Still, I don't think that we should make any mistake about whether or not energy security was the major reason we went in. Without oil, it's pretty easy just to add Iraq to the list of countries we don't bother with because they're murderous dictatorships, unstable hellholes with constant tribal warfare and genocide, or whatever else.
Re:Confirmation bias (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, I haven't become a firm believer but I can't think for the life of me how I found those pipes consistently.
You didn't. Or at least no more consistently than before, on average.
I'll probably never figure it out, maybe it just placebo/memory tricks.
Yep, people remember the hits and forget the misses. Having your friends egging you on and telling you how great you're doing also tends to contribute to the perception of greater success.
About five years back a buddy of mine had me completely convinced that I was psychic. We were playing a card game, and I kept predicting the cards that would come up. Both of us were awed and amazed by it, and couldn't figure out any way how it could happen other than by magic. Then I started learning about skepticism and science, and I now look back on that incident with more than a little embarrassment. Understanding statistics certainly helps explain what was going on, but the real eye-opener was becoming familiar with, as James Randi would say, "How people are fooled, and how they fool themselves". Understanding the weaknesses in human perception really lets you see a universe which is quite different from how most people perceive it.
I for one am not quite so quick to dismiss it, until I can work out a better explanation.
That's a great attitude. The problem is that you haven't really bothered to test it. Here's what you do:
1. Get 10 solid containers with lids. Ensure that they are not even slightly translucent (hold them up to a light-bulb).
2. Number the cups 1-10. Get a deck of cards and get rid of all the jokers and face cards (ie. keep only numbers 1-10, all suits).
3. Set the cups up in a row, in a room with 2 separate exists which are closed off by opaque doors.
4. Get an assistant, give him a clipboard and a pencil (keeping a second clipboard for yourself), and instruct him as such:
When I leave the room, you will shuffle the deck and pull one card out at random. You will write down the number on this clipboard. You will then fill the corresponding cup with water, place it back beside the other cups, and move them all slightly. Once you have done this, you will re-shuffle the cards and put them back on the table, leave the room by the back door (taking the clipboard with you), close the door, and yell out "READY!".
5. Once your assistant has left the room and called for you, you may enter the room (through the opposite door), dowse for your cup, and write down your guess on your own clipboard (the one from step 3). You will then leave the room, taking your clipboard with you, close the door, and yell for your assistant to repeat the process.
There's your setup for a double blind experiment. You and your assistant can perform the procedure as many times as you wish, but it should be done at least 10 times if you expect any reasonable results (100 or 1,000 would be better, but might be a bit of a pain). Once you have conducted enough trials, simply take both clipboards to a third party and have him/her compare the results.
If you're getting 1 or 2 out of 10, you're doing no better than guesswork. :)
If you're getting 0 out of 10, you have really shitty luck
If you're getting 3 or more out of 10 it's probably a fluke and you should do some more trials to see if the trend continues.
If, however, after further trials you continue to get a statistically significant result, you should apply for the JREF million dollar prize! Just call me to arrange a meeting - I'll help you plan our travel arrangements (at your expense), and only take 5% off the top ;)
It's another trick - here's how to do it. (Score:2, Insightful)
2. They use their fingers and twist the rods to cross - it's a really easy trick. Easier than the "Y" branch mentioned above.
3. If they're so good, then why don't they go for: oil, gold, uranium, diamonds, etc...
Re:Water for Thought... (Score:2, Insightful)
[ bored voice ]
Randi's challenge is not a scam, the rules state clearly that the protocol cannot be changed once both parties agree to it ("5. After an agreement is reached on the protocol, no part of the testing procedure may be changed in any way without the further agreement – in writing – of all parties concerned."), applicants have a history of reporting being very satisfied with the protocols, only to start complaining about them once the test fails, blah, blah.
[ / bored voice ]
The media requirement is to stop the flood of mentally ill and/or mistaken/deluded/unrealistically optimistic people that swamped the JREF for years. I should point out that "media attention" covers a very wide range, is an easy requirement to satisfy, and if anyone has genuine paranormal powers, they should have no trouble fulfilling it.
As for people who get in the media not needing a million bucks, A) EVERYONE needs a million bucks, even if you just turn around and give it to a charity (I'm looking at you, Sylvia "I don't need the money anyway" Brown) and B) So getting a 2 minute human interest blurb on the local news channel is an instant gateway to fame and success that makes taking a test for a million dollars a wasteful endeavor? That is such a bogus cop-out.
But hey, you want to believe that the paranormal is real, despite a total lack of proof and more than enough indication of falsehood, so I guess if you're going to keep that up you HAVE to believe that Randi is pulling stunts to keep people from winning. Have fun with that.
Re:Another reason why (Score:3, Insightful)
Confirmation of the success of MAD could only come from the testimony of people who could and would confirm that they did not launch nuclear attacks against (US/USSR) due to fear of massive reprisal.
Either way, MAD is an idea, and it's one that works, at least in theory. If it worked in practice, it saved a large percentage of the world population from annihilation.
It's f'ing retarded to liken it, in any way, to bomb diving rods in Iraq.
Re:Insightful (Score:1, Insightful)
Mentioning James Randi's 'challenge' doesn't garner you (or him) any credibility. Its not exactly in the same league as an 'X' prize. He's backed out of his offer several times to my knowledge.
Re:This kind of upsets me (Score:3, Insightful)
Way I see it, if you live in a Democracy you kind of have to take responsibility for the monumental fuck-ups of your leaders. Our system isn't supposed to be so easily subverted to achieve the personal ambitions of one person. I'm pretty sure the fact that it was means that we did something wrong.
Yes, and at that time I was extremely upset with Bush for a while for pushing us towards an unpopular war. Then one day I heard a commentator who said essentially, "these people who say, 'no blood for oil' don't realize that most Americans would answer them and say, 'why not?" That's when I realized it's a much deeper problem than a single politician going over the deep end. The fact is a good portion of the country views the world as a wild place that soon is going to drag us into another world war and we need to be prepared for it.
Because so many people in the US are ok with war, even if the rest of us all get together and write to our government, it will still not make a difference. There are very few people who see world peace as any kind of serious possibility, but that is mainly because they haven't really thought about it much. What needs to happen is a change in the way our country sees things; and it can happen, although it may be slow. I do what I can to help people see more clearly, and as I grow older, more experienced, and more capable, I am having more and more success at doing so. But I am always happy to hear other ways I can help.
Re:Insightful (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Another reason why (Score:3, Insightful)
Although the American military budget funds a lot of nonsense, you have to admit that we get an awful lot of really cool side effects.
It's psychological! Stop thinking logical! (Score:1, Insightful)
It doesn't matter if it actually, scientifically works -- all that matters is if the person being scanned THINKS it might work. The security person would be looking at the reaction of the person being scanned to find out if there is something to be worried about in the front left jacket pocket.
Re:This kind of upsets me (Score:3, Insightful)
Would you mind pointing out the actual hypocrisy that you're perceiving? Let me see if I understand you: "1. You enjoy the benefits of oil. 2. You don't want people to die to ensure cheap access to that oil. 3. Therefore you're a hypocrite." I'm completely missing how 1 and 2 lead to 3. Isn't it possible that I want to pay more for oil? Or that I want our country to work to eliminate our dependence on oil? Or I believe that fighting for the oil is actually a terrible way to accomplish our goals? Why, if I enjoy the benefits of oil, must I accept sending our military abroad to fight for it?
Do you actually have a point, or are you just enjoying pretending to have won a point against them filthy city dwellin' lib'ruls?
Re:This kind of upsets me (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:So What? We use "Lie Detectors". (Score:1, Insightful)
"True, but lie detectors do actually measure things. Heart rate, etc. "
They measure lots of things. However there is no basis for how those things predict a lie.
Re:Insightful (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone who gets the chance to meta mod needs to fix this. Disagreeing with the parent does not make him a troll.
Re:Insightful (Score:4, Insightful)
Please down mod the parent. People do not get down modded because others disagree with them. There is no -1 I think this guys beliefs are a crock.
A recommendation that the moderation system be abused to censor opposing viewpoints is certainly a troll at the very least.
Re:This kind of upsets me (Score:4, Insightful)
'Democracy works when reasonable people come together and are willing to make decisions and sacrifices for the betterment of all the people.'
Ahhh... so thats why democracy hasn't shown any sign of being a successful form of government.
Re:This kind of upsets me (Score:3, Insightful)
If you arrived at my home uninvited break down my door and force your way into my home at gunpoint. Refusing to leave when I repeatedly ask you to on the basis that you want to clean up the glass may not be the best idea.
We were bombing Iraq long before we invaded. We invaded with no cause and then forced them to elect their own government. That government then passed a proposal telling us to leave their country. We ignored that so we can 'rebuild'. Of course we are mostly using their money to do this rebuilding and paying that money to US contractors (what happened to the Iraqis who built the infrastructure we blew up in the first place).
The whole argument that we have to stay to clean up the mess only stands because everyone refuses to mention the fact that the Iraq democratically elected government have legally and publically asked us to get the hell out of their country repeatedly.
Re:Another reason why (Score:3, Insightful)
Agree, but MAD is hardly the best example...
Yeah... I must be badanalogyguy in disguise. Not the best comparison (by far), I just wanted to point out that while the Iraqis are doing stupid things with bomb detectors, we were setting up a situation where we and Russia would do much stupider things with much bigger bombs, so implying we can be trusted with those same bigger bombs but the Iraqis can't is absurd.
Re:This kind of upsets me (Score:3, Insightful)
"Really? Do you have a reason to think that the majority of the populace doesn't want us there?"
Well according to the philosophy on which our nation is founded. The people of Iraq democratically electing a government that in turn has passed numerous measures saying they are capable of taking care of themselves and telling us to leave means that is what the populace wants.
Re:Insightful (Score:1, Insightful)
There are no viewpoints here. Either you have facts, or you have nothing. And a few anecdotes don't count as facts.
Your parent pointed out facts. You want people to mod him down because you don't seem to like these facts. The problem is you, not the moderators.
You don't have to believe in it. (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't ask me how it works - those witching sticks are just dead wooden sticks in my hands. But, I've seen it work, so I have to believe in it.
No, you don't. As Feynman said, “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.”
We use the scientific process precisely because we can't just trust ourselves. A few weeks ago, I climbed on a mountain, sat in the grass, and watched the clouds. Suddenly, the clouds started to move backwards and forwards. It's a miracle! I've seen it with my own eyes! Well, no. It's an optical illusion that some people get when staring into a bright light for too long.
Likewise, since all experiments have shown that dowsing rods work exactly as well as random chance, the most likely explanation for your father in law's ability is that he's able to subconsciously deduce where pipes go and where they are broken based on the effects these things have on the environment. That also explains why it doesn't work for you.
Re:Insightful (Score:4, Insightful)
'Either you have facts, or you have nothing.'
That is an interesting viewpoint. But there are no readouts from instrumentation here. And this isn't a peer reviewed journal. This isn't even a forum for science. Slashdot comments are nothing but individuals expressing their opinions and everyone is entitled to one even one most think is unfounded or ridiculous.
"Your parent pointed out facts. You want people to mod him down because you don't seem to like these facts."
No he stated his opinion of the current state of the facts. You in turn stated your own unfounded opinion of my views. I didn't say anything about my own view on the issue. But if anyone cares, I am highly skeptical to claims of dowsing.
I do however think that any previous studies on the matter aside the fact that soldiers who are literally dying in the field are finding the rods to work as well or better than other instrumentation at finding bombs merits a closer look.
Claiming that dowsing water works no better than chance is one thing since there is water all over the place. Even in Iraq bombs aren't exactly everywhere like water is. The chances of a man without instrumentation picking out the location of a bomb without knowing if one exists are plenty slim. Let alone for this to happen enough that the Iraqis are willing to bet their lives on the products.
Re:Insightful (Score:3, Insightful)
Fraud isn't even needed....
Builders tend to follow certain patterns when putting in wiring.
If you have seen a lot it isn't hard to guess where they are in the next building.
You don't even need to be aware that you 'know' these patterns... you can simple compare the rod with dombo's feather.. you are doing it all yourself.
Add some conformation bias and random change and you get nice results...
Re:This kind of upsets me (Score:2, Insightful)
How can the parent post have been modded insightful? It's completely moronic. The people that are concerned about blood for oil are not against purchasing oil, they are against unfair trade, hegemony, and starting wars in order to get oil. The idea of obtaining oil from oil producing countries in a fair manner by trade amongst mutually respected trading partners is neither hypocritical nor unrealistic.
Re:This kind of upsets me (Score:2, Insightful)
Looking at the issue of generating power, there are several choices available, and coal is one of those, but so also is nuclear, wind and solar. They're more expensive, and any tiny amount more expensive than oil means they wont be used right now, but they're not *massively* more expensive, its not like ten times or even a hundred times, it's like, well here is one view of coal vs nuclear [nucleartourist.com] which evalutes it as 30 dollars per megawatt hour instead of 29.1 ...
Next, you discussed distribution of power, specifically I felt you feel that using coal to generate power means that it's no longer possible to power machinery on farms, or to power transport.
Even today, we have electric powered:
It seems reasonable to suppose that if we wished to, we could make electrically powered farm machinery too. Sure, there may be issues, like disposing of old batteries, but they are not I feel insurmountable issues, and I feel they are not issues that will push our civilisation back to the dawn of the 1900s are you are proposing...
Re:Another reason why (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's rewind time a bit; suppose Einstein's advice was followed and the U.S. didn't build the bomb. No Hiroshima or Nagasaki as testament to its effects. It is known the Soviet Union was working on their own as was Germany. After the war, both the Soviets and the U.S. rushed to grab German scientists. So even if the Soviet Union wasn't working on it during the war, they'd have been working on it after. And they were led by that great humanitarian, Stalin. Hmmmm....what would a Stalin do with nukes knowing no one could retaliate...I give up, I cannot guess...
Let's assume that Stalin gets a case of Empathy and decides not to nuke his enemies, even the real ones. Roll time forward a bit. Iran decides it needs nukes to get out the Kill-the-Jews vote in Islam. The U.S., having eschewed nukes because they were bad, would surely have pressured Israel into no nukes as well. There is no stopping Iran from getting a nuke, they need it to help bring back the Mahdi and well, y'know, there are still some undead Jews.
Then there are those nice N. Koreans who are about as well adjusted as a squirrel after his third cup of coffee. Would you like L.A. with that holocaust or just a bit of self-indulgent sugar?
Re:This kind of upsets me (Score:3, Insightful)
It seems rather hypocritical to me to rail against Blood for Oil while living extremely comfortably in an advanced western society directly reaping the benefits of having that oil in the fuel tank of your car or providing power to your public transport or the plastic for nearly every type of luxury possible and fertiliser for your food that makes tomatoes and potatoes worth less than $1000 a tonne. Especially hypocritical is the western metro, urban left who have the more than anyone else on the entire planet to lose if the oil stops...
It is only hypocritical if we actually had a choice. The fact that we have been lucky enough to be born into the receiving end of the oil-based economy does not mean that we have to shut up about it. On the contrary, it is very hypocritical to defend Blood for Oil just because you're the one enjoying the benefits. "Oh yes, murder for money is totally OK, because I'm paid off by the assassin!" I find your morals objectionable!
Re:Insightful (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Insightful (Score:2, Insightful)
Yeah. And considering the likely consequences of failure in this application, that's got to be one hell of a confirmation bias at work.
Re:Insightful (Score:3, Insightful)
Please down mod the parent. People do not get down modded because others disagree with them. There is no -1 I think this guys beliefs are a crock.
I agree, but actually, the negative mods were for "overrated", which means they disagreed with the "+1 interesting" mods. Thats valid, is it not?
Re:Another reason why (Score:3, Insightful)
The US military has a research arm that gets it wrong sometimes, but we're not seeing psychic soldiers reading the minds of terrorists in the field or anything. We're not deploying the gay bomb anywhere. If anything, its sometimes interesting to hear some out of the box ideas. Look at the success of the predator drone, which is an old idea and one scoffed at for a long time.
The difference here is that Iraq is buying these things and using them instead of tested methods. They are letting guys with cars full of bombs pass through checkpoints because their magic wand said so.
>he Pentagon and intel agencies actually spent millions on "psychic warfare" projects at one point
An intel/defense organization is like any business. Managers (usually generals) have pet projects and try these things. Its not everyone in charge sat down and said "Yes, we need psychics now!" If there's any government institution that is by its nature skeptical its the military, because new unproven methods turn into lost lives and lost wars pretty quickly.
Re:Another reason why (Score:2, Insightful)
So far it seems that the US, China and Russia have all been deterred by MAD.
That's not to say it would work with Iran or North Korea should they have nuclear tipped ICBMs. Saddam acted irrationally in not withdrawing from to avoid a US led invasion Kuwait and even more irrationally in not disarming in a verifiable way to avoid another more serious US invasion aimed at removing him from power. There's not really much sign that having nukes would have given him a deterrent capability against the US. Actually the odds are that a nuclear armed NK or Iran would be at more risk of an attack than less because they lack the diplomatic subtlety to make deterrence work.
Still once again, what's the alternative to trying it?
Re:Water for Thought... (Score:3, Insightful)
There are lots of interesting things in life that science does not have all mapped out. Reading someone's thoughts, for example. It is impossible to intelligently debate these things in an online forum such as this. The polite thing to do is to agree to disagree.
No, the polite thing to do is concede that the scientific method has been used to check these sorts of claims, and they've inevitably been bunk. The rational thing to do is yield to facts and quite holding on to childlike superstition.
Now, keep in mind, I'm not claiming this neighbour of yours was deliberately deceitful. Quite the opposite, in fact. The ideomotor effect combined with confirmation bias is a very powerful thing, and as such, he probably believed that he had some sort of supernatural power. But don't be fooled, it was bullshit. Subconscious bullshit, yes, but bullshit all the same.
Re:Insightful (Score:4, Insightful)
Now, if they are dousing out individual springs, that might be something, but as others have mentioned, proof that it happens any better than random is lacking.
Even when they 'find' water, proof that other places didn't have water is required for any substantive belief that they 'found' anything on a better than random chance.
Re:Insightful (Score:3, Insightful)
You can't disprove or prove anything.
That has to be the most ridiculously obtuse thing I've read in a long *long* time. Science and scientists are *specifically* dedicated to the process of disproving theories. Hell, one of the key things that defines a theory as scientific is that it's falsifiable.
Christ, the ignorance displayed by some is truly astonishing...
Re:Another reason why (Score:3, Insightful)
But these guys really, really wanted to find actual, no bullshit, no cold-reading, honest-to-God psychics. And they didn't.
Or perhaps that's exactly what they want you to think.
DIFW? (Does It Work) (Score:2, Insightful)