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Iraq Swears By Dowsing Rod Bomb Detector
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."
But the device works “on the same principle as a Ouija board”
So in effect, this device will justify my search of anyone that I feel has a bomb. Even if I know it's bogus (and I'd not be surprised if the Iraqis do know this), it permits me to search anyone I want just because I feel they may have a bomb. I'd not be surprised if there was some correlation between suspicious-looking-folks and folks-with-bombs, so the power of unbounded searching is probably (somewhat) effective.
On the other hand, if they really do believe that these devices work, then the bombers may share those beliefs. That, also, could deter bombings.
Either way, it's a win for Iraq ... well, if you don't care about human rights and the millions of dollars.
It may still have a benefit if the terrorists also have such a blind belief in the technology. If they know there are bomb detectors at the gate, they will be less likely to try to sneak a bomb through.
Qxe4
No post about polygraphy is complete without a link to antipolygraph.
For anyone interested, the site has a lot of great information, including a free book that goes into intimate details regarding how polygraphs are operated and how their results are interpreted to mean either "truth" or "lies". They even have the operator's handbooks and interpretation guides for giving an examination and information on how to "beat the box".
Very interesting stuff -- doubly so for anyone who might sometime be in a position where taking a polygraph is required for a job or security clearance.
"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
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Michael Shermer, famous Skeptic, gave a TED speech on "why people believe strange things." He actually brought one of those detectors out on stage, and said that US public schools were buying it as a marijuana detector, and paying hundreds of dollars for it. Looking at the image in the article, it appears to be the same device.
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.
Checkpoints are designed to minimize damage from a ... erm ... "premature detonation". The guy with the wand might get splattered pretty good if he's right up close, but everyone else makes it out just fine. It still sucks for the guy who's swinging that thing, but it's a loss in the bad-guys book because they can't afford to trade men on a 1 to 1 basis. There's only so many crazy people who'll strap a bomb to themselves.
Also, suicide bombers have been known to change their minds when confronted with such a situation. It's one thing to kill dozens of your enemies (even if they're civilians shopping for groceries) for the Glory of Allah - quite another thing to kill yourself and, if you're lucky, only take out one poor $2-per-hour rent a cop.
He had a bit of success at it too.
Why? How? I do not know. He's is the best man I have ever known, and I trust him.
A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.
If you are an American, Englishman, Frenchman, German, Australian, Canadian or other western individual your country, civilisation and way of life depends 110% on keeping those barrels of oil flowing into your trucks, tractors, machinery and cars.
Without those barrels of oil your lifestyle will go back to 1900's style in many ways and quite a few of you will die. Coal of course can pick up the slack in many areas of energy production but then be prepared for the pollution and death that it brings...1900 style fogs of coal particles. Food production will decrease and the labour needed to produce it will go up by tenfold so without being alarmist millions of people in the less fortunate parts of the world will die without the wealth of cheap western food that much of that oil grows that keeps them fed.
As for the environment and CO2 emmissions without oil, what we're putting out now will be like a trickle compared to using coal.
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...
I guess it's easier to project the guilt onto the big bad rich white men. Kinda like how many junkies blame their dealers for the state of their own lives...
Actually a hallmark of dowsers is they tend not to purposefully lie. They certainly believe what they're saying due to the strength of the idoemotor effect and confirmation bias.
-The world would be a better place if everyone had a hoverboard
I remember reading something about it in New Scientist years ago (probably 1980 something). It was about research into magnetic fields and what happens when water moves and the jist of it was that some people are unconsciously sensitive to these fields.
I can't remember the details, but it does kind of make sense to me considering that there are lots of animals with sensitivity to magnetic fields and our own bodies are full of little tiny ferrite dots being pumped around. It doesn't make much sense to me when it comes to detecting explosives, but a fool and his money are soon parted...
That copy of New Scientist was given to me by my grandfather who taught me divining. It goes back centuries in our family.
I don't therefore I'm not.
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...
It is not hypocritical to believe that we should all obtain our oil on the free market. Note that the Iraq war has *not* made oil cheaper: in fact it has got five times more expensive. The Iraq war has not improved the lifestyle for those of us in the belligerent countries.
I guess it's easier to project the guilt onto the big bad rich white men. Kinda like how many junkies blame their dealers for the state of their own lives...
In the four years I spent as a drug counsellor I never heard any drug users blaming their dealers for 'the state of their own lives'.
Almost invariably, a drug users dealers are his friends and his friends are his dealers. Drug 'pushers' are mythical beasts.
Water dowsers (and the general public) speak of underground water as if it were rivers, creeks, and pools; it's an easy mistake to make.
Anyone with a background in hydro-geology understands that underground water is more like layers. Look at a mountain cutout along the highway and you can see how many layers of rock exist in just a few feet of depth. Between each layer are fissures, water flows through such fissures pulled by gravity further and further down.
Drill deep enough and you reach a point where the speed of permeation into the layers below is slow enough and permeation from above is steady enough to result in accumulation; this is our "water table". Drill deeper and your well actually becomes a pressure outlet for those deeper layers.
By knowing how deep your neighbors well is (I've used a well over a mile away for comparison before) and estimating the change in elevation (and the slope of the bedrock layers if possible) you can predict within 5 feet the depth needed for adequate production. The difference anywhere on your property will simply be the relative difference in elevation.
note: This also remains true of "shallow" wells that don't go into bedrock, the difference is that your water will be in a layer of gravel.
My Conclusions:
1) it ain't science and it ain't a gift from God
2) there are 2 options why dowsing works
a- it's an expression of the subconscious
b- it's a manifestation of an undivine power that wants you to believe in backwoods voodoo
3) depending on your relationship with your father-in-law this is either something you should never bring up... or something to tuck away in your mind for later
I've got a couple dozen acres with gas lines crossing it in places. I can tell where the pipes are laid because the ground is slightly off from when they backfilled the trench they dug, in certain lines, the grass grows differently because, I suspect, the drainage is different for that location, and the undisturbed ground.
The pipes were laid 20 years ago.
Now, a lot of people here are ALSO falling for the mystique of the sceptic. Just because you don't have an immediate explanation for something, doesn't automatically make the 'capability' false.
I believe it is possible that there may be clues that our bodies pick up, but we ignore with our often distracted conscious minds. Now, does that mean I believe in dowsing? No, it isn't an admission of belief, but I wouldn't discount that we might be ignoring some feedback from our bodies that we normally don't acknowledge.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrachromacy#Possibility_of_human_tetrachromats
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