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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."
where those billions and billions of dollars went.
they shouldn't be allowed to have the bomb. On the plus side, there an easier target.
Maybe I should sell them my ballistic missile protection rock. Only 10 million dollars, and if you are hit by an ICBM contact me for a full refund.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I am interested in purchasing your bomb-repelling rock.
Sure, it finds bombs, but youre spending hours wandering around and forgetting about the time you didnt find a bomb.
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.
Even a stopped clock's minute hand is right 24 times a day.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
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.
Qxe4
It works on a very simple principle, that is used in many devices sold today: the company that makes them probably kicks half the price back to the official who authorized the purchase.
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.
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
Anyone see the Bugs Bunny cartoon (@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.
Better known as 318230.
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.
Snarkiness is inversely proportional to wisdom because it emphasizes feeling right rather than being right.
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.
They also double as tiger repellent rocks. Since use of the rocks, nation building is way up and tiger maulings are way down. With less than 2 tiger maulings a day in the green zone.
Dear General Jehad al-Jabiri,
You may be surprised to hear from me. I am Mrs. John Mutube, former wife of the late general in charge of Nigerian counterterrorism forces. Upon his death I was amazed to discover 15000 (FIFTEEN THOUSAND) special BOMB DETECTION RODS. As my party has fallen out of favor, I find myself destitute. So I am offering you full possession of these BOMB DETECTION RODS for only the cost of shipping. Since the devices are heavy, I must ask that you pay for postage so I can deliver you the rods. Send either money order or credit card particulars to
Mrs. John Mutube
123 Mutube Street
Benin, Nigeria
I look forward to your successful counterterrorism endeavor.
I am, yours truly,
Mrs. John Mutube
#DeleteChrome
Oh I know what you mean.
I mean, before America showed up it was a happy place. They had flowing meadows, and rainbow skies, and rivers made of chocolate where the children danced and laughed and played with gumdrop smiles.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
You fool! The manual specifically stated that rigorous statistical analysis clogs the overunity detector grid and attracts terrorists! Only blind faith can allow the system to protect us.
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.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
When I was living in NY, I worked with a fellow who had his well pointed out by a local Dowser. It cost him $300 in 1990.
And for $300, he would tell you exactly where you should dig, precisely how far you should dig, how much water you were going to get (GPM), how long it would last, whether it was subject to drought or could be relied upon during dry spells. He could also eliminate sources with salt, sulfur, iron, calcium and anything else you don't want in your water. He'd take a wire flag and write the instructions for the driller on the flag, then stick it precisely where they were supposed to drill.
The catch?
The Dowser gave his guarantee in writing, with a quadruple your money back if anything was less than what he promised. Goes dry? Not enough flow? Muddy, salty, iron, sulfur? He'll pay you $1200.
When I heard the story from my co-worker, the old fellow hadn't needed to pay anyone back in the 20 years he'd been doing it. Dunno if he's still alive now, though.
And I'm not sure he'd want to try this out with explosives if he still is.
[End Of Line]
Oh don't worry, I've got a saying for every situation. Here's one you may have heard, "leave a place better than you found it." Or at very least don't leave it worse than you found it. If we had left Iraq a few years ago and let it fall into civil war, things would have been bad.
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.
Qxe4
Why should our good men and (and a few women) have to die to 'help' these people?
They have oil, and lots of it. As do their neighbours. You seriously have not heard? There is no other reason.
The US alone uses something like 20 million barrels a day and rising, while production is well under half that and falling.
That's a billion dollars per day, and set to rise dramatically as production fails to rise with global demand.
The dowser explodes, thereby simultaneously indicating where the bomb was and disposing it.
What? Too soon?
Yeah, me too. It really sucks to be a part of society sometimes, because everyone around you wants to do something different. I hated the Iraq war from the beginning, but at the time, most people actually supported it, so I had no choice but to go along.
Society has disadvantages, but most of the time the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.
Qxe4
Yeah, when the Americans showed up, they were all like, "Hey lady, eat the apple off that tree of knowledge." The region went to shit after that.
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.
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.
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.
That's like saying it is ok for me to shit in my roommates bed because he hardly ever cleans.
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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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.
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.
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).
'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.
Funny may not give karma, but +5 Informative never made anyone snort coffee out their nose.
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.
I don’t care about Sandia or the Department of Justice or any of them,” General Jabiri said. “I know more about this issue than the Americans do. In fact, I know more about bombs than anyone in the world.
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.
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 used to be skeptical. My old uncle used to hold a modified coat-hanger in one hand and float a pen over a map with the other. He found many many many oil and gas well locations this way and was never plagued by dry holes. Loads of dowsing stories he had. He would vacation and come back with gold nuggets. He astounded a freshly retired naval officer friend by globe dowsing the secret location of his submarine. He showed me articles with pictures of grunts in Viet Nam finding Charlies tunnel entrances with modified bucket handles.
We had several discussions about what was really happening here. From what we and others could figure , the dowsing rod, pendulum or whatever is used is only and indicator of intuition. The trick, my uncle said was to enter an alpha state of mind or it wouldn't work. This we tested with a biofeedback machine and it seemed to be so. Other untested thoughts we had were; perhaps the magnetic sensing nerves in your nose work in conjunction with your brain and any ferric or bioelectric signature of the sought item. This wasn't disproved, but , he also would think of yes/no answer questions and get 95% + accuracy upon investigation.
I never attained his accuracy, but, I still find lost items around the house pretty well.
When science can quantify intuition, then I believe we will be able to experiment more. Till then, if it works for you use it, others have for centuries. If you don't have any faith it it, you won't be able to do it for sure. It doesn't have anything to do with anything supernatural , only biological as far as I have seen. No debunking necessary. It remains an obscure talent among those who can control their own alpha.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
The modifying factor you are looking for is the operator listening to test subjects speaking and picking the obvious lies. I think that you would get exactly the same success rate if the lie detector wasn't even plugged in.
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.
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.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
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.
I think the main point is that there are other places in the world that have genocide, torture, slavery, and all sorts of terrible things going on. The place we invaded happened to be the one that was strategically important, and I didn't see any evidence that they were just the first in line before we solved all of those other problems.
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.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
Presuming that those "tiny ferrite dots being pumped around" are iron in your blood, you're wrong. Blood iron isn't ferrous.
Divining has long been shown to be explained by the ideomotor effect, environmental cues [1], and confirmation bias. It isn't any better than chance.
If you think your abilities are genuine, allow me to introduce you to the 1 Million Dollars that must be waiting for you over at the JREF. http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/1m-challenge.html
[1] Cues that anyone can pick up on, nothing that is unique to dowsing or dowsers.
-- i am jack's amusing sig file
You think. The few reasonable controlled studies that have been done tend to disagree with you. Polygraphs perform fairly poorly, and probably perform better under laboratory conditions than they do in the wild, but they do appear to do better than chance, under controlled conditions.
Sorry, the ad hominem attack on the inventor doesn't really carry any weight, being a logical fallacy and all.
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...
It's NOT me! It's the meds! I'm on 1000mg of Fukitol.
Really? Do you have a reason to think that the majority of the populace doesn't want us there? Because as far as I can tell, they do want us there; at least until they are strong enough to take care of themselves.
Are you aware of how counter-insurgancy works, and the surge which is making it possible for us to leave Iraq in relative peace? Basically, we put enough soldiers in to defend the people as long as they would tell us who the bad guys were. We had to rely on informants.....if they didn't want us there, we never would have gotten enough informants to make a difference.
If the majority didn't want to cooperate with the US, the violence of 2004-2006 wouldn't have ended. At that time a large part of the country favored Al Qaeda as much as they favored the US. However, Al Qaeda has been very helpful in making us look good by making themselves look even worse. At least we don't shoot people's fingers off for smoking a cigarette, or force the women to 'marry' our soldiers. In comparison to Al Qaeda the US looks really good.
Qxe4
Actually if you're candian you have quite a bit more oil than they do :D
From Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves
Canada #2
Iraq #4.
If we stopped exporting the stuff we'd have enough for ourselves for a longgg time.
It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
hey, stuffing the variable 'Before' with a much larger value than anticipated is basically the same as exploiting a buffer overflow, isn't it? perhaps English needs better memory management :D
My rod can detect sexy bombshells too.
Table-ized A.I.
You and I know these devices do nothing, the guys waving them around at the checkpoints know they do nothing but the would-be bombers aren't quite as confident. All it takes is one nervous twitch and WHAM! They are detained, searched and questioned. Find one needle in the haystack this way and soon the word gets around. This is quite a fine bit of social engineering, IMHO. Too bad about the exorbitant price tag.
Expensive placebos are more effective.
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.
You will have to do better than that. The only 'backing out' I've ever heard of has really just been sour grapes from losers who couldn't even pass the preliminary requirements of minimal verification, much less the full test of scientific reproducibility.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Unlike in 1900, there's nuclear power, filters for fine dust coal particles, the possibility to more efficiently use wood and wind power, and more - even the fertilizers can be effectively replaced, including the inorganic ones, as there's no direct dependency on oil (neither on its byproduct natural gas, which is actually what's used - even inorganic fertilizer can and has been produced without it).
If there's a transition period rather than an immediate cut-off (and loosing Iraq does not equal a total loss of all oil sources), we can survive this change with only some years lost in economic growth. And that's only if the immense investments in "new" areas don't come with important break-throughs that actually boost the economy (thinking of fusion and fission here, and be it just the giant ball of fire in the sky).
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.
Qxe4
If you travel through the Middle East, you see these things everywhere. Especially Lebanon. Every parking garage and big building uses these. When you ask anyone about those, 9 out 10 people say they work, and the other one is merely skeptical. If you look at one closely, it's just a plastic piece of crap with a metal rod. "There's a sucker born every minute".
Neither of which is the same thing as ferromagnetic.
SIGSEGV caught, terminating
wait... not that kind of sig.
Several animal and bacteria use magnetic fields to navigate or orient themselves. There are several proposed mechanisms, such as the magnetite crystals in the brain or a light + magnetism reaction in photoreceptors. Early humans were nomadic so it's at least plausible that one of these mechanisms were used to navigate.
OTOH, detecting magnetic fields would be an interesting ability on its own, and there's a lot of pseudoscience associated with it. But, AFAIK, nobody has been able to demonstrate it outside of a few non-repeatable studies (e.g. a magnet on the nose screwing up grad students' sense of direction, or cows and other mammals preferring North-South orientations.)
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?
Search 2010 Gen Con events
It doesn't make unprovoked invasions into foreign countries moral though.
Anyone who gets the chance to meta mod needs to fix this. Disagreeing with the parent does not make him a troll.
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.
'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.
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.
"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.
Which is why we need a -1: Wrong moderation so that inaccurate posts can be marked down without passing judgment on the intent of the poster.
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.
'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.
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.
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.
The man you're referring to is William Marston, and to be fair, he did get his Ph.D. in Psychology from Harvard.
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...
Secure messaging: http://quickmsg.vreeken.net/
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.
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 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...
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!
Lemon curry???
Yeah. And considering the likely consequences of failure in this application, that's got to be one hell of a confirmation bias at work.
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?
Thing is, they were the first to tell you they had no clue how or why they could dowse out water, but they could.
They could, could they? You know, I bet there are psychics and faith healers out there that would shovel you the same bullshit.
Sorry, until you've got a controlled study showing your little "witches" perform better than random chance, I'm gonna remain skeptical. Meanwhile, you should send one over to JREF... if her "powers" are real, she could win a million bucks!
A personal belief which has been thoroughly shown to have no merit whatsoever in a number of controlled tests. Or does your belief not take data into account?
Your explanation might work except all test requirements are agreed upon by both parties. The tests are always accepted beforehand by both parties. And the conditions are always mind-numbingly simple, and people with real abilities should have no problem passing them. Look at the list of some who claim to be Dowsers:
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=87076
-> was given a list of people on the missing persons list, he claimed he could indicate whether they were dead or alive. he picked half dead, half alive. They were all dead.
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=37686
-> never formally applied
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=33082
-> Would not allow analysis of his homemade 'amplifier'
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=29682
-> performed his own double-blind tests only to discover that he had deluded himself
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=28111
-> Withdrew his application
Which ones of these do you think were gypped by the JRF? See them at http://forums.randi.org/forumdisplay.php?f=43, and find me one that you think was treated unfairly.
Of the few people who have come forward to try to pursue the "I got gypped!" angle, I watched the videos and read the transcripts and they all failed miserably.
In short, you have no idea what the fuck you are talking about.
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
Even today, the city of DeQueen, Arkansas employs an old Native American in the water department. He has the willow sticks like father in law used, but he also has a pair of copper rods that he likes better.
That was such a fascinating story, I called up John O'Connor, Water Superintendent for DeQueen. Despite almost two decades with the city's water department, he knows nothing of such a man and denies that the city has used dowsing in his tenure or, to his knowledge, in his lifetime. Nor is he familiar with any local legends of such a thing. Since the department employs only 70 people, I'm pretty sure Mr. O'Connor is familiar with them all.
I assume your father-in-law's acuity with the "witchin' sticks" is equally fictitious, and that your personal experience is simple wishful thinking.
Wikipedia/Dousing has some links to studies that disproved it completely.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
It's called a water 'table' for a reason. It spreads horizontally and follows the contours of the land generally. So pretty much anywhere you dig, if you dig far enough, you're going to find water.
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.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
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...
ROFLMAO
You looked up the city, and you found John's name. Very good. But, we only have your word that you CALLED him. So, I watched the old dude using his dousing rods, and you claim to have talked to the old dude's boss. My word against yours, right?
Oh well. Whatever. You don't have to believe a thing, nor does anyone else.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Yes, parent pointed out facts, but he also called out an end to discussion. You can't debunk by silencing-- you are only going to make those involved feel persecuted and fight that much harder. No, you won't convince all the crazy that they are wrong, but if you at least allow the crazy to be discussed, you can far easier show other folks that it's crazy.
Besides... what do slashdot and facts have to do with each other? Review the moderator guidelines, they expressly call out this sort of moderation as abuse. Disagreeing doesn't mean you get to silence your opposition.
+1 Disagree
Data is available from USGS online regarding the Aquifers. This one http://pubs.usgs.gov/ha/ha730/ch_c/jpeg/C011.jpeg might be helpful to you.
Just another day in Paradise
He also seems to know the number of people working there and some other information. Just admit it, you've been pwned. Or you could keep digging yourself in deeper if you wish. you are bound to hit water eventually.
"There are no viewpoints here. Either you have facts, or you have nothing."
Wrong. If that were the case, there would be a moderation option of "-1 Not Factual". This forum's rules are pretty open; people get to express their views whether they are right or wrong, scientific or anecdotal, fact or opinion. Disagreement is handled through response/discussion, not censorship.
Censorship (moderation) is used to control behaviors that would harm the quality of discussion. If you believe that expressing alternative viewpoints hurts discussion, then public discourse isn't for you.
"Your parent pointed out facts." ...but also started his comment by asking for mis-use of the moderation system to suppress a comment that does not meet any legitimate down-modding criteria. It would appear the community believes that calling for moderation abuse, ironically, does meet down-modding criteria.
I'm a sucker for empirical data. If dowsing rods are getting the job done, then hooray for dowsing rods. If they're not, then boo for dowsing rods. It would be even poorer science than, oh, say, 'belief in dowsing rods' to draw conclusions without objective data. Either those things are working, or they're not. But in either case, the answer ought to be clear from the numbers, so there's no reason to get belief involved. _If_ they seem to be getting the job done, then maybe the thingies are acting as placebos for the people using them. Sort of like people who are natural lie-detectors just thought they were responding to gut feelings until micro expressions were discovered. Maybe what's being detected isn't the explosives, but that the owner of the suspect item is acting like someone with a bomb, which starts the dowser's brain working on likely hiding places for the packet of suck, which in turn triggers an ideomotor effect in the 'dowser'. How much of this would be conscious, and how much subconscious would vary widely from person to person, with those not aware of the process thinking, "Holy Shit! This thing is amazing!"