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The Little Bomb-Detecting Device That Couldn't
theodp writes "Widely deployed in Iraq and promoted by military leaders, BusinessWeek reports the ADE 651 bomb-detecting device had one little problem: it wouldn't detect explosives (earlier Slashdot story). 'The ADE 651,' reports Adam Higginbotham, 'was modeled on a novelty trinket conceived decades before by a former used-car salesman from South Carolina, which was purported to detect golf balls. It wasn't even good at that.' One thing the ADE 651 did excel at, however, was making money — estimates suggest that the authorities in Baghdad bought more than 6,000 useless bomb detectors, at a cost of at least $38 million. Even though ADE 651 manufacturer James McCormick was found guilty of three counts of fraud and sentenced to 10 years in prison in May, the ADE 651 is still being used at thousands of checkpoints across Baghdad. Elsewhere, authorities have never stopped believing in the detectors. Why? According to Sandia Labs' Dale Murray, the ideomotor effect is so persuasive that for anyone who wants or needs to believe in it, even conclusive scientific evidence undermining the technology it exploits has little power."
James randi too was amazed at how basically all dowsers keep believing they have their special powers even after they've been thoroughly debunked.
In Ramadi '05 we had these cool spray kits.
It was a little plastic case with several sprays and swabs with some instructions for various kinds of explosive testing.
One day we caught these dudes out on the desert who would dig up UXO's and sell them to local insurgents who would use them for IEDs.
Lat Long: 33.16845,43.635263
We had been trying to catch them for a while but they were on motorcycles... try catching a motorcycle in an up-armor hmmwv.
When we caught them, they didn't have any explosives on them. So we though, hey... why not try out this kit?
They tested positive for 2 kinds of explosives. So we detained them, shipped them off to the detention facility with all the appropriate paper work and evidence... as best we could since we aren't investigators by trade.
So we are back at the OP, thinking how bad-ass we are. Then we get the idea to play with the kit some more. We tested our hands, HESCO barriers, lunch meat, hmmwv windows... everything tested positive. Guess the kits didn't really work as advertised but every unit had one.
Of course, maybe our kit was bad. Or maybe we didn't use the kit correctly. Or there was really explosive residue on everything.
At least the kits weren't WHY we detained them. They were going to be detained anyway. But the Military being dazzled by salesmen or shiny new stuff is nothing new.
THL phish sticks
But, back when I did, I can tell you: a functional golf ball detector would've been very handy.
Real duffers come back to the clubhouse with more balls than they started with.
The real reason they continue to use these isn't because they somehow have convinced themselves that it works. It's probably not even directly a scam insofar as they're shoving money to some business cohort through the military industrial complex. I would suspect that what this is really about is that it's far cheaper to stick a device in a young man's hand and convince him that it's there to protect him, so that he'll actually continue to actively do his job, and have him wind up being blown up -- than it is to spend money on any sort of real device. The man is disposable. The worthless device is the placebo to motivate him to feel safe in doing his job. And when he dies, it was a far cheaper investment than the amount that any sort of real device would cost to produce, purchase, train on, and deploy.
I don't know what you are talking about. There is loads of scientific evidence on the oil reserves in Iraq.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
I was a skeptic to, but my grandfather was one (they called it water witching around here). There were a few locally, but my grandfather was the most known and best, everyone within a half hour radius would call my grandfather when they needed a well dug out (and this was 30+ years ago). He would use any standard stick that was laying around. He never charged the people money (people were a lot more neighborly back then instead of just looking out for themselves), so wasn't like he was out scamming them, very religious so not a liar.
Not once did he screw it up, he hit water every time. I was a skeptic to before I seen it, and it didn't seem like it would work for just anyone. I tried it along with a lot of my relatives, and it wouldn't do a thing, my one uncle it did it a bit.
It was funny one time this guy tried digging a well on his property twice kept getting dry, my grandfather went out and did the dowsing told him here this is where you got to dig(they guy didn't like my grandfather for some reason, and was a major skeptic), the guy ignored my grandfathers advice, dug up 3 more spots in the following 2 years, kept hitting dry again. Finally fed up he called my grandfather back to confirm the location, grandfather goes back, exact same spot detects water, guy digs there and sure enough hits water.
Now, while they're technologically incapable of their purpose, I wonder if they might actually be somewhat effective in real life? IE a different type of placebo?
It says that they're being used at a number of checkpoints. Now, one of the things I know about is that the insurgents/terrorists tend to observe such places before they target them. Often at some distance, but eh.
The ones doing the observing are often no more educated than those working the checkpoint, often less. So they see the operators using their 'bomb detector' in all seriousness. They think 'crap! They'd find our bomb, time to figure out a different plan!' and either delay or go elsewhere. So the end result is that they still have fewer attacks against that checkpoint.
I don't read AC A human right
Right, which is the exact ideometer effect that's being discussed here. There are other (subconcious) cues at work which lead him to believe where the water will be - or just pure coincidence. Aside from the obvious fact there's no actual mechanism at work, it can be easily disproven. Take a dowser out until they find a spot "with water", then blindfold them and drive them around to re-test various random spots including this one. The vast majority of the time, they'll get it wrong - suddenly not able to detect water at the spot they previously said it was at, or detect water in places they previously said it wasn't. Also fun is taking them to an area known to be entirely over a natural aquifier and watch them wander around until they "find" water in some exclusive spot.
Map-based dowsing is even easier to disprove - again, aside from the obvious lack of any mechanism (ie, it doesn't really need proof, but just to satisfy the idiots out there we have to go through it). Give a map-dowser a map without orientation or contour lines and suddenly their "abilities" go away. Give them a fully-detailed map but blind-fold them, and similarly, they're no longer able to "detect" where the water is.
In all cases, it's either fraudulent, subconcious, or simply luck. Likewise, stories about "other people" are steeped in grandeur. A guy who gets it right "a couple of times" is suddenly a legendary dowser, and every re-telling by both others and himself get better and better each time.
"The true measure of a person is how they act when they know they won't get caught." - DSRilk