[meteorite-list] OT: Dowsing is real, but exoplanets are dubious?!

[JoshuaTreeMuseum]

Hi Mike,
 I think the point of the article is relevant to what's being discussed 
here. People that know for scientific reasons that dowsing doesn't work, 
can't dowse because it won't work for them. Dowsing only works for the 
ignorant like myself and dumb construction workers and plumbers. The Iraqis 
believe in these devices and they work for them. And we're talking about 
life or death here, surely the devices work, they're staking their life on 
them. The experts make the exact same arguments in the article that I've 
heard hear. Scientific test show the devices give no better than random 
results, etc. etc. Everybody keeps telling them they don't work, when 
obviously the Iraqis know that they do work, otherwise they'd be getting 
blown up. Unless the Iraqis are so dumb, they're getting blown up, yet still 
insist on using the dowsers. If that was the case, surely the article would 
have reported it. This is the NY Times after all. I like at the end of the 
article where the naysayer can't get the dowser to work, but it works 
perfectly for the believer. It's like that Monty Python episode where 
everybody has to believe in the apartment building or it falls down. A 
non-believer moves in and the building starts collapse, until the believers 
convert him and the building goes back up. Every time he has doubts, the 
building starts to fall down, then he recants and the building goes back up. 
That's some funny stuff!

And even though these guys are putting their lives on the line every day 
with their  dowsers, they of course can't pass the fraudulent Randi's 
impossible requirements and cash in on his stupid million dollar con.

Click on the link for pictures of the overpriced,  phony dowsing devices 
that can't possibly work, yet still do
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/04/world/middleeast/04sensors.html

BAGHDAD - Despite major bombings that have rattled the nation, and fears of 
rising violence as American troops withdraw, Iraq's security forces have 
been relying on a device to detect bombs and weapons that the United States 
military and technical experts say is useless.
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Times Topics: Iraq
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Johan Spanner for The New York Times
The sensor device, known as the ADE 651, from $16,500 to $60,000 each. Iraq 
has bought more than 1,500 of the devices.
The small hand-held wand, with a telescopic antenna on a swivel, is being 
used at hundreds of checkpoints in Iraq. But the device works "on the same 
principle as a Ouija board" - the power of suggestion - said a retired 
United States Air Force officer, Lt. Col. Hal Bidlack, who described the 
wand as nothing more than an explosives divining rod.
Still, the Iraqi government has purchased more than 1,500 of the devices, 
known as the ADE 651, at costs from $16,500 to $60,000 each. Nearly every 
police checkpoint, and many Iraqi military checkpoints, have one of the 
devices, which are now normally used in place of physical inspections of 
vehicles.
With violence dropping in the past two years, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal 
al-Maliki has taken down blast walls along dozens of streets, and he 
contends that Iraqis will safeguard the nation as American troops leave.
But the recent bombings of government buildings here have underscored how 
precarious Iraq remains, especially with the coming parliamentary elections 
and the violence expected to accompany them.
The suicide bombers who managed to get two tons of explosives into downtown 
Baghdad on Oct. 25, killing 155 people and destroying three ministries, had 
to pass at least one checkpoint where the ADE 651 is typically deployed, 
judging from surveillance videos released by Baghdad's provincial governor. 
The American military does not use the devices. "I don't believe there's a 
magic wand that can detect explosives," said Maj. Gen. Richard J. Rowe Jr., 
who oversees Iraqi police training for the American military. "If there was, 
we would all be using it. I have no confidence that these work."
The Iraqis, however, believe passionately in them. "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.
Dale Murray, head of the National Explosive Engineering Sciences Security 
Center at Sandia Labs, which does testing for the Department of Defense, 
said the center had "tested several devices in this category, and none have 
ever performed better than random chance."
The Justice Department has warned against buying a variety of products that 
claim to detect explosives at a distance with a portable device. Normal 
remote explosives detection machinery, often employed in airports, weighs 
tons and costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. The ADE 651's clients are 
mostly in developing countries; no major country's military or police force 
is a customer, according to the manufacturer.
"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."
He attributed the decrease in bombings in Baghdad since 2007 to the use of 
the wands at checkpoints. American military officials credit the surge in 
American forces, as well as the Awakening movement, in which Iraqi 
insurgents turned against Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, for the decrease.
Aqeel al-Turaihi, the inspector general for the Ministry of the Interior, 
reported that the ministry bought 800 of the devices from a company called 
ATSC (UK) Ltd. for $32 million in 2008, and an unspecified larger quantity 
for $53 million. Mr. Turaihi said Iraqi officials paid up to $60,000 apiece, 
when the wands could be purchased for as little as $18,500. He said he had 
begun an investigation into the no-bid contracts with ATSC.
Jim McCormick, the head of ATSC, based in London, did not return calls for 
comment.
The Baghdad Operations Command announced Tuesday that it had purchased an 
additional 100 detection devices, but General Rowe said five to eight 
bomb-sniffing dogs could be purchased for $60,000, with provable results.
Checking cars with dogs, however, is a slow process, whereas the wands take 
only a few seconds per vehicle. "Can you imagine dogs at all 400 checkpoints 
in Baghdad?" General Jabiri said. "The city would be a zoo."
Speed is not the only issue. Colonel Bidlack said, "When they say they are 
selling you something that will save your son or daughter on a patrol, they've 
crossed an insupportable line into moral depravity."
Last year, the James Randi Educational Foundation, an organization seeking 
to debunk claims of the paranormal, publicly offered ATSC $1 million if it 
could pass a scientific test proving that the device could detect 
explosives. Mr. Randi said no one from the company had taken up the offer.
ATSC's promotional material claims that its device can find guns, 
ammunition, drugs, truffles, human bodies and even contraband ivory at 
distances up to a kilometer, underground, through walls, underwater or even 
from airplanes three miles high. The device works on "electrostatic magnetic 
ion attraction," ATSC says.
To detect materials, the operator puts an array of plastic-coated cardboard 
cards with bar codes into a holder connected to the wand by a cable. "It 
would be laughable," Colonel Bidlack said, "except someone down the street 
from you is counting on this to keep bombs off the streets."
Proponents of the wand often argue that errors stem from the human operator, 
who they say must be rested, with a steady pulse and body temperature, 
before using the device.
Then the operator must walk in place a few moments to "charge" the device, 
since it has no battery or other power source, and walk with the wand at 
right angles to the body. If there are explosives or drugs to the operator's 
left, the wand is supposed to swivel to the operator's left and point at 
them.
If, as often happens, no explosives or weapons are found, the police may 
blame a false positive on other things found in the car, like perfume, air 
fresheners or gold fillings in the driver's teeth.
On Tuesday, a guard and a driver for The New York Times, both licensed to 
carry firearms, drove through nine police checkpoints that were using the 
device. None of the checkpoint guards detected the two AK-47 rifles and 
ammunition inside the vehicle.
During an interview on Tuesday, General Jabiri challenged a Times reporter 
to test the ADE 651, placing a grenade and a machine pistol in plain view in 
his office. Despite two attempts, the wand did not detect the weapons when 
used by the reporter but did so each time it was used by a policeman.
"You need more training," the general said.
Riyadh Mohammed contributed reporting.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: November 5, 2009
An article on Wednesday about a bomb detection device used by the Iraqi 
security forces that is considered useless and costly by the American 
military misstated the surname of the leader of ATSC (UK) Ltd., the 
London-based company that has sold hundreds of the devices to Iraq's 
Interior Ministry. He is Jim McCormick, not Mitchell.