fake bomb detector - how are people so stupid ?

[sm_jamieson]

This take bomb detector is in the news. How could people be so stupid to think they work ? Would they not investigate the tech, and test them ?

Simon.

[GB]

You are neglecting the possibility that the buyers knew perfectly well that they didn't work, but the buyers were getting huge bungs so didn't care.

[The Natural Philosopher]

isn't this VERY old news? like several YEARS

Oh. I see, the bugger has been done.

The wheels of the Law grind slow.

[Nightjar]

'The investigation revealed that senior Iraqi officials knew the devices did not work and received bribes to ensure they were purchased.'

Simples

Colin Bignell

[newshound]

Thank goodness it couldn't happen here

[John Rumm]

Shame, because I have a wizzy idea to provide free electricity using a windmil...

[Andrew Mawson]

Well in a funny sort of way they did work. If the potential bombers THINK that they work that's all that matters -a bit like the placebo effect.

AWEM

[The Natural Philosopher]

sets a nice precedent for windmills doesn't it?

[Jeremy Nicoll - news posts]

I find this statement, from that web page quite interesting:

"Following the 2010 BBC Newsnight exposé of the device, the UK Government's Department for Business, Innovation and Skills announced that the BBC tests had shown that "the technology used in the ADE651 and similar devices is not suitable for bomb detection"

because it seems to me that there was no 'technology' inside these units. So let me guess, was the govt spokesperson an arts graduate?

It's also truly amazing that so many countries bought them; you'd have thought that the devices' failure to detect, say, ammunition carried by a passing soldier would be obvious to any user very quickly.

[harry]

They work the same as dowsing does.

[The Natural Philosopher]

well yes. I suppose they did convince the Greens that Something Was Being Done.

[ARW]

I mentioned this back in 2010

[Martin Brown]

Not if they are getting large enough kickbacks on the deal!

Homeopathic explosive detectors seem finally to be on a downer. It is astonishing that he got away with it for so long.

OTOH homeopathic medicine is still funded by the NHS. Go figure!

I'd have been inclined to challenge him to demonstrate with a pair of identical antipersonnel mines one armed with a lethal explosive charge and one with almond paste and challenge him to step on the safe one.

[Martin Brown]

Dowsing is slightly more difficult to dismiss entirely.

I know a sceptical dowser with some facility at finding water mains. They figured that it did no harm to map and chalk it first since the dowsers were no worse than the wildly inaccurate street plans.

[jgharston]

There is technology. There's device-holding technology (a handle) and hinging technology (swivel-mounted aerial).

JGH

[Nightjar]

but then you wouldn't have got any transfer to your offshore bank account.

Colin Bignell

[geoff]

In message , sm_jamieson writes

Thats years old

[Frank Erskine]

I'm as sceptical as anybody about this type of thing. However, at a nearby former waterworks (now a museum with which I'm involved

there's a standpipe (4" or so) fetching water from a different pumping station (for service purposes, apparently). Many years (~35?) ago a few of us were casually interested in finding the direction the pipe was fed from so we tried using a couple of brazing rods for dowsing. Even though the horizontal run of the pipe below ground would be at least 7 or 8 feet below floor level we got fairly consistent results as a sort of north-east direction. Later we found that be be fairly accurate, from records discovered...

[Windmill]

And if they think they don't work, that's a bit like the nocebo effect, or the necabo effect beloved of witch-doctors.

[Windmill]

If you translate the French, it means something like 'between taker'/s

AIUI.