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I'm adding a Reuters and BBC sources on the fake dowsing rod style detection devices. I will not *remove* SI at this time, because that would be needlessly controversial. But there is no reason that that obscure source should have been chosen when there are hundreds of traditional sources available from a Google search. It adds nothing, except free clicks for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry |
Replacing BBC with a Tufts University Fletch School page to further drive home the point -- there are many thousands of sources that could have been used for this that are more reputable, and more authoritative than Skeptic Inquirer magazine |
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{{Quote | …There is a rather large community of people around the world that believes in [[dowsing]]: the ancient practice of using forked sticks, swinging rods, and pendulums to look for underground water and other materials. These people believe that many types of materials can be located using a variety of dowsing methods. Dowsers claim that the dowsing device will respond to any buried anomalies, and years of practice are needed to use the device with discrimination (the ability to cause the device to respond to only those materials being sought). Modern dowsers have been developing various new methods to add discrimination to their devices. These new methods include molecular frequency discrimination (MFD) and harmonic induction discrimination (HID). MFD has taken the form of everything from placing a xerox copy of a Polaroid photograph of the desired material into the handle of the device, to using dowsing rods in conjunction with frequency generation electronics (function generators). '''None of these attempts to create devices that can detect specific materials such as explosives (or any materials for that matter) have been proven successful in controlled double-blind scientific tests.''' In fact, all testing of these inventions has shown these devices to perform no better than random chance…<ref>{{cite web|url= http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/pubs-sum/178913.htm |title= NIJ Guide 100-99 |date= September 1999 |publisher=US Department of Justice}}</ref>}}
A number of fake dowsing rod-style detection devices have been widely used in [[Iraq]] and [[Thailand]], notably the [[ADE 651]] and [[GT200]], where they have been reported to have failed to detect bombs that have killed hundreds of people and injured thousands more.<ref name="Radford 2017">{{cite journal |last1=Radford |first1=Ben |authorlink=Ben Radford|title=The Legacy of Fake Bomb Detectors in Iraq |journal=Skeptical Inquirer |date=2017 |volume=41 |issue=1 |page=7 |publisher=Committee for Skeptical Inquirer}}</ref><ref>https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-security-detectors/from-beirut-to-baghdad-useless-bomb-detectors-guard-against-disaster-idUSKCN1061VK</ref><ref>https://
==See also==
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