More on dowsing

November 5, 2009 • 1:10 am

by Greg Mayer

Over at Bad Astronomy, Phil Plait also has a post on the Iraqi bomb dowsing: When Antiscience Kills: Dowsing Edition. Here are some videos by James Randi showing how dowsing works. The first is about someone who wanted to claim Randi’s One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge.

The second is a clip from Randi’s wonderful film, Secrets of the Psychics. In this clip, Randi attempts to test dowsing at a Russian alternative “medicine” clinic; the dowsing part runs from about 1:50 to 7:30. (The whole film is great and a hoot– see, as just one highlight, Johnny Carson’s total pwnage of Uri Geller on the Tonight Show, or Randi’s outing of the still active televangelical fraud, Peter Popoff. Apparently no longer available as VHS or DVD, Randi has posted the entire film on Youtube.)

5 thoughts on “More on dowsing”

  1. Tonight on a light news program here called “The 7pm Project” they had the douchebag of the universe (South Park reference) John Edwards (or whatever his name is) saying that there are no skeptics in the afterlife because we’re all surprised about having an eternal soul. How do these liars get to say this crap while honest people like Simon Singh get sued for libel? Seems wrong to me.

  3. I wish Randi had thought of just putting one bottle of water in the room, and having empty bottles (or nothing) behind the other shields. That would also prevent the dowser from questioning whether Randi had accidentally mixed up the bottles afterward.

  4. Theoretically, the ADE 651 handheld detector ought to be a firm favorite with military types as this device supposedly sniffs out bombs, guns, drugs and human bodies within a one kilometer radius, but there is one huge problem – it does not seem to function as it should be. This could prove to be an embarrassment for the US government after purchasing 1,500 of such detectors that retail from $16,500 to $60,000 each, depending on the model and type.

    Copied from:
    http://www.ubergizmo.com/tags/ade-651

    Is this true? The US government bought this? Are they using them?

    1. I think it’s wrong. The Iraqi government bought them. It is possible, though, that the Iraqis got the money as part of a US aid package, so that, indirectly, the US did buy them.
      GCM

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