“James Randi, a magician who goes by the stage name “Amazing Randi,” has waged a decades-long war on purveyors of the paranormal, pseudoscience and other hoaxes. But now his war on fraud is hitting up against the war on terror and, specifically, ineffective bomb detectors that are being shilled to military and police forces around the world.
Randi, who’s also the founder of the James Randi Education Foundation, has set his sights on “dowsing rod” bomb detectors being used — most famously in Iraq — to detect explosives. “All of these various devices, of all kinds, are made on the same principle,” he told AOL News. “There’s nothing inside, or some dummy device, like discarded circuit boards from a TV remote controller.”
At issue are a slew of reports about bomb-detecting devices that use a swiveling antenna attached to a small box. The devices operate similar to dowsing rods, which supposedly locate materials without the use any known scientific principle.”
Read more at AOL News
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The thing is, just because they guy who sold them has no ethics, does that mean the people he sold them to have no intelligence?
I know the detectors are fake, here in Thailand they bought loads and said they worked….
So really, he was just doing what capitalists do, fill the market and hope someone buys their crap and he succeeded.
Should he be held responsible for people not researching the product better or not testing it themselves? Everyone in theory should be accountable for their own actions.
Scammers are everywhere, but come on, wake up. No one has forced anyone to purchase this stuff. Just because its a cheaper option than a proper scanner, is the choice of the purchaser.
If someone wishes to create a hoax like this then why bother trying to interfere? The hoaxers will inevitably pay the price for their ignorance when they stand on an undetected landmine.
But it’s not just the idiots who buy this stuff who get blown up by IEDs – imagine if it was your son or daughter dead or badly injured because of this hoax. There’s capitalism and then there’s a man selling fake bomb detectors to Iraq, without regard for the adults and children who will be killed or hurt because of it. He’s a four-letter-word – choose your own first consonant.
We are all brainwashed to believe that ‘the market’ should be allowed to grow and fill all niches freely without the cumbersome bother of ethics.
If McCormick can sell these, does that mean that kiddie porn should be allowed because there is a market for it?
Believe me, the market for that filth is huge and global.
Just because you CAN sell something, doesn’t mean that you SHOULD.
Ask Derren about mediums and seances – they are filling a demand and also completely unethical.
Give me personal and social ethics any day.
You can keep your market forces.
Trafigura dumped crap in Africa as a result of ‘market forces’ and ‘economic necessity’.
I am not a communist, simply someone who recognises that we are a\ll connected and interdependent.
What hurts you, hurts me in the end.
Of course there are ethics involved but ethics are a personal thing.
What about the situation of the world economics now? Did anyone have ethics when they were making billions of pounds around the world then cause this global depression that has cost millions of peoples their jobs, while the “fat cats” are still making millions.
Ethics are what you make of them.
As for the ethics of seances, just because I personally don’t believe in that crap, others do. Religion, look at that. Are they all unethical for believing in something you can’t see? How many millions or more likely billions does the church make every year from donations and no tax!
So you see, Ethics are a personal thing. Hitler even had ethics, although not the same ethics as most people. Although he was a vegetarian.