When Nonsense Kils

Pseudoscientific nonsense such as Dowsing (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dowsing) has been around for ages. It's something that I detest, but never more do I abhor such nonsense as when it actually results in death and bodily harm.

Jim McCormick, based at offices in rural Somerset, UK., has sold $85 million (yes, million) worth of completely fake ''bomb detectors'' to various governments for profit under the guise of offering protection. These ''devices'' are nothing more than glorified dowsing rods, and the ''chips'' inside them were discovered to be useless RFID chips, such as those found on price tags. There were warnings about this fraudster over a decade ago when he was selling these from within the US, mainly coming from the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) but these went ignored.....

Now that people have been killed by bombs not being detected by this stick with fake technology in it, the UK government has finally stepped in.

The large question here is why are governments buying untested technology from a single person making wild, unsubstantiated claims? This has to stop. Police using ''psyhics'' is bad enough, and now this. When our very governing bodies buy into pseudoscientifc bugaboo with nary a discerning glance, we're either dealing with rampant stupididty and gullibility, amazing greed, or both. Either way, we need to WAKE UP.

Read the story and watch the embedded video to get all of the details.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/8471187.stm