The memory of water

[Olowkow]

More interesting results from search engine queries - the third and corresponding author (of the 2nd paper in OP) was involved in a test for the Randi challenge:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2002/homeopathytrans.shtml

Thank you for that interesting read. I have never heard of that test. Randi sure does get around!

 

[Rolfe]

I'm intrigued. g21stc first started posting in a thread about homoeopathy in the "Science and Medicine" part of the forum. He then suggested, quite rightly, that perhaps the subject needs a new thread.

But here is the thread - in "General Scepticism and the Paranormal", a forum area where some of the most knowledgeable science posters seldom come. Not the place to get the most focussed or informed debate, I have to say.

I wonder why it's here?

Rolfe.

 

[Reality Check]

The memory of water has been throughly debunked in the BBC Horizon program "Homeopathy: The Test" - transcript and video. Basically a double-blind test shows that a homeopathic solution of anti-histamine (that has been diluted so that it does not actually contain any anti-histamine molecules) has the same effect on human blood cells as a homeopathic solution of water.

 

[geni]

The memory of water hypothesis states that water can have memory of substances once dissolved in it. The following research papers seems to have proven this hypothesis:

[1] L. Rey, Physica A, 323, 67-74 (2003)

Probably due to contamination.

[2] P. Belon et. al., Inflammation Research, 53, 181-188 (2004)

BBC tried to repeate. Didn't work.

What are your opinions? Do you think that water could possibly have a memory?

Define memory

 

[Old Bob]

Time to put my oar in(pun)? Two kinds of water, primary and normal, it does have strange properties. The crystal structure changes with pollution and stays that way even if cleaned. Seems it needs time in mother earth to return to pristine. It carries the ion's to plants and tastes great in "Bundy".

 

[gs21stc]

Sorry, in my previous post, "vapourisation" should be replaced by "condensation" for the case of ice turning into liquid water.

I would like to explain this phenomena for those who does not know about the science behind it. It is actually very simple.

Let's say you have a block of ice at temperature below 0 degrees Celsius. You apply constant heat to the ice. When the ice reaches 0 degrees Celsius, it will start to melt. Even if you keep on applying heat to it, its temperature will not change. After all the ice have melted, then the temperature will rise until you reach 100 degrees Celsius. Again, the temperature will not rise until all of the liquid water have change to vapour.

The reason why the temperature won't rise at the melting and boiling points is because the substance is absorbing heat to change into a different phase. This heat is called the specific latent heat of vapourisation/condensation for boiling/melting point.

Either the homeopaths are ignorant of this basic knowledge of thermal physics, or they are trying to mislead the public.

I apologise again. I got the names wrong.

The "specific latent heat of vapourisation" should just be "Latent Heat of Vapourisation"

The "specific latent heat of condensation" should instead be "Latent Heat of Fusion"

I am sorry for all these corrections. I just don't want to misinform the public. Like the homeopaths.

 

[gs21stc]

The memory of water has been throughly debunked in the BBC Horizon program "Homeopathy: The Test" - transcript and video. Basically a double-blind test shows that a homeopathic solution of anti-histamine (that has been diluted so that it does not actually contain any anti-histamine molecules) has the same effect on human blood cells as a homeopathic solution of water.

That didn't convince me that the results from [2] in the OP is invalid. What convinced me that their results are debunked is another research paper which says that it cannot reproduce the results. I can't remember which paper it was. It was posted by one of those people who are knowledgeable about homeopathy. I think it was Mojo.

 

[gs21stc]

I'm intrigued. g21stc first started posting in a thread about homoeopathy in the "Science and Medicine" part of the forum. He then suggested, quite rightly, that perhaps the subject needs a new thread.

But here is the thread - in "General Scepticism and the Paranormal", a forum area where some of the most knowledgeable science posters seldom come. Not the place to get the most focussed or informed debate, I have to say.

I wonder why it's here?

Rolfe.

I guess you're right. The Moderator have just moved it to a new thread. You're on it right now.

 

[PixyMisa]

Time to put my oar in(pun)? Two kinds of water, primary and normal, it does have strange properties. The crystal structure changes with pollution and stays that way even if cleaned. Seems it needs time in mother earth to return to pristine. It carries the ion's to plants and tastes great in "Bundy".

Except for the small problem that this does not happen.

 

[Acleron]

Here's a couple of doctors who seem to have established that water has a memory (at least under certain conditions):

"On removing the water from the freezer, it will be observed that the block of ice, though now exposed to room temperature, will remain a block of ice for some time. Thus, there exists in water a property which enables it to "remember" for a certain amount of time that it has been kept in the freezer"

Paolo Bellavite, M.D. and Andrea Signorini, M.D., The Emerging Science of Homeopathy: Complexity, Biodynamics, and Nanopharmacology, 2002

Wonderful, you just couldn't make this stuff up. Oh, wait a minute, they just did.
And of course there is the other proof from that marvellous logician, Dana Ullman which is that as you cannot chemically tell the difference between a blank DVD and one storing the Encyclopaedia Britannica and also cannot tell the difference between water and a homeopathic preparation then the homeopathic preparation must have a memory. Of course, the simpler explanation ie water is just water eludes him.

 

[gs21stc]

And of course there is the other proof from that marvellous logician, Dana Ullman which is that as you cannot chemically tell the difference between a blank DVD and one storing the Encyclopaedia Britannica and also cannot tell the difference between water and a homeopathic preparation then the homeopathic preparation must have a memory. Of course, the simpler explanation ie water is just water eludes him.

You can definitely construct an analogical relationship between homeopathic "remedies" and DVDs. However, that does not prove that there is a difference between normal plain water and a homeopathic remedy in the same way as a blank DVD and a DVD with a movie in it.

They have to construct a hardware (the DVD player) to "play" water and see whether or not there is information in it. Then, you can tell the difference between plain water and water with "data" in it. If they want to prove that water has a memory, they will have to do it this way, not proof by analogy.

 

[Complexity]

What a bunch of horse manure.

 

[Mojo]

You can definitely construct an analogical relationship between homeopathic "remedies" and DVDs. However, that does not prove that there is a difference between normal plain water and a homeopathic remedy in the same way as a blank DVD and a DVD with a movie in it.

They have to construct a hardware (the DVD player) to "play" water and see whether or not there is information in it. Then, you can tell the difference between plain water and water with "data" in it. If they want to prove that water has a memory, they will have to do it this way, not proof by analogy.

People have been trying: see, for example, Rao et al, The defining role of structure (including epitaxy) in the plausibility of homeopathy.

See the comment from a following issue of the same journal. Also discussed here.

 

[Old Bob]

I have a mob of chooks that make smarter noises, dvd water. melting ice memory. Comes a time when you just have to say is this a comedy show? If it is it's suttle.

 

[gs21stc]

People have been trying: see, for example, Rao et al, The defining role of structure (including epitaxy) in the plausibility of homeopathy.

See the comment from a following issue of the same journal. Also discussed here.

Now I see it. Both Rao and Roy are from India, homeopathy heaven. They grew up surrounded by it, and now they are trying to find a scientific justification of homeopathy in the realm of the memory of water (or ethanol?).

I never bothered reading any paper from the Homeopathy Journal because they are bound to support homeopathy, any conclusion they draw will be subjected to publication bias.

That's why I only paid attention to the two papers I stated in the OP. They have later proven to be wrong, so I am not going to believe in homeopathy. This homeopathic infiltration into other scientific journals is annoying me.

 

[Acleron]

Now I see it. Both Rao and Roy are from India, homeopathy heaven. They grew up surrounded by it, and now they are trying to find a scientific justification of homeopathy in the realm of the memory of water (or ethanol?).

Perhaps you should reach your conclusions based on the evidence, or lack of, that they provide and not their origins.

 

[zooterkin]

Time to put my oar in(pun)? Two kinds of water, primary and normal, it does have strange properties. The crystal structure changes with pollution and stays that way even if cleaned. Seems it needs time in mother earth to return to pristine. It carries the ion's to plants and tastes great in "Bundy".

Could you explain what you're referring to? Is this a summary of one of the papers referred to, or something else entirely? What are the 'primary' and 'normal' forms of water?

 

[gs21stc]

Perhaps you should reach your conclusions based on the evidence, or lack of, that they provide and not their origins.

Yes, and I have seen the criticisms on their paper. After that, I wonder why would they publish such a flawed paper and showed it in a homeopathy debate:

http://mediasite.uchc.edu/Mediasite4...rType=WM64Lite

Then, I saw the Indian Connection.

 

[gs21stc]

Can someone post the link for the scientific paper which refuted the results in [2] at the OP? I remember seeing in somewhere in the forum, but I couldn't find it.

Thanks.

 

[DaChew]

If most of the water here on Earth has been here for, what, billions of years? And it's undoubtably come in contact with many millions of substances - chemicals, minerals, biologicals. Why doesn't it have the memory of those substances as well? Why is it that water only seems to "remember" what homeopathic salesman expose it to?