Talk:Memory of water

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Disagreement

I strongly disagree with this article. It relies very much on a website of Martin Chaplin, who has one purpose only in maintaining his site: "proving" that water has memory and hence that homeopathy has a scientific basis. In this article properties of water that lack any scientific foundation or observation are presented as facts. Calling this article misleading is an understatement. --Paul Wormer 09:23, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

In due respect, Martin Chaplin's site is devoted to water research, with only a relatively small section on homeopathy and the memory of water. Providing reference to several thousand articles (mostly from peer-review journals), I find that he maintains a healthy objective review of the literature. That said, perhaps you could provide more specifics to what you would change about this article. Dana Ullman 20:42, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

At an even larger scale, it can be easily observed that a wave keeps existing despite of the constant doing and undoing of hydrogen bonds, and that ice sculptures are also made of H2O molecules constantly bonding and separating.

Yes right, likewise a hurricane keeps existing and bronze sculptures exist despite air molecules and bronze atoms constantly bonding and separating. (BTW, the observation that the constituents of a solid are constantly bonding and separating is due to Chaplin.) Ergo, liquid bronze and liquid air have memory. We knew already that water and ethanol have memory, so the really interesting question becomes: are there any liquids without memory, and if so why? --Paul Wormer 09:10, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

"Yes right, likewise a hurricane keeps existing and bronze sculptures exist despite air molecules and bronze atoms constantly bonding and separating. (...) Ergo, liquid bronze and liquid air have memory. We knew already that water and ethanol have memory,"

Hi Paul, I truly think that your reasoning is interesting and useful. The question I, and scientists interested in homeopathy, would ask I guess is: if we exclude bronze sculptures, hurricanes and so forth, because it is not edible, if we exclude food, because it is broken down in the digestive tract, what is left? Water and ethanol (after parties). Perhaps there's something else I forget?

Pierre-Alain Gouanvic 00:49, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm still very unhappy with this article. The fact that water has memory (which it loses after distilling twice according to the homeopaths) is very unlikely according to all present physical, chemical, and theoretical knowledge. Its existence needs very strong evidence because it would overhaul almost all of present thinking about water and its properties and in its wake it would imply that much of statistical, classical, and quantum mechanics has to be reinterpreted or even rejected. Some speculations about ortho/para water (measurements and theories find a hardly discernible difference between the two) and the presence of glass chips are much to weak to cause even a beginning of the scientific revolution that the existence of water memory would lead to.--Paul Wormer 15:54, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

"...because it would overhaul almost all of present thinking about water and its properties and in its wake it would imply that much of statistical, classical, and quantum mechanics has to be reinterpreted or even rejected. "

Paul, I think this is exactly what needs to be said in the article, especially the lead and then explained further in the appropriate areas of the article. I don't think this article is neutral if it doesn't. Would you consider explaining it (as only you can do) in the article? I will be glad to help. D. Matt Innis 23:16, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

[unindent] Right now I'm away from home and working on a small laptop screen that gives me headache after a while. At the end of April I'm back in the Netherlands and happy to formulate my objections more carefully. In the meantime: existence of water waves doesn't prove anything about water clusters, in the same way as the existence of hurricanes doesn't imply that air molecules will cluster. Even a noble gas (no forces between the molecules) will flow under influence of outside forces (under pressure difference). It is not true that in ice "H2O molecules [are] constantly bonding and separating". Why would clathrates be present in doubly distilled water under normal temperature and pressure? Anyway, if they are, they are easy to see spectroscopically, is there any evidence?--Paul Wormer 17:26, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Okay, you are definitely the expert! I'll look for ward to seeing you at the end of April, and we'll work our way through it. D. Matt Innis 17:49, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Hi Paul. The core of this article I think has to be the Benveniste affair. The issue simply is, what might explain his results?Gareth Leng 23:33, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree that the Benveniste affair is a valid topic for CZ. Further, I must confess that I don't know anything about "human basophils" and "granulocyte cell types" and that I don't have the foggiest idea in what way the "memory of water" could play a role in these cellular processes. However, the term "memory of water" strongly suggests a property of (assemblies of) water molecules and some paragraphs in the article support this picture. That is what I know about and what I object to. --Paul Wormer 15:53, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree that the title "Memory of water" tends to give the reader the impression that water does have a memory. I think we need to say rather quickly in the lead what we mean (and don't mean) by that title. Surely, not even homeopath's think water has a 'memory'. Though, I suppose you could look at the 'proposition' as similar to the way a computer 'stores' information? It seems that all we need to say is that 'so and so' suggests that water may 'store' information in a certain way, but then be able to explain just how unlikely this is. D. Matt Innis 17:55, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Some thoughts on the memory of water

As I see it, there are two pathways by which the concept of "memory of water" could obtain scientific credibility. First let's define what we can possibly mean by the memory of water. An obvious operational definition is the following: person A prepares a number of water samples treated with different chemicals and diluted so far that none of the molecules of the chemicals are left in the sample. Other persons (who have not communicated with A) are able to tell which chemicals have been used to prepare the samples. They can do this with a certainty that surpasses statistics. The experiment must be reproducible (by different person, at different times, in different places).

The first path by which the concept may enter science is through the high-temperature superconductivity model. There are several compounds with proven superconductivity at "high temperature" (ca. −223 °C). Although the mechanism of high-T superconductivity is not well understood, there is ample experimental evidence that it exists. Lots of theorizing and experimenting is going on in the world to get a grip on the phenomenon. Likewise, if it could be established experimentally that water had memory, then the theorizing, aided by further experiments, could commence. In this case an encyclopedia could be expected to describe the current thinking on the subject. However, there are no experiments that even remotely indicate that water has memory. There is only the very indirect evidence that homeopathically treated water may have healing properties. The associated speculations are so vague and so far removed from reality that they have no place in an encyclopedia.

The second path is by the quantum computing model. If it is possible to set up Gedankenexperimenten that show the required properties, then the phenomenon may be made plausible and scientifically acceptable. The essential characteristic of a Gedankenexperiment is that it follows very closely and carefully the established scientific rules. Speculation outside generally accepted laws is strictly forbidden. If it were allowed then everything goes and one would leave the realm of science and enter fiction (cf. Jules Verne). Quantum computing is feasible in theory according to the well-established rules of quantum mechanics, although its physical realization is still far in the future. In making the analogy: there is no Gedankenexperiment for water memory. There is no theoretical description of water memory according to widely accepted scientific rules. Maybe there are some people somewhere thinking something up, and maybe they will eventually be successful (although personally I'm doubtful), but even so, it is much too early for an encyclopedia to pay attention to such an approach (in contrast to quantum computing, which does not exist in practice either, but has enough theoretical credibility to warrant an article).

In summary: remove all the speculations about the memory of water and only report the Benveniste story (would go nicely in the history of science workgroup—if such a workgroup existed—together with polywater, cold fusion, and N-rays).--Paul Wormer 17:09, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

PS Even if it had been proved experimentally that water had a memory (quod non) then CZ is still not the place for speculative theorizing about "Redox molecules" (whatever they may be), "nanobubbles", "clathrates", "solitons", "ortho/para water", ice sulptures & water waves, and what have you. --Paul Wormer 16:40, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Question

I read in the lead-in:

The work resulted in considerable controversy, and some other labs stated they were unable to reproduce the reported effects, while others report confirmation.[1][2]

and I checked the references [1] and [2]. I did not find any mentioning of labs: Ref. [1] refers to an unrefereed review by the homeopathy believer M. Chaplin and [2] to the physicist Josephson, who did not do any experiments on water. So, which labs "report confirmation" of the Benveniste studies? --Paul Wormer 16:40, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Gareth Leng implicitly answered the question by changing Ref. [1] to a reference in Inflammation Res., which is a journal that I have no access to at the moment. However, judging by the title (Histamine dilutions modulate basophil activation) this article will contain a very indirect proof of the existence of water memory.

Gareth Leng also extended Ref. [2] somewhat. I checked the pdf of Ref. [2], which contains viewgraphs of a lecture in which Josephson argues that scientists dismiss certain novel ideas too easily. However, Josephson does not mention any experiment or theoretical model that make the memory of water plausible (except the Benveniste experiment, of course). One needs the prestige of a Nobel laureate to get away with the reasoning: scientists have been wrong before, they are likely to be wrong again regarding the memory of water, hence memory of water exists. Josephson does not offer any argument why scientists would be wrong in this case. The tenor of the lecture is that scientists are almost always wrong, so undoubtedly in his case as well.

Further I found via Ref. [2] a 1997 letter of Josephson to New Scientist (a popular magazine about science matters) in which he offers the "proof": Simple-minded analysis may suggest that water, being a fluid, cannot have a structure of the kind that such a picture [i.e., memory, PW] would demand. But cases such as that of liquid crystals, which while flowing like an ordinary fluid can maintain an ordered structure over macroscopic distances, show the limitations of such ways of thinking. I like to comment that liquid crystals consist of very long molecules, much unlike water molecules, and that the properties of liquid crystals are fairly well understood. For instance, they flow like an "ordinary fluid" in one direction only, which makes them very non-ordinary fluids. And again, speculations like this are premature. Such speculations do not belong, directly or indirectly, in a non-technical encyclopedia that IMHO should only describe scientific facts (i.e., give info that is well established). --Paul Wormer 02:18, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Agree in all respects. The Inflammation article is a similar experiment to B's and I think others have been reported, as I explained the test system is very vulnerable to false positivesGareth Leng 19:33, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Clean-up

I intend to remove from the article all speculations of how water may have a memory. An encyclopedia must stick to the facts. The most pertinent facts being the effect of an ultradiluted solution on human basophils seen by (only) two teams: of Benveniste and of Ennis and the observation that they propose water memory as an explanation. Another fact is that thousands of peer-reviewed papers on water appear yearly in the most respected scientific journals that do not mention water memory, either because the authors do not observe it, or because their theoretical models do not have room for it. Speculations on nanobubbles, solitons, etc. cannot even begin to explain how liquid water can store information. And even if these speculations could make memory somewhat plausible (quod non), then still CZ must not report on them before they are generally accepted by the scientific community as the most likely explanations of well-established reproducible observations. --Paul Wormer 17:15, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm not arguing with you, because you're the expert in the field, and because I myself think that the idea of water memory is ridiculous. On the other hand, if we have an article about Cold fusion, say, shouldn't there be at least some mention of how the adherents of this theory think it works? If so, then why not a *drastically scaled down* section in this article, maybe no more than a few lines, about the proponents' explanations? Or, of course, maybe a separate article entirely, Memory of water, explanations by adherents or some such? Cheers! Hayford Peirce 18:16, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Maybe I'm misreading Paul, but I think he is suggesting including a something about how "Benveniste and Ennis think it works". Any other speculation will be removed. Chris Day 18:33, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Ah, okay, I misread. Hayford Peirce 18:37, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

I have to read Benveniste's and Ennis's papers to see how deep they go into explaining the memory of water. I'm in the USA now and have no easy access to academic journals (I'm not even sure if my university subscribes to Inflammation Research, an unexpected journal for the physicochemistry of water. It is possible that I can only read the abstracts of that journal), so it has to wait until I'm back. I agree that the arguments of Benveniste and Ennis need attention.

Then there is the problem of how much weight/space one should give to "arguments" cooked up by Brian Josephson, Martin Chaplin, Rustum Roy, Pierre-Alain Gouanvic (and others) that can be found on the internet. None of them has done any experiments or has a coherent theoretical explanation; they just mention some important-sounding terms loosely connected with water. I had in mind to ignore them, but Hayford put some doubts in my mind. It will be very difficult, though, to write neutrally. Especially R. Roy (who believes that water can burn and that its combustion energy can solve the energy crisis) is very hard to take serious.--Paul Wormer 22:39, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

I read Ennis' paper and scanned the papers in the special issue of the journal "Homeopathy". I added a few sentences to the lead-in. I'm tempted to remove all sections except the one on Benveniste's work (interesting for historical reasons) and the lead-in. Anyone objects? --Paul Wormer 17:08, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Not I -- only stuff that's relevant should be there. Hayford Peirce 17:09, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I read your overview about the difficulties of trying to negotiate all the alternative ideas on the forums. I think you are correct and will support your edits here. Chris Day 17:39, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

You have my support as well. Howard C. Berkowitz 17:45, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Repetitions

Non-constable comment :) Just making a quick skim, the article seems to be divided into two sections that repeats itself. D. Matt Innis 19:30, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

• Matt, I don't see the repetitions. Indeed, the Benveniste study is mentioned twice, but the second time there is much more technical detail and the emphasis is on the background of the Nature article. The lead-in is an easier read and is about the Le Monde article, the international consortium of Madeleine Ennis, the articles in the journal Homeopathy and the mainstream-science view.
• In addition, I only shortened the article, removed a few sections and did not touch the second section at all, so surely your comment must apply to the earlier version too?
• On second thought, trying to understand your criticism I reread the 2nd section and entered a few minute changes and also noticed that the work to Ennis et al. is referred to twice, which I will fix.
• So, please be more specific in pointing out the repetitions that disturb you.

--Paul Wormer 08:37, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Paul, thanks for taking the time to respond to my concerns! I see what you mean about how the article works, and after re-reading the second section more carefully, I do see that it is different than the first.

I am concerned that the lead should say more quickly (prefereably in the first or second sentence) that "Memory of water" is a homeopathic phrase (unless you think another field uses this term) and, though it has some science behind it (albeit questionable), the flaws prevent it from being taken seriously. The current lead doesn't really make this clear until the last sentence. Though the middle two paragraphs handle the 'questionable science', they get pretty complicated and might tend to lose the reader before they get to that last sentence at the end - leaving the reader with the feeling that this is an acceptible phenomenon. Other than that, it looks pretty good. D. Matt Innis 01:44, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

I looked at it again, and I see that the first paragraph of the lead does make mention that mainstream doesn't accept it.. so I still come back to the second paragraph delving too deep, too quickly. I think some could be move to the second section, but I'll think about it some more in the morning! D. Matt Innis 01:50, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

I've been thinking for a couple of days how I could do more rewriting of the first two paras. That's a *long* sentence to start with. Maybe I'll give it go, myte.... Hayford Peirce 02:01, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

To me it seems that we are getting somewhere, the article is converging. The only thing is: Is it clear to non-scientists that the so-called "explanations" as "electromagnetic exchange of information between molecules", "breaking of temporal symmetry", "thermoluminescence", "entanglement described by a new quantum theory", "formation of hydrogen peroxide", "clathrate formation", etc. are loads of rubbish and moreover contradict each other? The articles in the journal "Homeopathy" are autistic in that they ignore each other completely; one article says something completely opposed to the next. In regular science this is unheard of. In a special-topic issue authors are usually on one line and when there is disagreement it is discussed at length, not completely and autistically ignored. The main editor of the special-topic issue will see to that. --Paul Wormer 06:32, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

I consider myself a non-scientist and I got it when I read the whole thing through. You're realization that the homeopathic journal has different explanations is important. We need to re-arrange the article in such a way to illustrate that the so-called "explanations" as "electromagnetic exchange of information between molecules", "breaking of temporal symmetry", "thermoluminescence", "entanglement described by a new quantum theory", "formation of hydrogen peroxide", "clathrate formation", etc. are all attempts to explain how water could "store" information, thus the pseudonym "water memory". Then we can note that the the mainstream considers them all rubbish, and you can state it as harshly as you feel necessary and comfortable, but remember that the public does not respond well to criticism that is not based on sound information - so "harsh" is not as important as "reasoned". It would be best to cite a strong scientific source, of course, but you're being a chemistry and physics editor is sufficient for me.

I think we do a good job of explaining why mainstream scientists feel the way that they do and we've done it in a way that I have never seen before; using reasonable scientific rationale rather than dogma disguised as science. If we were to expand it, we would have to expand on some of the other hypotheses and consider the status of research for each of them.

D. Matt Innis 13:05, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

I wrote on the forum about this problem. My initial plan was to review the alternative theories and to write— with as little prejudice as possible—what the mainstream science view was on them. I thought that I had to review one or two, or at most three, different theories. I gave up on this plan when I saw that there so many different alternative theories. It would take me too much time and the CZ article would become too long to review all of them. Also, I couldn't discern one or two dominant theories to which I could restrict my attention. --Paul Wormer 13:20, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

(undent)Ah, of course, that makes sense. I know I would be clueless if it weren't for the work that you and others have already put into this. I would be satisfied with one or two sentences, I think, of your overall assessments of what you read - just enough to show that you considered them. Meanwhile, would you look at this re-write of the lead and let me know if it is an improvement or not. You can pick and choose parts of it, too if you want. I was just looking to clarify and simplify it some for the average reader. This is what we have now:

• Memory of water is a phrase used by homeopaths to help explain what they believe are the foundations of homeopathy. The phrase itself was first used in a June 30, 1988, article on the front page of Le Monde, a leading French newspaper, about a controversial piece of research by Jacques Benveniste and his colleagues on homeopathy that was being published that same day in the prestigious English journal Nature. It was the Le Monde article, actually called "La mémoire de la matière" (the memory of matter) and not "La mémoire de l'eau" (the memory of water), that popularized the phrase. In the two decades since, however, aside from homeopaths, no mainstream scientists have accepted the concept.

This is what I was thinking:

• Memory of water is a phrase adopted by homeopaths to explain how their remedies might create the results that they claim they see in their patients. Being of such high dilutions, the remedies likely do not contain even one molecule of substance other than water. This has led them to speculate with a variety of possible explanations for the responses that they see, all of which they include under the one name, "memory of water". One such explanation was embodied in research by Jacques Benveniste and his colleagues, published in the prestigious English journal Nature in June of 1998. Benveniste purportedly discovered that diluted water might retain some qualities of the materials that were once dissolved within it. The French newspaper Le Monde popularized the phrase that same day in an article on the front page and touted it's ramifications on the practice of homeopathy. The research has not survived rigorous scrutiny and it's conclusions remain controversial. In the two decades since, mainstream scientists have not accepted any of the "memory of water" concepts as plausible. D. Matt Innis 14:03, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Your paragraph looks pretty good to me, Matt. I also agree with what you say above: Paul should make clear to the general reader, ie, me, that each of these 13 "explanations" contradicts the other and that all of them are rubbish. As if 13 lunatics accepted the "fact" that the Moon is made of cheese, and then wrangle about what *kind* of cheese it is. Hayford Peirce 15:03, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Is this an appropriate place to say how much I despise that phrase "mainstream scientists"? It implies that there is an identifiable community of "mainstream scientists", and by implication a corresponding community "non-mainstream scientists", and that simply isn't true. Scientists who adhere to the majority view on certain topics often adhere to minority views on other topics. For example, there's no reason to believe that those who adhere to minority positions on global warming or cold fusion accept this "memory of water" business. Raymond Arritt 15:26, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Raymond, come up with a better term for scientists that know about thermodynamics, forces between molecules, spectroscopy, molecular dynamics, etc. and who usually publish in journals of the ACS and APS (American Chemical/Physical Societies). I'm happy to trade in the term "mainstream scientist" for a better one. Hayford, I have a problem with explaining the nuttiness of some of the theories in accordance with CZ's neutrality policy. I wish I could use the cheesy moon metaphor, but the constabulary wouldn't let me.--Paul Wormer 16:06, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Raymond, I'm afraid that there isn't any other phrase that we've been able to come up with that satisfies (not very much) everyone concerned. The fringe believers want to call them "skeptics", but in a disparaging sense. A lot of people object to that, just as the fringe believers object to being called "fringe". "General scientific community" has also been used, I think. Please give us a better one and I promise that we'll use it. Paul, I wish I could take off my Konstabulary Kap and tell you to use the cheese metaphor, but I can't. I think if you, an Editor in the field, simply had a declarative sentence such as: "Those who believe (or tend to believe or some such) in the evidence for a memory of water have, at the very minimum, 9 (or whatever the number is) totally different possible explanations for this purported phenemona. Not a single one of them, however, is supported by, or accepted by, mainstream scientists." And stick in as many footnotes as you want as links to these various explanations. (Could there be a related subarticle called "Explanations of purported "Memory of Water"?) Hayford Peirce 17:41, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

If most scientists do not accept X, then why not simply state "Most scientists do not accept X"? Raymond Arritt 18:50, 1 May 2009 (UTC)