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Materials scientists will tell you that the standard story about homeopathy makes sense to them.

I've never heard that?

'Homeophobia' must not be tolerated

A major bugaboo for "homeophobes" is the concept that a solution where the solute is extremely diluted (beyond Avogadro's number) absolutely cannot, they believe, be any different from the original solvent. Hence homeopathy must be a fraud. This has been the anti-homeopathy crowd's trump card for more than 100 years.

But let us turn to scientists who specialise in water's properties. Prof Martin Chaplin of London's South Bank University, a leading expert on the (molecular) structure of water, says: "Too often the final argument used against the memory of water concept is simply 'I don't believe it' ... Such unscientific rhetoric is heard from the otherwise sensible scientists, with a narrow view of the subject and without any examination or appreciation of the full body of evidence, and reflects badly on them."

As it happens, there is agreement among all those who have studied liquid water that it is, in fact, the critics, who are totally wrong.



keep to the Fen Causeway
by Helen (lareinagal at yahoo dot co dot uk) on Thu Dec 27th, 2007 at 09:35:45 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Well, that seems to be one scientist with an agenda and another who is quoted here as saying that:
It follows that simply proving that water does have a memory does not prove that homeopathic medicines work.

I don't get the feeling from that or reading the comment thread that there is a lot of acceptance of the point of view  the water memory could explain homeopathy among material scientists.

by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Thu Dec 27th, 2007 at 09:53:11 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Put it this way: if i were a homeopath I'd be a lot more comfortable selling it by saying that my experience is that it has a good success rate than I would talking about water memory or other mechanisms.
by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Thu Dec 27th, 2007 at 09:55:32 AM EST
[ Parent ]
So a misquote, too. There is also the graphite to diamonds whopper. The short timescale of structures in water and the diamonds thing were noted in several comments at the Guardian.

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.
by DoDo on Thu Dec 27th, 2007 at 10:34:12 AM EST
[ Parent ]
This thread has much more technical commentary.

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.
by DoDo on Thu Dec 27th, 2007 at 11:22:45 AM EST
[ Parent ]
If you read the full article and then the comments, it becomes less convincing.

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.
by DoDo on Thu Dec 27th, 2007 at 10:22:27 AM EST
[ Parent ]

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