Water memory
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Water memory is a concept, basic to homeopathy, which holds that water is capable of containing "memory" of particles dissolved in it. This memory allows water to retain the properties of the original solute even when there is literally no solute left in the solution. There is no consistent body of evidence that supports this theory.
The most prominent advocate of this idea was the French immunologist Jacques Benveniste, who attempted to construct a mechanistic explanation for homeopathy. He had gone so far as to say this information might even be transmitted via telephone or the Internet.
Attempts at replication have produced mixed results. An international team led by Professor Madeleine Ennis of Queen's University of Belfast claimed to have succeeded (see references), but a more recent study did not [1].
Noted skeptic James Randi placed a $1 million challenge to the BBC Horizon team to prove the "water memory" theory. Experiments were conducted in a proper scientific manner, with the Vice-President of the Royal Society, Professor John Enderby, overseeing the experiment. The challenge ended with the Horizon team failing to prove the memory of water. However, Ennis claimed that Horizon did not faithfully reproduce her experiment (see external links).
According to many experts any apparent success of homeopathy in treating ailments can be explained via the placebo effect (cf: the research results of White et al.; see external links).
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- "Transatlantic Transfer of Digitized Antigen Signal by Telephone Link," J. Benveniste, P. Jurgens, W. Hsueh and J. Aissa, "Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology - Program and abstracts of papers to be presented during scientific sessions AAAAI/AAI.CIS Joint Meeting February 21-26, 1997"
- "Thanks for the memory" Milgrom, L. Guardian, The (newspaper) 15.03.2001
- "Icy claim that water has memory Milgrom, L. New Scientist 11 Jun 2003
- "13 things that do not make sense" Brooks, Michael. New Scientist 19 March 2005 (#4)
- L'Âme des Molécules - Une histoire de la mémoire de l'eau, Francis Beauvais, Coll. Mille-Mondes[2], Ed. Lulu.com (2007), Text in French, ISBN 978-1-4116-6875-1.
[edit] External links
- DigiBio — Jacques Benveniste's water memory research company.
- [3] — Study by White et al. on homeopathy.
- [4] — A critical account on the BBC Horizon program by Morag Kerr, Vetlab Services.
- [5] — Email from Madeleine Ennis detailing differences between the BBC Horizon program's experiment and her own.
- Homeopathy - from Martin Chaplin's Water Structure and Behavior site
