Talk:Jacques Benveniste

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Contents 1 Benveniste / Benveniste Affair 2 new study 3 ? 4 WP:TIMET tags 5 Merger proposal 6 More recent experiments

[edit] Benveniste / Benveniste Affair

I'd like to propose that the present entry be renamed "The Benveniste Affair", on the grounds that it focuses almost entirely on the latter, while carrying virtually none of the biographical material users would expect from an entry with this title. I'd be happy to run up a stub for the bio entry very quickly if this meets with general approval.Robma 18:50, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, so this is actually supposed to be a biography. I was wondering. It does need renaming. –––Martin^phi _{(Talk Ψ Contribs)} 05:33, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

As this person is clearly notable, this page should stay. Some information could be moved between here and water memory, and the biographical section could be extended. However, this person is most notable for his water memory Nature paper and his junk science --DrEightyEight (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 10:27, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] new study

The study of Jonas et al at http://www.fasebj.org/cgi/content/full/20/1/23 would fit in the "attempts to replicate" section. McKay 02:45, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] ?

Is this supposed to be someone's biography? –––Martin^phi _{(Talk Ψ Contribs)} 05:22, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WP:TIMET tags

The article needs citations, I have tagged part of it but in true most of it is lacking historical references ℒibrarian2 17:44, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merger proposal

Since Water memory appears to be about the Nature controversy and nothing else, I have proposed a merger to this article. —Whig (talk) 03:10, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

I'd be against this, as it deserves an article of it's own (like the Sokal affair), like it has now --DrEightyEight (talk) 10:15, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

For a perspective from an uninvolved editor, see here. EdChem (talk) 14:40, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

I believe the Water memory debate in the water research community has moved on and, in parts, away from Homeopathy and Benveniste over recent years. Martin Chaplin (talk) 12:45, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] More recent experiments

This section may be deleted from the memory of water page. I believe that if this happens it should be moved here. At the moment it reads: Benveniste gained the public support^[1] of Brian Josephson, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist with a reputation for openness to paranormal claims. Increasingly unusual experiments continued, culminating in a 1997 paper claiming the effect could be transmitted over phone lines.^[2] This culminated in two additional papers in 1999^[3] and another on remote-transmission in 2000.^[4]

Time magazine reported in 1999 that, in response to skepticism from physicist Robert Park, Josephson had challenged the American Physical Society (APS) to oversee a replication by Benveniste, using "a randomized double-blind test", of his claimed ability to transfer the characteristics of homeopathically diluted water over the Internet. The APS accepted and offered to cover the costs of the test, and Benveniste wrote "fine by us" in his DigiBio NewsLetter in response to Randi's offer to throw in the $1 million challenge prize-money if the test succeeded. However, Randi in his Commentary notes that Benveniste and Josephson did not follow up on their challenge.

An independent test of the 2000 remote-transmission experiment was carried out in the USA by a team funded by the US Department of Defense. Using the same experimental devices and setup as the Benveniste team, they failed to find any effect when running the experiment. Several "positive" results were noted, however, but only when a particular one of Benveniste's researchers was running the equipment. Benveniste admitted to having noticed this himself, and offered a variety of reasons to explain away what appeared to be another example of experimenter effect. The experiment is also notable for the way it attempted to avoid the confrontational nature of the earlier Maddox test.^[5] Martin Chaplin (talk) 14:59, 19 February 2008 (UTC)