The Incredible Mysteries of Water

[Razor Sharp]

http://vimeo.com/11763906

This film blew my mind. Simply incredible!

Some notes

> Water has memory, recording events of its past
> Water transfers data over long distances
> Water responds to human emotion
> Holy water is no myth or superstition
> Prayer has observable effects in a laboratory

This is some seriously delicious brain food - enjoy!

 

[iqqi]

I completely agree. They say we all come from water, both in an evolutionary sense as well as we all come from a watery womb. I know when I feel very ill, I can sit in water and feel better after a few moments just literally soaking it in, and rinsing it away. We are made of water.

I have an interesting theory on god, that we are all god. that includes everything, and we are all connected. water would play a big part in that.

 

[Rogue]

http://vimeo.com/11763906

This film blew my mind. Simply incredible!

Some notes

> Water has memory, recording events of its past
> Water transfers data over long distances
> Water responds to human emotion
> Holy water is no myth or superstition
> Prayer has observable effects in a laboratory

This is some seriously delicious brain food - enjoy!

I hope you're not serious. I hope your post was every bit drenched in sarcasm. Every claim is patently false. Right off the top of my I head, I know the most comprehensive and well-funded experiment was “Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer” directed by Harvard University Medical School cardiologist Dr. Herbert Benson and published in The American Heart Journal (April 2006). Their answer: no. In fact, patients who were prayed for did worse, perhaps because the suggestion caused them to worry their illness has worsened. Now, the most prominent study to support intercessory prayer (in fact, the only supportive study done by a prestigious institution) was the Columbia University study “Does Prayer Influence the Success of in Vitro Fertilization-Embryo Transfer: Report of a Masked, Randomized Trial,” was published in the Journal of Reproductive Medicine (JRM), in 2001. Most unremarkably, the study was categorically fraudulent. I can discombobulate your other statements.

 

[cordoncordon]

I stopped listening when the narrator said within the first 1.5 minutes that Earth is the only planet in the Universe with water. How could HE POSSIBLY know? The entire Universe? The entire possible INFINITE UNIVERSE? Something so common as water, made up of very common elements, and yet Earth is the only planet with it? Right. I take it the website presenting this video is a creationist site? Hell scientists think there is water on the moon and perhaps Mars. Don't listen to that crap.

 

[mikeyb]

I can discombobulate your other statements.

Yes it's obviously BS but I'd love to see you try and "discombobulate" his holy water claim. It's like trying to argue that God doesn't exist with a religious freak.

 

[Razor Sharp]

Rogue, actually I am glad you chimed in here. I know you are a smart dude who does his homework and welcome your input. In particular I am curious what your take is on the claim that water has structural memory and different levels of energy or "charge". Their scientific experiments seemed pretty sound, but then again I am a layman when it comes to this. Feel free to blow all these theories out of the water - enlighten me.

You have to watch the whole video first though.. and yes cordon, I agree that the idea of water only being in one planet in the entire universe is not very sound, but there are definitely some interesting experiments going on here. I believe they are saying we haven't yet found a planet with H2O on it yet, though I'm not even sure how true that is. Any astronomy nerds here who can confirm/deny?

I will also concur that the evidence of holy water and prayer is anecdotal, I only believe it because of many personal firsthand experiences.

While empirical studies, experiments and statistics do have their value I don't think they are the final word on what is real (especially when you consider the small percentage of reality that we are capable of perceiving.)

Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.

I dunno man, if quantum physicists are confirming that matter is affected by our very observation, is it really that much of a stretch to believe that our intent changes the world around us for better or worse? Is it that hard to imagine that the most maleable element on the planet could be affected by us in ways we do not comprehend?

As for that prayer experiment they did it wrong. The patients should not have received ANY information about the prayers. That would have been a more accurate measure, which would eliminate any placebo effects.

 

[Fuglydude]

I tried to watch that video... I lasted for the first 2 minutes when he said:

"most common substance on earth"... actually its silica. Oxygen and silicon are the two most common elements on the earth. Put them together and you get silica. I think iron and aluminum are after that.

and

"...only such planet to have water".

There is no way for him to know that. Furthermore, scientists agree that water is surprisingly common in the universe. Hell the moon and even Mars have water, albeit not in the liquid state.

Maybe I'll have to come back and check out the rest when I get a chance...

Razor, I believe you're talking about the Heisenberg uncertainty principle... in the every day world, this simply means that subject that you're studying will be affected by your actions. For example, if you're measuring how tall a plant is you'll have to go up to it, and if you want a precise measurement you'll have to touch it with a tape measure or something. In doing so you have affected the system that you're studying by interacting with it. Now when you scale the object of your interest down to the size of an electron in an orbital around a nucleus, then any infinitesimally small interaction with the electron that you need to do to study it, will affect the electron. Technically this means that you can't simultaneously and precisely know both the position and momentum of the above said electron. I'm not sure if this is what you were referring to when you said that matter is affected by our observation?

 

[Ease]

What a nonsense video.

It tries too hard to mystify the non existant mysteries of water.

Claiming that scientists cannot explain things like why water expands when frozen? Why water has a high surface tension? How trees can transport water up long tree trunks?

This is basic chemistry and biology. Unless this documentary was made 100 years ago this is just odd.

 

[Razor Sharp]

Fugly, fwiw they said SUBSTANCE. You are talking about elements, water is a compound so that doesn't apply. Stats on percentages vary, but the one I've seen most agreed upon is:

O2=46.7%
Si = 22.7%
Al = 8.1%
Fe = 5.1%
Ca = 3.7%
Na = 2.8%
K = 2.6%
Mg = 2.1%
T1 = 0.6%
H = 0.14%
P = 0.13%
C = 0.1%

If you consider the surface area of the planet, then yes water is the most abundant. (70% I think?)

@Ease,

They dont say that scientists dont know why it expands. They dont know why water is the ONLY material that exhibits this behavior.

Anyways I'm looking forward to hearing from folks who have actually watched the video before dismissing it based on semantics.

 

[Rogue]

mikeyB:
Yes it's obviously BS but I'd love to see you try and "discombobulate" his holy water claim. It's like trying to argue that God doesn't exist with a religious freak.

Easy.

1) Argument from ignorance.
2) Misplaced burden of proof. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and the burden of proof rests upon people making a claim of existence.
3) Double-blind placebo experiments. The granddaddy of experiments can disprove any special powers attributed to water. The double-blind placebo experiment is the method how claims to homeopathy have been discredit and this thread is basically a homeopathy thread as all the claims describe homeopathy. I don't have time to watch the video but I guarantee if you look close enough you'll find this motive.

Classical homeopathy originated in the 19th century with Samuel Christian Friedrich Hahnemann (1755-1843) as an alternative to the standard medical practices of the day, such as phlebotomy or bloodletting. Opening veins to bleed patients, force disease out of the body, and restore the humors to a proper balance was a popular medical practice until the late19th century (Williams 2000: 265). Hahnemann rejected the notion that disease should be treated by letting out the offensive matter causing the illness. In this, he was right. On the other hand, he argued that disease should be treated by helping the vital force restore the body to harmony and balance. In this, he was wrong. He rejected other common medical practices of his day such as purgatives and emetics "with opium and mercury-based calomel" (ibid.: 145). He was right to do so. Hahnemann's alternative medicine was more humane and less likely to cause harm than many of the conventional practices of his day….

Classical homeopathy is generally defined as a system of medical treatment based on the use of minute quantities of remedies that in larger doses produce effects similar to those of the disease being treated. Hahnemann believed that very small doses of a medication could have very powerful healing effects because their potency could be affected by vigorous and methodical shaking (succussion). Hahnemann referred to this alleged increase in potency by vigorous shaking as dynamization. Hahnemann thought succussion could release "immaterial and spiritual powers," thereby making substances more active. "Tapping on a leather pad or the heel of the hand was alleged to double the dilution".

Supporters of homeopathy make claims water has memory, responds to emotions, transmits data (even through email! yes!), and make babbling crazy talk about quantum physics and string theory while holding no clue what the fück they're talking about. Yet,

A review of the reviews of homeopathic studies has been done by Terence Hines (2003: 360-362). He reviewed Taylor et al. (2000), Wagner (1997), Sampson and London (1995), Kleijen, Knipschild, and ter Riet (1991), and Hill and Doyon (1990). More than 100 studies have failed to come to any definitive positive conclusions about homeopathic potions. Ramey (2000) notes that, "Homeopathy has been the subject of at least 12 scientific reviews, including meta-analytic studies, published since the mid-1980s....[And] the findings are remarkably consistent:....homeopathic 'remedies' are not effective."

Here is a graphic illustration which explains in gruesome detail how homeopathy has been discombobulated:

http://darryl-cunningham.blogspot.com/2010/06/homeopathy.html

Razor Sharp:
As for that prayer experiment they did it wrong. The patients should not have received ANY information about the prayers. That would have been a more accurate measure, which would eliminate any placebo effects.

The exact abstract reads:

Patients at 6 US hospitals were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 groups: 604 received intercessory prayer after being informed that they may or may not receive prayer; 597 did not receive intercessory prayer also after being informed that they may or may not receive prayer; and 601 received intercessory prayer after being informed they would receive prayer. Intercessory prayer was provided for 14 days, starting the night before CABG. The primary outcome was presence of any complication within 30 days of CABG. Secondary outcomes were any major event and mortality.

 

[Fuglydude]

Fugly, fwiw they said SUBSTANCE. You are talking about elements, water is a compound so that doesn't apply. Stats on percentages vary, but the one I've seen most agreed upon is:

O2=46.7%
Si = 22.7%
Al = 8.1%
Fe = 5.1%
Ca = 3.7%
Na = 2.8%
K = 2.6%
Mg = 2.1%
T1 = 0.6%
H = 0.14%
P = 0.13%
C = 0.1%

If you consider the surface area of the planet, then yes water is the most abundant. (70% I think?)

@Ease,

They dont say that scientists dont know why it expands. They dont know why water is the ONLY material that exhibits this behavior.

Anyways I'm looking forward to hearing from folks who have actually watched the video before dismissing it based on semantics.

My assumption was that they were talking about overall mass of the earth... not just of the surface. Should have clarified my semantics.

Oh and yes we do understand why water expands when it freezes. The simple answer is: hydrogen bonding. When other materials cool their molecules get closer and closer together. This results in a corresponding contraction or decrease in volume. Due to the hydrogen bonding interactions of water, the lowest energy conformation in a solid state, the water molecules line up w/ oppositely charge dipoles around each other. This is the lowest possible energy state (so its most stable). This specific molecular "lattice" spacing leads to volume expansion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cryst_struct_ice.png

Oh, and I think silicon is an example of a substance that expands when it freezes as well. But feel free to correct me.

 

[Razor Sharp]

Interesting links Rogue, thank you for sharing them

I don't have an opinion either way about homeopathy, and the film makes no mention of it. But if you did watch it you'd see several controlled experiments by scientists around the world showing that not only does water respond to music, words and emotion, but water from the same source is able to transmit this information even when separated. They take water from the same jar, put it in two flasks and subject one to music, images and other stimulus. They test both samples by cryogenically freezing them and observing crystallization patterns (before and after stimulus). Both samples reflected the changes, which is pretty amazing when you think about it.

Also forgive me if I am just being ignorant here but I did read that part of the experiment and it still seems incomplete:

1. 604 received intercessory prayer after being informed that they may or may not receive prayer
2. 597 did not receive intercessory prayer also after being informed that they may or may not receive prayer;
3. 601 received intercessory prayer after being informed they would receive prayer

Where is the group that was not informed of anything? If they really wanted to eliminate placebo effect, why tell anybody anything beforehand?

@Fugly, once again the mystery is not why water behaves as it does, but why its the ONLY element that does so. Do you know of any other elements or compounds that exhibit this behavior? If so I'd sincerely like to know.

And if you do want to be argue semantics I believe they said it was the most abundant substance ON earth, not in it.

 

[Fuglydude]

I haven't watched the entire video yet... So I'm not sure which specific properties you're talking about. I'll have to check out the entire video when I have more time. And remember... as you said, water is a compound... not an element. Semantics regarding compounds and elements matter in this context as I'm sure you know.

 

[Ease]

I have never heard of anyone claiming it was mystery why water is the only substance that has certain properties. All sorts of substances have all sorts of unique properties. Over complicating a very common idea.

The documentary explicitly suggests that we dont know how water is transported up the xylem of a tree. The simple negative pressure caused by transpiration from leaves at the top of the tree causes a pull on the water taken in from roots, which is helped along the by the cohesion and adhesion properties of water due to h-bonding.

I see no logic in defending this.

 

[KingofHearts]

razor, i wanted to like this. I really did. But I should have known when iqqi said something about equating water and God. The video gives off this new age/conspiracy theory vibe that's hard to explain. But its the same feeling I got watching Zeitgeist. There's just so much stuff that's hard to believe that eventually the video contradicts itself and common knowledge. I think if i hadn't seen other similar movies, I would have gone further than 20 minutes before I called bs on the whole documentary. Hard to say what's true or not, but I don't like fiction mixed with fact.

 

[iqqi]

^^^whoa whoa whoa whoa.

Hater?

I haven't seen the video, and I don't know much about what it was saying though it does sound interesting. All I'M saying is that I think water is a very special compound. I mean, it is literally the essence of life. It is said in evolutionary (<---- yeah, I'm not religious or new age so bite it) theory that we came from a single molecule out of the sea, or some sh!t like that. I also do feel like water has healing properties, as I mentioned. I haven't gotten very deep into my hypothesis or anything, it's just a basic intuition.

That video itself may be very kitschy, but that doesn't mean all of the ideas in it are completely off the wall.

As for my belief that we are all god, god is just a word to me that is trying to explain a much bigger concept. I don't believe in "GOD" or the bible, it's nothing but Aesops Fables to me.

But water... something very special indeed. I bet there are better articles out there, if Razor's video was that bad.

"Water is life's mater and matrix, mother and medium. There is no life without water.”
-Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

“Nothing in the world is more flexible and yielding than water. Yet when it attacks the firm and the strong, none can withstand it, because they have no way to change it. So the flexible overcome the adamant, the yielding overcome the forceful. Everyone knows this, but no one can do it.”
-Lao Tzu

 

[Razor Sharp]

Well, the phrase "you cant win em all" applies here. No sweat though.

I'm not going to try and change anyone's mind, that wasn't the aim of this post. Just saw something I thought was cool and decided to share it. In the future I will make sure that any links I post are cross-referenced, re-debunked, grammatically and semantically perfect.

Anyways, thanks for your feedback and perspective. It's good to get as many angles as possible

 

[Rogue]

As for intercessory prayer,

Where is the group that was not informed of anything? If they really wanted to eliminate placebo effect, why tell anybody anything beforehand?

"Two groups did not know (i.e., were uncertain) whether they would receive intercessory prayer" (source).

The John Templeton Foundation was the major funder of the Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer (STEP). This project applied a large-scale controlled randomized research model to contribute to a growing number of scientific studies about prayer. Previous studies had attracted widespread public attention and discussion due to claims of positive health outcomes for distant intercessory prayer in which patients were unaware of being prayed for in the context of a research study. Analysts, however, had pointed to methodological weaknesses calling these results into question. In view of both the empirical uncertainties and the potential significance of a non-null result, the Foundation's advisory board advocated that substantial resources be put forth in order to advance methodological rigor in the design and execution of a new "blue ribbon standard" study (source).

As for water,

If you did watch it you'd see several controlled experiments by scientists around the world showing that not only does water respond to music, words and emotion, but water from the same source is able to transmit this information even when separated. They take water from the same jar, put it in two flasks and subject one to music, images and other stimulus. They test both samples by cryogenically freezing them and observing crystallization patterns (before and after stimulus). Both samples reflected the changes, which is pretty amazing when you think about it.

I took some time to watch the video. It's awfully boring. The narration is highly suspicious with weasel words of vagueness, vague stories, and its science advisors don't even get science right. Martin Chaplin said "scientists couldn't explain" why the density of water gets denser below freezing, but in actuality the greatest density of water is achieved at 4-degrees celsius above freezing and becomes less dense below freezing. The narration also claimed "scientists couldn't explain" why only water can be found in all the three states of matter -- solid, liquid, gas -- but mercury can also be a solid, liquid, or gas. You have to wonder in how many other things the film is wrong. There is too much unsubstantiated quackery nonsense for me to scrutinize, like "Austrian researcher" Allois Gruber claiming the quality of water will improve if you greet it with a gracious "Thank you!" (The Secret had gratitude rocks. Now there's gratitude water?), but I will focus on this exotic claim. To which I say: what experiments? The narration doesn't clarify the names of researchers who conducted the supposed experiments. If you go back to the end credits of the film, there are no reference citations.

Alexander Solodilov claimed to be a member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences and made extraordinary claims of an experiment which resulted in bizarre phenotypic and behavioral changes in fish. There are no reference citations in the end credits of the documentary, according to Google Scholar his name has never appeared in any research studies (there was one study with 'AA' Solodilov but no fish), and Google searches fail to establish the existence of his name outside of references to the film. Insofar as I'm concerned, there's no good reason to believe him. After all, if you notice, the film makes an illustrated animated recreation of the behavioral change in fish -- why didn't they just show the raw video footage of fish swimming identically synchronized? Methinks they are lying. It is an unscrupulous tactic of scientific dishonesty and major red flag of scientific fraud to forgo independent peer-view journals and head straight to an unquestioning film. The field of paranormal research has been plagued by frauds and flaws, and 'water memory' research in particular has been fraudulent:

In 1988, a French immunologist, Jacques Benveniste, and a group of colleagues published a paper in the prestigious English journal Nature. Their data indicated that progressive dilutions prepared with water, ethanol or propanol might retain some qualities of various materials that had once been dissolved in it. In particular, they claimed to have measured effects on human immune response… Benveniste claimed that he and his colleagues found evidence that very high dilutions of anti-immunoglobulin E (essentially containing only water) had an effect on the degranulation of human basophils. He, therefore, concluded that it was the 'configuration' of molecules in water that was biologically active. This added support to the homeopathic claim that there was a quality of water that allowed for extremely high dilutions of chemicals to remain therapeutic even without any measurable evidence of the original material.

Follow-up

Nature published the article with two unprecedented conditions: first, that the results must first be confirmed by other laboratories; second, that a team selected by Nature be allowed to investigate his laboratory following publication. Benveniste accepted these conditions; the results were replicated in Milan, Italy; in Toronto, Canada; in Tel-Aviv, Israel and in Marseille, France, and the article was accompanied by an editorial titled "When to believe the unbelievable."

After publication, a follow-up investigation was conducted by a team including the editor of Nature, Dr John Maddox, American scientific fraud investigator and chemist Walter Stewart, and "professional pseudoscience debunker" James Randi. With the cooperation of Benveniste's team, under double-blind conditions, they failed to replicate the results. Benveniste refused to withdraw his claims, and the team published in the July 1988 a detailed critique of Benveniste’s study. They claimed that the experiments were badly controlled statistically, that measurements that conflicted with the claim had been excluded, that there was insufficient avoidance of contamination, and that there were questions of undisclosed conflict of interest, as the salaries of two coauthors of the published article were paid for under a contract with the French company Boiron et Cie.

Another group led by Benveniste has reproduced the results while others have failed to reproduce the effects. Beneveniste et al contend that the same conditions were not met in those laboratories. (source)

Martin Chaplin and Rustom Roy, two 'experts' who appear prominently in your cited video, are homeopaths. Just as I predicted—I'm good. It couldn't be more obvious when Martin Chaplin wrote a guide called "Homeopathy." Why didn't these or any other homeopathic researchers take up James Randi's $1 Million Paranormal Challenge while they had the decades-long chance? In short,

http://thelaughingskeptic.com/2009/08/26/if-water-has-a-memory/

 

[Razor Sharp]

Yup you are good Rogue, can't hate bro. I actually enjoyed reading how you have proven me wrong and humbly concur with your points. (though I still think that prayer test would have been more complete without anyone being told "hey you may or may not receive a prayer, just so you know") Thanks for setting the record straight - hope you don't mind if I go directly to you next time I get excited by pseudo-science.

Hmm, a SoSuaver agreeing with an opposing opinion without any name-calling, death threats or suicide attempts. This HAS to be a first!

PS - you should start your own skeptics blog, this is obviously your calling

 

[Razor Sharp]

Rogue, you've really opened a can of worms for me. I am curious what you think about the FDA trying to ban homeopathic medicine. If it truly has no effect whatsoever, why ban it?

http://gaia-health.com/articles301/000321-fda-bans-hylands-homeopathic-teething-product.shtml

My sister lives in the UK and swears by those tablets (you can pretty much rule out placebo effect in a newborn, lol) Now she can't get them because they are considered an illegal drug. Does that seem fair to you?

By your own deductions homeopathy is physically harmless and at best could be considered fraudulent. But they don't even try to use fraud as an excuse - they attack the medicine itself as harmful without any evidence.