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Re: Theos-World Amazing Randi claims Blavatsky faked appearance of Koot Hoomi

Jul 05, 2004 01:04 PM
by Bart Lidofsky


Dallas TenBroeck wrote:
"I was reading his origination's about "Water Memory" more properly called "High Dilution Phenomena," he supported Benveniste's findings."

What are these ? Help?
It's a theory that is a reverse-logic explanation of homeopathy. It posits that, if a substance is dissolved in water and removed from it, there is a difference between that water and water in which the substance was not dissolved (in other words, water retains traces, or a "memory" of substances that have been dissolved in it). Experiments to determine whether or not this is so have been inconclusive or non-replicable (this does not mean that it isn't true; merely that it hasn't been proven).

It brings up an interesting point in the Western view of science, however. One way of dividing science is "utilitarian" and "causative". "Utilitarian" science can be summarized as: If action A is performed under condition B, then phenomenon C will result. It has been the traditional form of science practiced. During the Renaissance in Europe, however, the idea was developed that it would be useful to find basic principles of science, so that results can be reliably predicted rather than just found by trial and error. This is very useful, in that it can be used to predict areas where experimentation would prove useful. However, its very usefulness has had the opposite effect, in that utilitarian science has been minimized.

To be more precise, in the minds of many, it is not enough to know that A under B yields C; if there is no theory WHY it happens, that somehow invalidates THAT it happens (note that this is philosophy of science, NOT science). This sometimes leads to two unfortunate results:

1) People working with phenomena which are not well-defined and/or well-measured feel obligated to come up with causes for these phenomena. These causes can, at best, be called hypotheses, and, more often, are simply guesses, yet are too often labeled "theories".

2) Others link the hypotheses with the phenomena, coming to the conclusion that if the hypothesis is disproven, then the phenomena do not exist.

This has happened with Therapeutic Touch (where experiments which fail to show that practitioners can detect "human energy fields" are misinterpreted as disproof of Therapeutic Touch), and, in the examples being given, with homeopathy (where failure to demonstrate "water memory" somehow invalidates homeopathy). I discussed this with James Randi about a year or two ago, and got a statement from him that he agreed that disproving a so-called theory behind a phenomenon is not the same thing as disproving the phenomenon (the main thrust of the discussions I have had with him in the past few years, is the creation of "self-test" methodologies for people interested in the million dollar JREF prize).

Bart





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