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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