An issue of Ontario Skeptic contained a letter from Paul
Greenwood, (“Science is open to radical, new ideas”) reporting on the
“water memory” experiments of Dr. J. Benveniste, and offering the
publication of these experiments as evidence of the willingness of the
scientific community to examine new and unconventional ideas.
As most skeptics will realize, the claim that solutions can retain
their effect when diluted many times, and indeed that the effect
increases with dilution, is one of the fundamental tenets of the fringe
medicine of homeopathy, but runs contrary to current knowledge in
chemistry and biology. The results of this experiment, if validated,
would therefore have lent credence to the claims of homeopaths.
However, additional information has come to light which forces us to reassess this research and its publication.
The initial report appeared in the June 30, 1988 issue of the British journal Nature, Vol. 333. Its results were sufficiently unusual that the editor of Nature
began that issue with an editorial titled, “When to believe the
unbelievable”. It is worth quoting extensively from that editorial...
Water memory tests all wet: A reassessment of the Benveniste experiments by a D.V.M. | Association for Science and Reason
