Curing cancer with water? A video for the curious and the scientific.

RE: Curing cancer with water? A video for the curious and the scientific.

Bob Russell — Wed, 25 Apr 2018 11:22:21 GMT

I am quite certain that many 'witches' genuinely believe in what they are doing. It is not the same as being liars.

Witchcraft is a belief system not dissimilar to faith based beliefs. Where faith based beliefs become backed up by unbiased results then they become science.

The idea that water has 'memory' and can be therapeutic is a belief until good trials show otherwise.

Much of scientific progress has been the result of disproving theories. That is where I consider homeopathy sits at present.

This is not disrespectful IMO. Constant harping on about cases that have been 'cured' without proper trials does not make these cures, just cases that got better.

Diagnosis is not infallible and modern medicines can be far from perfect but we know this from experience.

RE: Curing cancer with water? A video for the curious and the scientific.

Francisco Gomez — Sun, 22 Apr 2018 10:12:26 GMT

[quote user="Arlo Guthrie"]

I think you refer to this post:

[quote user="Francisco Gomez"]the 'the advances in quantum theory of recent years' has been proposed as hypothesis, and if you want to lie homeopathic principles a hypothesis, I welcome them, until they can be disproved and superseded by the pyramid of evidence. [/quote]

English is not Francisco's first language, I believe. And having met him myself, he's not the sort of person to run around accusing colleagues of lying!

I am quite sure what he meant was 'if you want to lay out a hypothesis'.

[/quote]

I'm sorry if I have misled someone. But Arlo is correct, I meant to write 'lay'.

Thank you, Arlo.

RE: Curing cancer with water? A video for the curious and the scientific.

Arlo Guthrie — Sun, 22 Apr 2018 09:43:21 GMT

[quote user="Mark Carpenter"]I thought the idea of a respectful discussion was being a bit hopeful. As a homeopathic vet and someone who has seen it work, two of the recent replies say that I practice witchcraft, and am party to lying. This is beyond unprofessional and disrespectful. Such terminology has no place in any meaningful exchange.[/quote]

Mark Carpenter

Maaarrrrrrkk. Noooh, no no. I think you've really misread a post there. NOBODY, but NOBODY is calling you a liar.

I think you refer to this post:

English is not Francisco's first language, I believe. And having met him myself, he's not the sort of person to run around accusing colleagues of lying!

I am quite sure what he meant was 'if you want to lay out a hypothesis'.

As to the references to witchcraft / magic, I do understand how you can find these terms, er, difficult / disrespectful, but they just reflect the degree to which people find the principles of homeopathy unbelievable. In the context of a scientific discussion, fair enough. Nobody is being personal here.

I still come back to my questions:

Do you agree with the idea that medicines should be tested for safety and efficacy and licensed before going on sale / being marketed to the public?
If you DO believe that it is right for medicines to be licensed and tested, do you believe homeopathy (or indeed any other form of treatment) should be exempt from this requirement, and if so, why?

There are a number of arguments that keep springing up, and I really do think they should be put into Room 101:

Conventional medicine has side effects.
Beside the point, we're not talking about conventional medicine here.
Conventional medicine is not always effective, perhaps often ineffective.
Again, beside the point.
The evidence for conventional medicine is often weak
Again, beside the point.
People are being disrespectful/unkind.
Actually, I think we're mostly stepping over ourselves to be quite the reverse! But this is a really important point. Scientific discussion HAS to be divorced from such emotions. It's not personal, and 'things' need to be open to the most robust challenge and even what may sound like ridicule. If something deserves respect, it needs to be earned, surely.

RE: Curing cancer with water? A video for the curious and the scientific.

Iain Richards — Sat, 21 Apr 2018 21:12:27 GMT

"This term "magic" is as indeterminable as the term "science"."

Sorry to select only part of your post Mark. Magic is indeterminable? Not really, it doesn't exist. Science is. Science is the process by which fact is separated from background noise - that's the meaning of its original root. A scientific view of a consult and remedy having a temporal association with a cure is, "Is the cure real?" "Was the disease real/diagnosis correct?" "Is the cure definitely the result of the remedy?" "Is there another explanation?"

RE: Curing cancer with water? A video for the curious and the scientific.

Niall Taylor — Sat, 21 Apr 2018 16:56:23 GMT

[quote user="Mark Carpenter"]I thought the idea of a respectful discussion was being a bit hopeful... use of such derogatory and unnecessary language invalidates your otherwise reasoned points because it shows the pre-existing bias which you so loudly accuse homeopaths of having[/quote]

Well the easiest way to silence your critics and expose the supposed bias for what you believe it to be would be simply to address the actual arguments as I have suggested in this post - https://www.vetsurgeon.org/uk/general/f/6/p/26898/196034.aspx#196034. There must be a reason why you prefer to complain about your critics rather than defend homeopathy; what is it?

As for taking offense at the term 'magic', homeopath Harald Walach himself used the term to describe homeopathy in the year 2000 in this paper in the British Homeopathic Journal. And here in Glastonbury 'witchcraft' is a highly respecible term!

Everything is relative and "The world you see is a result of the mindset you wish to exist" applies to you and your homeopathic colleagues as much as it does to anyone else.

Niall

RE: Curing cancer with water? A video for the curious and the scientific.

Francisco Gomez — Sat, 21 Apr 2018 15:49:52 GMT

[quote user="Mark Carpenter"]

I thought the idea of a respectful discussion was being a bit hopeful. As a homeopathic vet and someone who has seen it work, two of the recent replies say that I practice witchcraft, and am party to lying. This is beyond unprofessional and disrespectful. Such terminology has no place in any meaningful exchange. You can not agree - I understand and fully respect that because, as I have said many times, I was firmly in your camp for 13 years - but use of such derogatory and unnecessary language invalidates your otherwise reasoned points because it shows the pre-existing bias which you so loudly accuse homeopaths of having. These accusations would cause the accuser serious trouble if levelled at an individual veterinary surgeon, but are somehow deemed acceptable when levelled at a whole bunch of us. Sorry, it is disgraceful, and creates an atmosphere whereby a proper discussion cannot take place. Perhaps that's your motive?

There is also the wildly inaccurate accusation that we do not welcome proper research. Such utterances only go to illustrate the depth of ignorance (= lack of knowledge, not the derogatory word it is mostly used as). I can only assume that it is believed we do not want research because we actually know that what we are doing is misleading and wrong. If that were the case why don't we just go back to conventional medicine, and engage in the additional profit potential involved with all the accessory add-ons that entails? Just to prove how wrong this assumption is, here is a directly copied and pasted comment from a posting by one of our most brilliant and respected homeopaths on a homeopathic thread this morning: - ".... and there is great need for research into this to substantiate what we say/think. Hopefully one day the scientific community will start this work". This statement re not wanting research is total nonsense, and highly insulting.

I will leave you with this. We all share so much. We share our passion for animals and animal welfare. We share the desire to do all we can for our patients. We share the same degree, and the same 5 years study to get this degree. The ONLY difference is that a small number of us, dissatisfied that some patients did not respond to treatment, or showed serious side effects to the drugs available, decided to extend our vision beyond the comfort zone and investigate whether we could offer anything more, and discovered that it worked even though it went against our training and understanding as to how. For this we are called liars and witchcraft practitioners. I am rendered speechless (so I will be, you'll be happy to know). We should be celebrating the passion that we share, embracing the diversity within the small community that we are, not finding ways divide the profession.

Enjoy your responses to this answer, because I choose not to discuss any further when the responses are littered with insults. I would be REALLY happy to engage with fellow professionals on a respectful, even playing field, without the goading of such insults, but, in every thread in which I have partaken, this is sadly absent. It is such a poor reflection of the few when we cannot even have a discussion without such descent into verbal abuse. Genuinely disappointing and very sad

[/quote]

Mark, please.

If you're accusing anyone of being disrespectful, say so and name them or me.

I apologise in advance if you found my answers insulting. I believe I have not insulted you, but you have written a very long paragraph above accusing people of insulting because they disagree with you. Please be clear and call me out if you believe it is me.

RE: Curing cancer with water? A video for the curious and the scientific.

Marie Kubiak — Sat, 21 Apr 2018 15:02:16 GMT

[quote user="Mark Carpenter"]

[/quote]

Earlier you stated that success with homeopathy is limited for practitioners starting to use this modality. If this is the case then surely it should be the experienced homeopaths that orchestrate these studies rather than following the above quote and passing the responsibility on to the scientific community. If you maintain that inexperienced homeopaths will struggle initially then scientists with no experience of homeopathy will not be able to carry out these trials to the same standard. I am not being difficult or dismissive, I genuinely don't understand the reluctance to carry out your own research trials to support something you clearly strongly believe in.

Marie

RE: Curing cancer with water? A video for the curious and the scientific.

Mark Carpenter — Sat, 21 Apr 2018 14:32:39 GMT

The following quote has nothing to do with homeopathy or veterinary medicine; it is to do with life. "The world you see is a result of the mindset you wish to exist". This is an ancient and well-known teaching. Meditate on it for a while.

RE: Curing cancer with water? A video for the curious and the scientific.

Marie Kubiak — Sat, 21 Apr 2018 12:15:04 GMT

[quote user="Mark Carpenter"] I do not accept that the fact that we are unable to use the current tools of research and investigation to understand the mechanism of how it works, does not make it "unscientific", it just means that the observed effect does not fit the established rule book. This is how science has moved on over the centuries, and will continue to do so. [/quote]

Science has moved on by scientists proposing a hypothesis, carrying out experiments to prove or disprove the hypothesis and drawing valid conclusions based on results. So far homeopathy has failed to validate the hypothesis of being of medical benefit as the validated trials show it has no effect above placebo (see previous posts for more details on the scientific support for this). Rejecting homeopathy on this basis is not closed-mindedness, it is evidence based medicine. Indeed I, and many other vets, would welcome homeopathy as a valid treatment option if there were properly carried out trials that showed that it was of benefit. Why do the homeopaths not work together to design some blinded controlled trials to support their claims and defy us sceptics?

Marie

RE: Curing cancer with water? A video for the curious and the scientific.

Francisco Gomez — Sat, 21 Apr 2018 11:32:57 GMT

[quote user="Mark Carpenter"]

[/quote]

No, it doesn't assume that. Why would it?

[quote]

Again, without the advances in quantum theory of recent years, such understanding through research would have been impossible. So no, I do not accept that the fact that we are unable to use the current tools of research and investigation to understand the mechanism of how it works, does not make it "unscientific"

[/quote]

Well, there is where we will never agree.

If we don't know the mechanism, we can suspect it, but until we know, you don't get to just make it up. And when we don't know, it should say so in publications as many scientific publications do.

the 'the advances in quantum theory of recent years' has been proposed as hypothesis, and if you want to lie homeopathic principles a hypothesis, I welcome them, until they can be disproved and superseded by the pyramid of evidence. And AFAIK, this has already happened. I don't know why we keep digging into the past when those avenues have already been looked at time and time again.

Do you think we should go back and consider the superiority of the Aryan race again? I only say because there are many proposing this too. Or should we put it to bed once for all?

[quote]

, it just means that the observed effect does not fit the established rule book. This is how science has moved on over the centuries, and will continue to do so.

[/quote]

That's not how it has moved, sorry.

This is becoming tiresome.

RE: Curing cancer with water? A video for the curious and the scientific.

Mark Carpenter — Sat, 21 Apr 2018 11:20:37 GMT

Hi Angelo. This term "magic" is as indeterminable as the term "science". Many accepted scientific principles were originally considered magic. Re "our job as scientists", I agree in part. However, this definition assumes that we are already in possession of and understand all the tools needed to explain everything - and we aren't and don't! This is absolutely not an excuse, which it has often been quoted as being (and will again, maybe even as a repost to this reply!) but we are the first to accept that the precise mechanisms of the action of homeopathy are uncertain, though progress is being made. Again, without the advances in quantum theory of recent years, such understanding through research would have been impossible. So no, I do not accept that the fact that we are unable to use the current tools of research and investigation to understand the mechanism of how it works, does not make it "unscientific", it just means that the observed effect does not fit the established rule book. This is how science has moved on over the centuries, and will continue to do so.

RE: Curing cancer with water? A video for the curious and the scientific.

Niall Taylor — Fri, 20 Apr 2018 15:09:52 GMT

Fair points. Even if a 'memory of water' was proved today there would still be massive problems with homeopathy - Berlin Wall as a therapeutic agent for starters.

Niall

RE: Curing cancer with water? A video for the curious and the scientific.

Edward Jones — Fri, 20 Apr 2018 13:30:06 GMT

Personally I don't particularly have an issue with the proposed mechanism of action, or if mechanism of action is entirely unknown. After all, many drugs have poorly understood or entirely unknown mechanisms but we still use them in conventional medicine. If the homeopathic mechanism of action could be proven to be genuine it would present a really exciting new avenue of science.

My main two problems with homepathy and those who practise it are as follows:

1) Lack of proper evidence that homeopathy works. The lack of any drive to seek such evidence. Ignorant or malicious presentation of evidence that sounds persuasive superficially but doesn't stand scientific scrutiny (i.e. lying about the evidence that exists).

2) The belief system set up by homeopaths that makes them unable to challenge themselves or their current practices. Homeopaths have an attitude where literally nothing will sway their beliefs, which is the antithesis of good science. Therefore, debate with a homeopath only has value in order to allow third parties to judge for themselves and to prevent homeopaths from presenting their poor quality evidence unchallenged.

RE: Curing cancer with water? A video for the curious and the scientific.

Bob Russell — Fri, 20 Apr 2018 10:37:55 GMT

So it would appear that only stuff you add then dilute out to non-existence will be therapeutic. All the other things that the water may 'remember' are going to have no effect because we are used to it?

Sorry this all sounds even more fanciful. Each water droplet should have memory going back in time. Really all witchcraft as far as I am concerned.

RE: Curing cancer with water? A video for the curious and the scientific.

Francisco Gomez — Fri, 20 Apr 2018 06:07:03 GMT

[quote]

I only ask that you, and others, keep an open mind and decide for yourselves based on what you observe in an unbiased way. That is what science is all about.

[/quote]

I respectfully disagree very strongly with this.

[quote user="Mark Carpenter"]

Now I am sure that it can be pulled apart by those determined to do so

[/quote]

Science is this: Finding the reason why it wouldn't work.

That my auntie goes to a religious healer and calls dead spirits from the fifth dimension doesn't mean that she's right because she has opened her mind to quackery.

Our job as scientists is specifically and robustly question the validity of our own assertions until we are left with the only plausible avenue.

Otherwise you're appealing to magic, not science.

RE: Curing cancer with water? A video for the curious and the scientific.

Iain Richards — Thu, 19 Apr 2018 22:35:41 GMT

Note, I'd seen Arlo had written a critique, so I ignored it before writing my own.

That was curious. It was difficult to follow exactly what they were doing as most of the film was talking heads. The premise seemed to be to ultra-dilute a sample of HIV DNA, record a signal, digitise that signal, transmit that digital file, connect that digital file to a solenoid around a tube containing water then detect HIV via PCR from that water.

Some observations:

20 samples (10 ultra dilution of HIV DNA, 10 water) only 2 were found to emit something that they recorded. Why not all 10?

The PCR was conducted on a tube that, by the sound of it contained nucleic acids. If the right CAGT sequence bound to the PCR primer, that primer could then amplify that sequence.

The recordings were, I think, of electromagnetic radiation. Yet the recreation of the DNA at the remote site was achieved with the water placed within a solenoid - which creates a magnetic field. My physics is not what it was, but these are different (if related).

It wasn't good science.

The quantum physics chap suggested that the EMR signal from the DNA is trapped in voids in the water. But water molecules don't create voids, the hydrogen bonding clumps them all together which is why water is so unique, insects can walk on it and trees get water to their leaves 300 feet up. He also said digital sound was no different to the real sound of an instrument. Which it is, as several musicians I know will attest.

RE: Curing cancer with water? A video for the curious and the scientific.

Jo Dyer — Thu, 19 Apr 2018 22:19:46 GMT

[quote user="Arlo Guthrie"]the narrator's accent made his frequent references to dilutions sound like he is saying 'delusions'[/quote]

Nobel prizewinners and delusions are not mutually exclusive. Have you seen A Beautiful Mind? Wonderful film about John Nash who won the Nobel prize for maths and also suffered from schizophrenia.

Which is nothing to do with Montagnier, about whom I know absolutely nothing. I will try to watch the video when I have enough hours in the day!

RE: Curing cancer with water? A video for the curious and the scientific.

Niall Taylor — Thu, 19 Apr 2018 21:35:51 GMT

[quote user="Mark Carpenter"]Where's the profit at the end of it?[/quote]

What - you don't think there would be any money in the ability to teleport DNA? Big business and every national government in the world would be falling over themselves to fund that research.

Mark, are you actually ever going to address any of the actual arguments which have been put to you - the dangers of homeopathy, the more mundane explanations (errors, bias) for its claimed effects, the fact that one does not have to be a trained practitioner in order to make legitimate criticism and so on? So far all you've done is call anyone who makes such criticism closed minded, your main issue being that no-one seems to want to take things from you or other homeopathic proponents at face value, without question. Why do you allow percieved slights and the imagined shortcomings of your critics to distract from the real issue when this is your chance to defend homeopathy?

Niall

RE: Curing cancer with water? A video for the curious and the scientific.

Mark Carpenter — Thu, 19 Apr 2018 20:26:35 GMT

[quote user="Bob Russell"]If homoeopathy is right then you could be putting anything into the body unless the claim is that memory only does good. [/quote]

Really sorry, Bob, but to get that bit you do need to do some studying of homeopathy. This is the thinking of Newtonian, material science. The "anything" is not the "anything" that you have got used to. When I use arsenic album homoeopathically to treat a patient (as I have very many times - and self treated with it too) I am not giving material arsenic. When Luc Montagnier measures electromagnetic waves in the water, he is not measuring matter. This is the type of perfectly understandable, but basic, misunderstanding that creates this divide and means that much of the work of homeopathic research appears not to make sense. I genuinely understand this, because I was also a non-believer (wrong term but the closest I can get - it's not a belief system, despite what some of you would have us believe!) for 13 years. I get it. It's really hard to get your mind around it. A bit like a new exercise using muscles that have fallen into disuse (I've got plenty of those nowadays too, but lets not go down there!).

RE: Curing cancer with water? A video for the curious and the scientific.

Arlo Guthrie — Thu, 19 Apr 2018 17:41:01 GMT

[quote user="Mark Carpenter"]But the greatest eye opener in your response is the quote above[/quote]

Oh come on Mark, I'm allowed to have a little joke without it meaning I'm closed to the evidence.

I should have thought that the fact that I have obviously watched it and considered it in some detail AND raised perfectly legitimate issues is evidence that I took it seriously.

Of course by denouncing me as closed-minded, you've neatly side-stepped the issues I raised. Why did only two of the ten samples set his machine a-pinging? Without any shielding, isn't it quite possible that the system picked up electromagnetic signals from something else altogether? Do you know the answer to these questions? And why has nobody else been able to replicate his work?

Look, he had a win with HIV, but that doesn't mean he's going to be right about everything. Haven't all the best scientists backed some winners and losers?

And what can be read into the fact that Brazil, China, Israel and Switzerland support research into homeopathy? Actually, I don't know to what extent they do. But hey, so what if they are. That only means they are a bit behind the British, who have discovered its ineffective and are doing quite the reverse (government funding here is all drying up).

But again, all this is 'so what'. At the end of it all, there is only one question for me. As the parent of a sick child, I want medicines tested for safety and efficacy, and properly licensed.

Why should homeopathy be excused this requirement? Why? I just don't get it. Particularly when the evidence shows that people who use alternative medicine die early? How do you justify that?

Mark, you call me a skeptic. That the term sort of implies someone who just argues against everything for the hell of it. I prefer to think I am questioning by nature. I've asked you lots of questions and you're not answering any of them!

RE: Curing cancer with water? A video for the curious and the scientific.

Bob Russell — Thu, 19 Apr 2018 17:12:26 GMT

If any form of therapy appears to bring relief then of course governments will consider spending money on it. It does not make it work though!

Prince Charles is a keen advocate of homoeopathy but I consider him pretty daft on a number of matters.

Pseudoscience can be presented in ways that make believers out of people. it does not make it science or right.

Great minds can come up with daft ideas and appear all the more plausible for having a record of doing great work.

Where do you get memory free water from? Do sugar tablets lack memory?

If homoeopathy is right then you could be putting anything into the body unless the claim is that memory only does good.

RE: Curing cancer with water? A video for the curious and the scientific.

Mark Carpenter — Thu, 19 Apr 2018 17:02:57 GMT

[quote user="Arlo Guthrie"]By now, another thing struck me, which is how the narrator's accent made his frequent references to dilutions sound like he is saying 'delusions': 'Here we have a high delusion of DNA'.[/quote]

Thanks for your critique, Arlo. I guess it shows that anything can be what the viewer chooses it to be. You see the flaws, I see the potential. You see the scientists as, well, incompetent, I guess; I see a nobel prize winner who is trying to find the truth (or otherwise) in what he has observed. Remember that this started as an incidental finding in his HIV research, a finding he wanted to check out; I believe penicillin came from an equally great mind who saw something he wasn't prepared to ignore even though he didn't understand it.

But the greatest eye opener in your response is the quote above. It illustrates that, far from being the "unbiased observer" and watching the film with an open mind, your mind is very set, to a level when you can ridicule someones accent and make some kind of a joke about it. It shows just how prepared you were to try to understand and accept that perhaps he might have a point. This work is not about homeopathy, the documentary does not even mention homeopathy, but homeopathy is about the memory of water. They say in the film that further studies are needed, so recognise the need to get further "proof". Any surprises that funding is hard to get? Where's the profit at the end of it? It is clear just how much this could help, how much money he feels this could save, and therefore also how hard it could hit the pharmaceutical companies, who are the ones who fund research! It's not rocket science. That's precisely why major governments around the world (India; Brazil; China; Israel; Switzerland...) endorse and financially support homeopathy. Perhaps they are also deluded?

You view it with the eyes of a skeptic, Arlo. That's fine, I have no problem with that, and expected nothing more, to be honest. I view it with the open eyes of the curious. We both have to be careful of always extracting the thing that boosts our preconceptions. Preconceptions are a grave danger to true science and the evolution of ideas.

The video was offered as something of interest to anyone with a curious, scientific, enquiring mind. I did not intend it to be yet another route in for attacks, but hey, there you go. Have a good evening.

RE: Curing cancer with water? A video for the curious and the scientific.

Arlo Guthrie — Thu, 19 Apr 2018 12:03:34 GMT

Yes, Mark, I had only watched the first 5 minutes when I posted. I've now watched more ...

The video begins with Montagnier revisiting the site where Benveniste worked: a shed next to a big shiny lab, to where he'd been relegated when he couldn't get funding for his research.

Montagnier then proceeds to demonstrate an experiment in which he claims to be able to record electomagnetic fields from high dilutions of dna.

By now, another thing struck me, which is how the narrator's accent made his frequent references to dilutions sound like he is saying 'delusions': 'Here we have a high delusion of DNA'.

20 samples are prepared and blinded. 10 placebo and 10 containing the DNA (or to be more precise, the memory of the DNA, because Montagnier explains the dilutions mean there is no DNA remaining in any of the samples).

They then find an increase in the amplitude of the electromagnetic signal on samples 10 and 3. All the others are negative. These two samples are both dilutions of DNA.

But what about the other eight dilutions of DNA?

Apparently samples 10 & 3 are the only ones that are diluted to the degree that "as the virus is concerned, this is the range at which we detect the signals."

Says who? (apart from Montagnier).

And given that he says that the camera crew's lights and camera equipment are enough to interfere with the signal, are there not a million more plausible explanations for a variation in the electromagnetic signals detected? I don't see any shielding. Perhaps someone flicked a light switch in the next door room?

Next Montagnier claims to teleport (their words) the memory of the DNA from Paris to Italy - to another scientist who 'regularly co-publishes on the memory of water' with Montagnier. They prepare a .wav (sound) file from the electromagnetic signals recorded and send it over the internet. They then expose a sample of water to the sound for one hour (during which it will, they say, listen to the signal and memorise it). They then test the sample using PCR and claim it now contains reconstituted DNA 98% the same as that Montagnier diluted in Paris.

Then another scientist proposes the answers are all to be found in quantum physics.

Then Montagnier proposes that the retained memory of disease organisms in diluted water can be used to diagnose illness (with antibiotics) - eg alzheimers and autism.

Skip to case study where a doctor relates a case where an autistic child appeared to improve after treatment with antibiotics.

Then Montagnier returns saying that if water memory is true, then dilutions would also propagate and amplify the effect of the molecules in all medical treatments.

Of course this is all feared by the pharmaceutical industry (there's a surprise).

Then a conspiracy theory that Nature magazine conspired against Benveniste, condemned his position and caused his early death.

I'm about 45 minutes into this documentary and whilst it is interesting, what am I concluding so far?

The documentary doesn't provide evidence of anything. That first experiment looks fishier than a bag of old fish to me. Either way, studies and experiments that show an effect need to be repeatable. Apparently nobody has yet been able to replicate Montagnier's findings.
Even if they could be replicated, the theory of water memory is still a gazillion bazillion miles away from showing a particular homeopathic preparation can cure anything.
Meantime, the question is whether it is right for homeopathy to be given to patients based on the current level of evidence. In other words, if a pharmaceutical company approached the authorities saying: "Look, we've had an idea. We haven't been able to replicate it, but it's been proposed by our lead scientist and he's won an award so he must be right and everyone else wrong. The overwhelming majority of studies into efficacy also show that if properly blinded and placebo controlled, this new treatment is no better than placebo. Can we have a license please?"

The answer, surely, has to be NO.

Meanwhile Ben Goldacre (noted critic of both homeopathy AND conventional medicine) et al have published a new study today which analysed 7,6187 GP surgeries of which 644 had prescribed homeopathy, concluding that doctors who prescribe homeopathy perform worse than those who don't.

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0141076818765779

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/homeopathy-more-likely-to-be-used-by-bad-doctors-2z8ngk5lt

RE: Curing cancer with water? A video for the curious and the scientific.

Mark Carpenter — Thu, 19 Apr 2018 09:02:37 GMT

One more thing. Homeopathy is not mention once in the whole film (you might be glad to know)!

RE: Curing cancer with water? A video for the curious and the scientific.

Mark Carpenter — Thu, 19 Apr 2018 08:55:06 GMT

Hi Arlo. No, my support for homeopathy as a very useful additional tool to other approaches, including conventional, was initiated in a hugely skeptical vet (me) by my own enquiry, and my initial clumsy attempts to apply it in practice - with absolutely no expectation of success - was my unwillingness to see the wretched results of drugging fearful dogs with AcP so they stopped bothering the owners when November 5th came along, when it was clear to me (as later accepted) that the fear remained. I was truly shocked when it had a positive effect, and thus began my own self-questioning of everything I had held as dear and true and unquestionable in my scientific understanding. In my training I then learnt of the many trials which have been carried out, many of which can be found on https://www.hri-research.org and other places. But I do believe that forming a decision based purely on other people's viewpoints can leave potential avenues unexplored.

Let's add another question into this, Arlo. Is there a right and a wrong? Is it so black and white? Luc Montagnier got a nobel prize for his use of conventional techniques in discovering the HIV virus, even though he went against a lot of current thinking at the time. This eminent scientist is now researching the potential for water being able to retain electro-magnetic energy, and what value this may be to medicine. Does the fact that he was "right" in the methodology he used to discover the HIV virus now mean that he is deluded in his current research? Watch the documentary and he addresses these questions, and the fact that established science finds the quantum leap (good term!) required to accept the potential of this being fact as highly challenging, and too much for many. I understand why, believe me. I've been there, Arlo. I am a converted skeptic!

You talk about water being a cure for cancer. If you watch the video (which I guess you haven't yet had the time to do by your post), it illustrates that water can be the means by which energetic information can be retained in water, and this can be utilised for the good of future patients. Water is the incredible medium by which this can be transferred. Just watch the video and this is explained, and an experiment is shown which illustrates the fact in action. Now I am sure that it can be pulled apart by those determined to do so, but why would an already highly successful and world respected scientist risk his reputation and career following up on a study if it is, as you imply, totally unscientific? That does not make sense.

I only ask that you, and others, keep an open mind and decide for yourselves based on what you observe in an unbiased way. That is what science is all about. If, following this unbiased investigation, your honest conclusion is different to mine, then I fully respect that. But this thread was created not to further the tiring and interminable argument of other threads already exhausted; it was to offer a respected scientists viewpoint, backed by his experiments there for all to see, on the potential for water memory and its applications. This is not a deluded idiot, this is a nobel prize winning renowned scientist.

So back to your initial question. Am I right and science wrong? Science as currently accepted is in many ways right (depending on the definition of "science"), but there is a vast amount that we do not understand, and perhaps (hopefully in many ways) never will. The universe and its amazing workings will always contain mysteries beyond the grasp of mankind's enquires, but hey, we can have some fun trying to understand them can't we, even if it does challenge the status quo of currently held views!

Final thought. Just because the overwhelming body of evidence shows (I prefer "suggests") something does not mean that it is sacrosanct. All major new scientific advances and concepts that are now accepted started by challenging the "overwhelming body of evidence" of the time. It's about curiosity, observation, and each and every one of us being prepared to challenge yourself with that open, enquiring, and free mind looking on the world in wonder, not rigidity.

Enjoy the documentary!