I disagree with this popular beleifs. No one managed to explain with a scientific proof what happens in Benvenist experiences. It is mainly beliefs and assumptions that bias the data analysis.
Experimental data points undoubtly to EM effects in water. This is the only way, using rational and actual science, to explain what has been observed. And ther is at least one possible explanation proposed by my father, physicist, that explains how it could. How the activity could be reccorded and reinjected in inactive water, the oscillations in activity during the dillution process, why shaking is needed, etc. He presented his explanation at a conference on Homeopathy in France last year. He is a theorist and his theory should be tested experimentally. None of the people present conducted these experiences.
There are still a lot of strange and unexplained effects in water. One scientist who reported such effects he saw in his experiments on EM effects was forced by the scientific community to pull back and say it was mistakes. I don't remember his name. I think he was german. It happened well before Benvenist discovery. This happens just because the data didn't fit to common beleif and assumptions.
The editor of Nature was a strong disbeleiver, maybe not as agressive as Randi. The real problem here is that these people behavior has nothing to do with pur science research process as it should be. They forged themselves a model of how things works and any data that doesn't fit the model must be an error. Calling back into question the model is out of question for them.
I've seen this behavior on many occasion. This is not scientific and rational.
There are two problems in your comment. First you assume, apparently without room for doubt, that the sugar pill contains absolutely no water. Second you assume that the activity is due to some element of fixed quantity.
Beside I don't see any reference to homeopathy in my comment. I only referred to Benveniste experiences which involved only water.
The sugar pill may contain water and contribute to stabilize the active and stable water molecule patterns. Even if there is only few of them, they may replicate themselves and amplify the activity with the same process occurring during the dilution and shaking process.
The theory suggest that the structures are aggregates of water molecule with ionic bound ruptures and rebinding at different locations. The oscillations yields a stable structure. This explains why very low EM frequencies are detected in active water. They are generated by the big structure oscillations. Recording the EM oscillations and replaying them in an inactive water, may induce the same ionic oscillations and the formation of the same patterns.
It is also commonly assumed that the activity is due to the chemical molecule itself. But if the molecule is polarized, the polarized water molecules will surround it and extend the polarization zone. The biological interaction could then be due to the water envelope around the molecule. The induced polarization would then have a particular shape. The structure can be stabilized by electron movements in the structure across water molecules.
By growing the structure would sort of take a print of the chemical molecule behaving like a sort of crystal seed. Shaking water would break the cluster and generate new crystal seeds, but made only of water molecules.
This would of course work only for particular type of chemical molecules and activity. Water behaves then like an amplifier and replicating system which could in some case have alternating negative and positive prints of the molecule or active structures.
This would be easy to test, but my father doesn't have the required apparatus and the time because he works on many other subjects. He is close to 80 years now.
Believe what you want. All I want to say is that the way Benveniste discovery was handled has nothing to do with science. The referenced comic is just an amplifying replication of the mishandling.
I would love to refute your explanation, but to be honest, I can't make heads or tails of it. "Active" water? "Inactive" water? EM "oscillations"? "Crystal seeds"? ...I give up. It's like pseudo-science buzzword bingo.
One thing though: people often complain that something "isn't scientific" whenever the science comes to a conclusion that they don't like. The editor of Nature -- a prominent science magazine -- was willing to publish the guy's article. That alone should be reasonable counter-evidence for all those claims that there's a some scientific "conspiracy" afoot to keep the miracle of homeopathy down. The thing is, they published his results, and then they tried to reproduce them. This is science. That's how it works. His claims didn't hold up, and that was that. He's free to go back and re-reproduce his results, this time consistently, and then they might be re-examined again. Until then, his results are bunk.
Water is said to be active when the effect on basophile cells was positive. Basophile cells are actors in the immune system and Benveniste was studying mechanism of allergy when he discovered this effect. Water remained active even with repeated dilution and shaking. When water was heated above 80°C and cooled back again it became inactive, which means it had no more effect on basophile cells.
Benveniste also detected the presence of a low frequency (~500Hz) EM emission of active water, which is not present with inactive water. The source of this low frequency EM emission is a problem in itself because it is not compatible with the water molecule oscillation frequency.
Recording the EM emission and replaying it back on inactive water rendered the water active on the basophile cells. These are the experimental evidences reported by Benveniste that remains to be explained.
Things fall in place when we assume the presence of stable water molecule aggregation with charge movement through them, a growth mechanism by polarization affinity and fragmentation by shaking.
BTW it is not true that the editor was willing to publish the "guy's" article. Benveniste was before it a well known and respected scientists and he had to insist and debate for his article to be published. It was published because the editor had nothing to oppose to it and justify a rejection.
When he came to check the experience with Randi, probably under pressure of the scientific community, they found nothing that could explain the observations which where reproduced at will in front of them in increasingly twisted ways. Randi and the editor went nearly nuts for not finding any trick or error.
The result is that they justify the mismatch between their beliefs and the data by undetermined experimental errors. How convenient, but that is not science.
Note that I am not talking about homeapathy here and claiming anything about it. I currently have no clue and no beliefs about it. What I say about it is I don't know. And this is the best that we can objectively say a priori without error about it.
Back to the Benveniste discovery, the normal scientific process should be to try to elaborate a theory that explains the observations; not to debunk it at any cost. Once a theory is proposed and proved to be coherent and valid with current scientific knowledge and understanding, it should then be tested. My father proposed such a theory, but it has not been tested yet. From what he told me, it should be easy. If the water molecule aggregates are present they should change the electric property of water. Simple direct measurement with conventional EM measurement devices should do it. No need of hard to control basophile cells reaction test. According to Benveniste observation, EM signal could induce formation of these aggregates and thus, according to the theory, alter the EM property of water. If the aggregates are stable, the change if EM emission of water would be persistent and measurable. it would be removed after heating the water which dissolves the aggregate structures. How hard would this be to test and explore ?
Experimental data points undoubtly to EM effects in water. This is the only way, using rational and actual science, to explain what has been observed. And ther is at least one possible explanation proposed by my father, physicist, that explains how it could. How the activity could be reccorded and reinjected in inactive water, the oscillations in activity during the dillution process, why shaking is needed, etc. He presented his explanation at a conference on Homeopathy in France last year. He is a theorist and his theory should be tested experimentally. None of the people present conducted these experiences.
There are still a lot of strange and unexplained effects in water. One scientist who reported such effects he saw in his experiments on EM effects was forced by the scientific community to pull back and say it was mistakes. I don't remember his name. I think he was german. It happened well before Benvenist discovery. This happens just because the data didn't fit to common beleif and assumptions.
The editor of Nature was a strong disbeleiver, maybe not as agressive as Randi. The real problem here is that these people behavior has nothing to do with pur science research process as it should be. They forged themselves a model of how things works and any data that doesn't fit the model must be an error. Calling back into question the model is out of question for them.
I've seen this behavior on many occasion. This is not scientific and rational.