comments invited [Archive]

Gavinimurthy

15th July 2007, 09:44 PM

Key Conclusions

• Homeopathic remedies are spectroscopically distinct from the original solvent (water/ ethanol).

• Different potencies can be distinctly distinguished by the UV-VIS and the Raman spectra.

• Nat Mur and Nux Vomica are distinctly different while the same potencies with different succussion also show a clear evidence of difference in the structure of the individual samples.

• No studies /claims whatsoever on the clinical effects of the remedies are made.

http://www.rustumroy.com/May%2016th%20Webinar.pdf

Murthy

Taffer

15th July 2007, 09:55 PM

It's a lecture. What's your point?

wollery

15th July 2007, 09:57 PM

I see no mention of a peer reviewed paper or double blinding procedures.

PixyMisa

15th July 2007, 10:07 PM

They're talking about polymerized water. Water doesn't polymerize.

They hang great importance on the fact that their homeopathic samples show different spectroscopic readings to the pure solvent. For this to be meaningful, however, they would have to first show that the samples are chemically pure solvent. The best way to do that is with spectroscopic analysis...

Long story short, their samples are contaminated, and the whole thing is utter nonsense.

PixyMisa

15th July 2007, 10:21 PM

I spent a little more time on it. It's still utter nonsense.

They propose variations in the structure of water polymers as a mechanism for homeopathic effects without first establishing that water polymerizes. (It doesn't.)

Then they suggest that this is shown by the variations in the spectroscopic signatures of the samples, without testing control samples of known water polymers, which they can't do, because water doesn't polymerize.

As Wollery points out, the study wasn't blinded. Normally you might not need to blind a spectroscopic analysis, but when it comes to homeopathy, it would be a good idea.

There are no controls. None.

What they do have, in abundance, are unsupported (or known false) assumptions and appeals to authority.

wollery

15th July 2007, 10:47 PM

Furthermore, the guy giving the talk is the editor-in-chief of the journal which published the research (yes, I'm sorry, it was published research) which proudly states;

Because of its super peer review procedures, the journal is especially suited for the publication of results which are so new, so unexpected, that they are likely to be rejected by tradition-bound journals. Presumptive authors are invited to submit papers covering non-traditional topics at the frontier of science and technology and their management.

http://www.maney.co.uk/search?fwaction=show&fwid=705

Of course, it doesn't say what these super peer review procedures actually are.

In other words, "If no genuine scientific journal will publish your crap send it to us, because we'll publish anything that we like."

Gavinimurthy

16th July 2007, 02:08 AM

Determination of the concentration of a Bryonia Dioica tincture by Raman spectroscopy
Irimie Milea and E. Culea
Technical Univ. of Cluj (Romania)
T. Iliescu
Babes-Bolyai Univ. (Romania)
Janetta Milea
Pediatric Clinic II (Romania)

It was established a method based on Raman spectroscopy in order to control the content and concentration of homeopathic dilutions. Dilutions of a tincture of Bryonia Dioica in ethanol were prepared and investigated by Raman spectroscopy. The Raman line at 881 cm-1 was found to depend linearly versus the concentration of Bryonia Dioica. This permits to obtain a calibration curve that may be used to determine the concentration of Bryonia Dioica in ethanol. The method may be extended to determine the concentration of various homeopathic dilutions.

©2004 COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.

http://spiedl.aip.org/getabs/servlet/GetabsServlet?prog=norm al&id=PSISDG002461000001000347000001&idtype=cvips&am p;gifs=yes

Murthy

Dr Adequate

16th July 2007, 02:12 AM

"Super Peer Review".

Do they wear capes?

Gavinimurthy

16th July 2007, 02:24 AM

wollery

16th July 2007, 02:29 AM

Did someone open a can of processed ham?

Zep

16th July 2007, 02:51 AM

Zep

16th July 2007, 02:52 AM

Raman spectroscopy used to identify counterfeit drugs

In our rankings of the world's most evil criminals, we include child molesters, mass murderers, and serial rapists near the top. Yet there is one group we place even higher, for their crimes are motivated solely by the profit motive, unlike the others who are driven mainly by more psychologically complex intentions. We are speaking of counterfeit drug manufacturers and dealers -- those who package useless chemicals in the form of well known AIDS and cancer medications. (We exclude the homeopathic industry, for now.) Such charlatans do more than sell a fraudulent product; they kill people who might otherwise have lived if they had received real medication. Many others die because the counterfeit drugs contain dangerous impurities.

Fortunately, scientists at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Didcot, United Kingdom have developed a method of identifying fakes while concealed within their packaging. (A legitimate-looking wrapper is far more important to the criminal's plans than a authentic looking pill.) As with many advanced detection systems these days, the Rutherford detector uses a variant of Raman spectroscopy. This approach uses laser light to collect infrared reflections from sample chemicals, each of which emits a unique range of frequencies, producing a unique spectral fingerprint for that substance that is collected at the exact point were the laser is focused. Up until now, however, this approach was useless if the chemicals being detected were encased in packaging.

To overcome this, the Rutherford researchers modified their spectrometer to collect the reflected signal at a slight distance from the point where the laser is focused. According to New Scientist, "this works because Raman signals generated deep within a sample shift sideways slightly before exiting the surface, unlike those generated on the surface itself. The signal from the packaging surface is effectively diluted, while that from the drug inside is amplified." The idea is to go in sideways and avoid the blinding signal from the surface. The scientists have successfully tested the method on paracetamol and ibuprofen, both in blister packs and plastic containers.

-read more in Andy Coghlan's New Scientist report

http://hsdailywire.com/showNews.php?SID&NL=hsdw_v3n21_Feb-01-2007.htm#article3271

Murthy

Murthy,

Again, can I ask if you understand ANYTHING that you have posted here? How and why does it relate to homeopathy? (Here's a clue: It doesn't.)

JoeTheJuggler

16th July 2007, 03:13 AM

"Super Peer Review".

Do they wear capes?

I take it to mean "super" as in "beyond"--meaning it's NOT peer reviewed.

Gavin, comments invited, but totally ignored, right?

articulett

16th July 2007, 03:26 AM

I take it to mean "super" as in "beyond"--meaning it's NOT peer reviewed.

Gavin, comments invited, but totally ignored, right?

Bingo.

Super as in "supernatural".

Taffer

16th July 2007, 03:27 AM

"Super Peer Review".

Do they wear capes?

Look, up in the sky! Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No! It's woo-man!

Deetee

16th July 2007, 04:23 AM

Rustum's lecture has some wonderful "pictures" of H2O polymers.

The captions read as follows:
The enormous variety of structures of the molecules in which almost certainly the chemical entity H2O can exist. The well known H2O monomer with its precisely defined tetrahedral angle is shown on the top left and below it a series of dimers, trimers, tetramers which can be constructed on paper from the relatively rigid H2O molecule.
This figure shows some of the larger polyhedra which are presumed to exist.

In other words, he just made it all up.
I am just surprised he admits he just drew them on a bit of paper and doesn’t opt for the usual woo formula of “multidimensional energy fractal integrative computer modelling”.

Matty1973

16th July 2007, 05:59 AM

I am just surprised he admits he just drew them on a bit of paper and doesn’t opt for the usual woo formula of “multidimensional energy fractal integrative computer modelling”.

I believe those at the front of the field now rely on multidimensional energy fractal integrative quantum computer modelling, which of course can be accelerated by facing magnetic north.

MRC_Hans

16th July 2007, 06:12 AM

Gavinimurthy

16th July 2007, 06:15 AM

Murthy, do you understand why this has absolutely NOTHING to do with homeopathy? And I mean NOTHING AT ALL?

If you do understand, why do we need to read this simple report?

If you don't understand, perhaps you should do some basic education for yourself and study until you DO understand.

The word homeopathy is mentioned in the report. Not by me.

Murthy

MRC_Hans

16th July 2007, 06:19 AM

As Wollery points out, the study wasn't blinded. Normally you might not need to blind a spectroscopic analysis, but when it comes to homeopathy, it would be a good idea.

There are no controls. None.

Normally, you wouldn't require contols in a physics experiment, but spectroscopy is special, because it is so sensitive that it can detect extremely minute amounts of substances (in principle, single molecules). Even if you don't think reporting bias is an issue, you need to make calibration controls, because otherwise you don't really know what you are detecting.

Hans

Gavinimurthy

16th July 2007, 06:21 AM

Rustrum Roy is the new hero of the homeopathic community, so we'd better wade through his stuff and get the debunkery ready, because this is not the last we're gonna hear about it.

Hi Murthy, btw.

Hans

Hi Hans

I really woud like to hear about the short comings in this study, if any, in a scientific way, ofcourse.

Are there any material science specialists here?

Murthy

Mojo

16th July 2007, 06:27 AM

Of course, it doesn't say what these super peer review procedures actually are.

It does on this page (http://www.in-cites.com/journals/MaterialsResearchInnovations.html): Super peer review is based on reviewing the authors, not the particular piece of work. Moreover, that review can be done easily and on objective criteria. What is the major criterion? That the author (at least one) shall have published in the open, often peer-reviewed (!!) literature, a large (30-50 papers) body of work.

It's more usually called "appeal to authority".

Mojo

16th July 2007, 06:40 AM

It's a lecture. What's your point?
I see no mention of a peer reviewed paper or double blinding procedures.Rustrum Roy is the new hero of the homeopathic community, so we'd better wade through his stuff and get the debunkery ready, because this is not the last we're gonna hear about it.

The paper referenced on page 5 of the powerpoint lecture notes Murthy linked to can be found here: The Structure of Liquid Water; Novel Insights from Materials Research; Potential Relevance to Homeopathy (http://www.rustumroy.com/Roy_Structure%20of%20Water.pdf).

wollery

16th July 2007, 07:36 AM

It does on this page (http://www.in-cites.com/journals/MaterialsResearchInnovations.html):

Super peer review is based on reviewing the authors, not the particular piece of work. Moreover, that review can be done easily and on objective criteria. What is the major criterion? That the author (at least one) shall have published in the open, often peer-reviewed (!!) literature, a large (30-50 papers) body of work.

It's more usually called "appeal to authority".It's also called "my mate wrote this" and "I couldn't get anyone else to publish this sort of work, so I started my own journal with some mates who were also having problems".

Mojo

16th July 2007, 09:04 AM

We are speaking of counterfeit drug manufacturers and dealers -- those who package useless chemicals in the form of well known AIDS and cancer medications. (We exclude the homeopathic industry, for now.) Such charlatans do more than sell a fraudulent product; they kill people who might otherwise have lived if they had received real medication. Many others die because the counterfeit drugs contain dangerous impurities.

Why exclude the homoeopathic industry?

Gavinimurthy

16th July 2007, 09:08 AM

I too am curious. Why exclude homeopathic medicines?

Murthy

Mojo

16th July 2007, 09:12 AM

Well, you posted the quotation. Perhaps you can tell us why the homoeopathic industry should be excluded when someone is talking about "charlatans [who] do more than sell a fraudulent product; they kill people who might otherwise have lived if they had received real medication". I can't for the life of me see why.

Gavinimurthy

16th July 2007, 09:15 AM

That is a news item. It is interesting .

Murthy

Mojo

16th July 2007, 09:18 AM

OMG, he's channeling T'ai Chi!

wollery

16th July 2007, 09:31 AM

:covereyes

PixyMisa

16th July 2007, 10:37 AM

Normally, you wouldn't require contols in a physics experiment, but spectroscopy is special, because it is so sensitive that it can detect extremely minute amounts of substances (in principle, single molecules). Even if you don't think reporting bias is an issue, you need to make calibration controls, because otherwise you don't really know what you are detecting.
Right.

At a minimum, they should have prepared a sample of solvent through the usual dilution/succussion sequence, but without any initial active ingredient.

PixyMisa

16th July 2007, 10:40 AM

Hi Hans

I really woud like to hear about the short comings in this study, if any, in a scientific way, ofcourse.

Are there any material science specialists here?
It's very simple:

The study posits polymerized water as a mechanism for homeopathy.

WATER DOESN'T POLYMERIZE.

The study is total garbage.

Miss Anthrope

16th July 2007, 11:19 AM

Bingo.

Super as in "supernatural".

So it was reviewed by someone's spirit guides and they said "good stuff, man".

JoeEllison

16th July 2007, 11:31 AM

"Super Peer Review".

Do they wear capes?

Maybe they started out with "Super-Duper Groovy Peer Review", but considered upon reflection that it might not sound very professional?

Michael C

16th July 2007, 12:11 PM

Mr Roy, who insists that liquid water has a structure, also says that this structure changes easily (quote from the lecture referenced in the OP):

"The mixture of well known hydrogen bonds and previously totally ignored van der Waals bonds means that water structure is easily changed by:
• Pressure and temperature
• Epitaxy(special relation to SiO2phases)
• Nanobubbleinclusions
• Radiation of various kinds
• Magnetic and electric fields"

So all those homeopathic remedies are altered by changes in temperature, pressure, electric fields, etc.? How do you ensure that the original "structure" is still present when you take the remedy?

JJM

16th July 2007, 12:19 PM

Against my better instincts, I did waste some time scanning Roy's slide-show that was cited http://www.rustumroy.com/May%2016th%20Webinar.pdf and I have a serious problem with slide/page 28. He claims it shows the spectra of pure ethanol superimposed on three dilutions (6C, 12C and 30C) of nux vomica. To me, it looks like a spectrum of dirty ethanol, superimposed on background spectra. By "background," I mean the absorbance of the cuvette itself (or, pure ethanol- although I doubt it). Unfortunately, when I retired I donated all my handbooks, and compendia of spectral tables, to an assistant professor 900 miles from here; so I can't be sure.

JJM

16th July 2007, 02:40 PM

krazyKemist

16th July 2007, 06:10 PM

Personally, I have a problem with comparing solid phases with a liquid one. Like using the different forms of ice to presume the same forms exist for a long period of time in liquid of gas.

The problem is that the definition of a liquid basically says that these interactions (H-bonding is what is discussed there) will be shifting on a short timeframe (have to get my nose in a textbook to bring back some numbers for this). Temperature (kinetic energy) is what makes them shift. You may have what is called an "hydration shell" around a given solute (I think that is what is implied in there) but water molecules will be exchanged often in them, with the result that they can't remain in that shape once the solute is gone (which is what happen in homeopathy, per definition). Unless you remove kinetic energy (that is, freeze the water) and then remove the solute molecules. Good luck doing that.

In fewer words, there are large sections of thermodynamics against this phenomenon.

the Kemist

bvw12

16th July 2007, 09:23 PM

Gavinimurthy

16th July 2007, 11:31 PM

Wait a minute- Aldrich Chemicals has spectral information online http://www.sigmaaldrich.com/catalog/search/ProductDetail/SIAL/493511 and ethanol does not have significant absorbance in the range 270-400 nm. The figure on p. 28 of Roy's slide show is definitely bogus. Pure ethanol certainly does not have a maximum at 325. I continue to think Roy shows a spectrum for contaminated ethanol, and the others simply represent use of a glass cuvette (rather than quartz). Glass absorbs UV, and is not suitable for use at short wavelengths.

There are nine types of ethanols mentioned on this site.

http://www.sigmaaldrich.com/catalog/search/TablePage/14577624

See the data for 493546 Ethanol.

UV absorption λ: 240 nm Amax: 0.40

λ: 250 nm Amax: 0.30

λ: 260 nm Amax: 0.30

λ: 270 nm Amax: 0.10

λ: 340 nm Amax: 0.10

*************

This is the data for specroscopic grade

UV absorption λ: 210 nm Amax: 0.40

λ: 220 nm Amax: 0.25

λ: 230 nm Amax: 0.15

λ: 240 nm Amax: 0.05

λ: 270-400 nm Amax: 0.01

The difference of absorbance between the two grades is self explanatory.

So, we can't jump to conclusions and declare the study of a reputed professor as bogus.

Perhaps 'selective blindness'?

Murthy

MRC_Hans

17th July 2007, 01:02 AM

Hi Hans

I really woud like to hear about the short comings in this study, if any, in a scientific way, ofcourse.

Are there any material science specialists here?

MurthyI'm working on it. I'm not a material science specialist per se, but based on my first reading, I don't think that is necessary.

Hans

MRC_Hans

17th July 2007, 01:10 AM

from roy's paper. any discussion?

Miyazaki et al. (Science, May 21, 2004) show infrared spectroscopic evidence for oligomers of different shape and sizes from n=4-27 in (H2O)n [41]. Shin et al. (May 21, 2004) present intriguing IR data near the 3.7μ O-H stretching band in oligomers from 6-27, around the “magic number” of n=21 [42]. From neither of these papers can one tell whether the authors believe that water—all waters under undelimited conditions—contain 100% of these molecules, or a majority. Nor is there any comment on how such clusters are distributed in space, or whether different size clusters are themselves formed into separate regions of the nano-heterogeneous bulk water.

****

Clearly the origin of some of the inherent confusion in the field is based on the materials scientists’ and the chemists’ use of the same term to mean different things. Chemists use “structure” to describe the structure of the molecules or ‘structural building blocks.’ Materials Scientists use “structure” to describe the 3-D structural architecture of the material. The former describe the size and shape of the bricks or cement blocks; the latter describe the shape and size of the walls and the room and how the bricks and blocks are arranged within it.
Hi Neil!

Be patient. You want us to actually read the paper, right? Or would you prefer just a quick perusing so you can accuse os of knee-jerk reactions afterwards? ;)

Well, things take time.

In the meantime, you could go back and remind the more enthusiastic members at hpathy that even if Roy could demonstrate an objective difference between a remedy and a control, homeopathy as a medical practice is still a long way from vindication. Skeptics often focus on the lack of substance in remedies because this is something even the lay-man can easily grasp, but you and I know that potentization is really periferal to homeopathic doctrine. The central point is whether like cures like is a universal principle or not.

Hans

Zep

17th July 2007, 01:10 AM

The word homeopathy is mentioned in the report. Not by me.

MurthyMurthy,

You still haven't answered the question: Do YOU understand ANYTHING from that report? Do YOU understand anything about the subject?

It is no point in us showing you how it is rubbish if you have no understanding of the subject or our explanation.

Now please don't be any more foolish than you look already. Be honest - do YOU understand this subject?

Yes or no, please.

Thanks

Zep

17th July 2007, 01:13 AM

That is a news item. It is interesting .

MurthyThat is a news item. It is total rubbish and not worth the time to read it.

Zep

See? I can make silly statements too.

Zep

17th July 2007, 01:42 AM

There are nine types of ethanols mentioned on this site.

http://www.sigmaaldrich.com/catalog/search/TablePage/14577624

See the data for 493546 Ethanol.

UV absorption λ: 240 nm Amax: 0.40

λ: 250 nm Amax: 0.30

λ: 260 nm Amax: 0.30

λ: 270 nm Amax: 0.10

λ: 340 nm Amax: 0.10

*************

This is the data for specroscopic grade

UV absorption λ: 210 nm Amax: 0.40

λ: 220 nm Amax: 0.25

λ: 230 nm Amax: 0.15

λ: 240 nm Amax: 0.05

λ: 270-400 nm Amax: 0.01

The difference of absorbance between the two grades is self explanatory.

So, we can't jump to conclusions and declare the study of a reputed professor as bogus.

Perhaps 'selective blindness'?

Murthy

Murthy,

The data you have shown is from a reputable firm, and they apply to what look to be properly produced and measured substances. That's good!

Now...please tell us: which of these ethanols did Roy use? Does he say which one? Please point out to us where Roy used these ethanols.

Because as far as I can tell, he doesn't say. For all we know, he could have been using illegal moonshine from a still in his back yard.

I await YOUR response with interest.

Thanks

bvw12

17th July 2007, 01:55 AM

does anyone here have any actual expertise in materials science? or, does anyone have any considered opinion regarding the general merits of this scientific discipline?

this is also from roy's paper:

<B>Table I

Changes in different water properties, each requiring a

change of structure, each at a different temperature

Property Comment

</B>

Density Maximum at 4 °C

Refractive index Thermal maximum near 0 °C

Thermal expansion coefficient Changes from extremely high up to 6—7 °C

to low (normal) above 12 °C

Isothermal compressibility Minimum at 50 °C

Isothermal piezo-optic coefficient Maximum near 50 °C

Specific heat of water Minimum at 35 °C

Table I and Fig. 13 show the extreme degree to which water’s properties are anomalous. Note first in the figure that the properties of the vast majority of liquids have
monotonic, linear, changes with some variable. Next, note the very, very different behavior of water. Next, note that it is not just one property in which very anomalous changes are found, but such changes are found in many properties. Note that the kink point or maxima or minima are all at different temperatures. These anomalies clearly tell the materials scientist that there is no way to achieve these phenomena except by a combination of two of our key conclusions about the structure of water. Across the transition point in properties there has to be a change of structure. Secondly, there must be several quite separate structural transitions to account for just the property changes noted. There is no prima facie way of telling whether such absolutely confirmed familiar behavior can be explained by complex rearrangement of just two (or five) states or clusters, or whether it requires simpler re-arrangements of many different states. The crystal chemical connection invoked by Robinson is certainly operative, but it is not necessary that water consists of a mixture of only “two states”, which by some juggling could be adjusted to try to explain the plethora of anomalies by utilizing only two structures. Our proposal is simply to posit that there are many possible structures.

Gavinimurthy

17th July 2007, 02:05 AM

See? I can make silly statements too.

Yes. Agreed hundred percent.

Murthy

PixyMisa

17th July 2007, 02:09 AM

or, does anyone have any considered opinion regarding the general merits of this scientific discipline?
Yeah.

If it's only water that's special, what's he doing mucking about with ethanol?

Gavinimurthy

17th July 2007, 02:10 AM

Murthy,

The data you have shown is from a reputable firm, and they apply to what look to be properly produced and measured substances. That's good!

Now...please tell us: which of these ethanols did Roy use? Does he say which one? Please point out to us where Roy used these ethanols.

Because as far as I can tell, he doesn't say. For all we know, he could have been using illegal moonshine from a still in his back yard.

I await YOUR response with interest.

Thanks

I will try to contact Dr.Roy and get the details. Be patient till then.

Murthy

Zep

17th July 2007, 02:26 AM

Yes. Agreed hundred percent.

MurthyThen clearly the joke is lost on you.

bvw12

17th July 2007, 02:26 AM

hi, hans -

yes, i want you all to read the paper thoroughly. the reason i have excerpted is to provide some passages that appear deeply considered enough to warrant a thoughtful response, somewhat beyond stating that the paper "...is total rubbish and not worth the time to read it" or "the study is total garbage."

really, what makes you think i'd have any concerns for possible knee-jerk responses from this group?:)

anyway, i know you will give serious consideration to roy's paper, and i hope others here might do the same, as in fact many of the comments so far in this thread have done. roy's cv, after all, is pretty substantial, and his paper carefully considered enough to deserve a serious review. btw, for those who have only seen the ppt, i strongly recommend the full manuscript (http://www.rustumroy.com/Roy_Structure%20of%20Water.pdf (http://www.rustumroy.com/Roy_Structure%20of%20Water.pdf)).

neil

bvw12

17th July 2007, 02:28 AM

Originally Posted by bvw12 http://forums.randi.org/helloworld2/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?p=2774921#post2774921)
or, does anyone have any considered opinion regarding the general merits of this scientific discipline?

Yeah.

If it's only water that's special, what's he doing mucking about with ethanol?

the "scientific discipline" i referred to was Materials Science, not dr roy's specific paper.

Zep

17th July 2007, 02:39 AM

I will try to contact Dr.Roy and get the details. Be patient till then.

MurthyIn saying this, Murthy, you have now demonstrated that you do NOT understand what you are writing about here. You are simply being a parrot for Rustom Roy. If you did understand any of his work at all, you would have at least been able to find and state which ethanols Roy used in his testing, but you can't and you have to go and ask him yourself.

You have referred above with your link to Sigma Aldrich to something completely pointless to your discussion - data about substances that probably had whatever nothing to do with Roy's testing at all. It is like telling us about sea water, when we really want to discuss the river water from the mountains. A pointless exercise.

This whole exercise demonstrates clearly that you have simply accepted Roy's presentation as being valid and useful and true and supporting homeopathy, without having the slightest idea or understanding yourself if it is. You do not seem to know or understand that Roy's presentation is a load of speculative codswallop. It is a dreadful piece of work, and makes homeopathic theories look even more stupid as a result.

You really do need to get yourself a better education, Murthy, as soon as possible. For a start, the basics of physics, chemistry and maths would be highly recommended. This isn't a difficult thing to achieve...

bvw12

17th July 2007, 02:43 AM

hans,

on the question of pertinence to homeopathic practice, we disagree. after all, if the remedies are nothing but water, as you believe, then homeopathy can not be a "real" medical intervention.

the ability to certify a distinct physical characteristic to homeopathic remedies, from that pov, is an absolutely necessary condition to being able to substantiate homeopathic claims. it may not be sufficient as an ultimate proof, but without it there is no chance of a proof; further, with it we can amputate a good portion of the skeptical argument, that is, that part of it that deals with what is or is not likely to occur in future developments in physics.

neil

Beady

17th July 2007, 03:39 AM

Oops!

Zep

17th July 2007, 03:53 AM

PixyMisa

17th July 2007, 04:26 AM

Originally Posted by bvw12 [/URL][URL]http://forums.randi.org/helloworld2/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?p=2774921#post2774921)
or, does anyone have any considered opinion regarding the general merits of this scientific discipline?

the "scientific discipline" i referred to was Materials Science, not dr roy's specific paper.
Okay then: Materials science good. Dr Roy's paper not so good.

PixyMisa

17th July 2007, 04:40 AM

JJM

17th July 2007, 05:15 AM

There are nine types of ethanols mentioned on this site.
http://www.sigmaaldrich.com/catalog/search/TablePage/14577624

See the data for 493546 Ethanol.

UV absorption λ: 240 nm Amax: 0.40
λ: 250 nm Amax: 0.30
λ: 260 nm Amax: 0.30
λ: 270 nm Amax: 0.10
λ: 340 nm Amax: 0.10

*************

This is the data for specroscopic grade

UV absorption λ: 210 nm Amax: 0.40

λ: 220 nm Amax: 0.25
λ: 230 nm Amax: 0.15
λ: 240 nm Amax: 0.05
λ: 270-400 nm Amax: 0.01

The difference of absorbance between the two grades is self explanatory

So, we can't jump to conclusions and declare the study of a reputed professor as bogus.

Perhaps 'selective blindness'?

MurthyThe "493546" Ethanol is potable, anhydrous ethanol. It is not as clean as the spectroscopic grade. No matter, neither corresponds to the spectrum of pure ethanol shown on p. 28 of the lecture you are promoting. Most particularly, and this is very important (so- pay attention), the slide on p. 28 shows an absorption max. at 325 nm which does not belong to pure ethanol.

The "nux vomica" spectra could simply be potable alcohol. There are many possible explanations for the slight differences among them. PixyMisa is correct- stringent controls are required before one can claim the "differences" are real.

I am not accusing Roy of cheating. I am questioning his competence in this matter.

Gavinimurthy

17th July 2007, 05:15 AM

PixyMisa

17th July 2007, 05:19 AM

Hmm.

Roy presents no direct evidence for the existence of water polymers, but merely inference, supposition - and a citation of the work of Martin Chaplin.

Chaplin presents no direct evidence for the existence of water polymers, but merely inference, supposition - and a citation of single
paper by Muller, Bogge and Diemann in Inorganic Chemistry Communications, volume 6, number 1, January 2003.

Okay, now we're getting somewhere! Abstract:A (H2O)100 nanodrop of water was found in the cavity of a spherical polyoxomolybdate cluster of the type {(Mo)Mo5}12(spacer)30 and structurally characterised. The molecules within the water cluster are arranged in three concentric shells with radii of 3.84–4.04, 6.51–6.83 and 7.56–7.88 Å spanned by 20, 20, and 60 molecules, respectively. The first shell dodecahedron is formed exclusively by 20 hydrogen bonds (Ohttp://www.sciencedirect.com/scidirimg/entities/22ef.gifO=2.77–2.92 Å) in the centre and 12 (H2O)5 pentagons (Ohttp://www.sciencedirect.com/scidirimg/entities/22ef.gifO=2.66–2.81 Å) formed by hydrogen bonds at the periphery, i.e., the third shell. Each of the H2O molecules of the second (dodecahedral) shell connects the molecules from three different pentagons of the third shell with one molecule of the central dodecahedron.Some significant points here: They are not talking about water polymers, but of supramolecular H2O assemblies (their own term). They are not talking about free liquid water, but of the effects of nano-scale encapsulation.

Unfortunately, only the abstract is available online unless someone is at a university with a subscription to the journal or wants to pop $30 for a pdf.

Here's another link to that research (http://www.uni-bielefeld.de/chemie/ac1/AMU/researchdetail.htm), with some additional details. Again, no polymers, and nano-scale confinement.

Looks like Chaplin and Roy have taken a very specific observation and runnnnnnnnnnnn with it.

(Interestingly, Muller has co-authored several papers with a Dr. Soumyajit Roy - wonder if that's a relation. Probably not, it's a common enough Indian surname. I just blinked when I saw the name popping up in the citations.)

Mojo

17th July 2007, 05:20 AM

Introduction, first sentence:
The “structure of liquid water” receives some 8 million hits on Google and the “structure of water” over twice as many.
Nope. Try it: The first phrase returns 32,300 hits; the second, 224,000.

Perhaps they were making the same mistake as Kumar (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=1014169#post1014169) ("Kayvee" to you, bvw12).

PixyMisa

17th July 2007, 05:21 AM

Personalized Results 1 - 10 of about 171,000,000 for structure water. (0.17 seconds)

Personalized Results 1 - 10 of about 24,000,000 for structure liquid water. (0.22 seconds)

In a hurry to dispute every sentence, too many mistakes are being made. Watch it out.

Murthy
Try again. Learn how to use Google first.

"structure of water" (http://www.google.com.au/search?q=%22structure+of+water%22)
"structure of liquid water" (http://www.google.com.au/search?q=%22structure+of+liquid+water%22)

It's a minor point, but he does bring it up again later in the article, so it's worth noting that it's off by two orders of magnitude.

JJM

17th July 2007, 05:22 AM

PixyMisa

17th July 2007, 05:24 AM

I am not accusing Roy of cheating.
Neither am I, I must add. But he's looking at some very subtle anomalies, and producing a great deal of speculation. To join those dots together requires very careful testing and verification, and there isn't any.

Gavinimurthy

17th July 2007, 05:25 AM

The "493546" Ethanol is potable, anhydrous ethanol. It is not as clean as the spectroscopic grade. No matter, neither corresponds to the spectrum of pure ethanol shown on p. 28 of the lecture you are promoting. Most particularly, and this is very important (so- pay attention), the slide on p. 28 shows an absorption max. at 325 nm which does not belong to pure ethanol.

The "nux vomica" spectra could simply be potable alcohol. There are many possible explanations for the slight differences among them. PixyMisa is correct- stringent controls are required before one can claim the "differences" are real.

I am not accusing Roy of cheating. I am questioning his competence in this matter.

Nux.vomica dilutions are not made with spectroscopic grade ethanol. When you want to compare a commercially available 6c potency of nux.v, with plain ethanol, you have to use the same type of ethanol which was used for its preperation. Simple basics.

Murthy

PixyMisa

17th July 2007, 05:29 AM

Muller's work on polyoxomolybdates is interesting. I hadn't run across those before. So some good has come out of this thread. :)

Gavinimurthy

17th July 2007, 05:29 AM

Quote marks ("") matter in a database search. Slow down in your hurry to dispute every sentence, you might make fewer mistakes.

Did Dr.Roy say that he used quote marks? When the results you are getting are different from what he quoted, why didn't you pause and think about what could have made a difference? Heavens are not going to fall, wheher it is 8 million hits or 17 million hits.

Instead of trying to dispute every sentence, concentrate on the main issues.

Murthy

JJM

17th July 2007, 05:35 AM

Nux.vomica dilutions are not made with spectroscopic grade ethanol.Do you know what a Straw Man is? I did not say Nv solutions are made with spec grade ethanol. Your statement is meaningless.
When you want to compare a commercially available 6c potency of nux.v, with plain ethanol, you have to use the same type of ethanol which was used for its preperation. Simple basics.

MurthyI am thoroughly familiar with the basics of research, and Roy has clearly not followed them (in the work that you cited). Again, if you weren't in such a hurry to dispute every sentence, you might make fewer mistakes. You might even learn something. Wouldn't that be amazing.

PixyMisa

17th July 2007, 05:37 AM

Did Dr.Roy say that he used quote marks? When the results you are getting are different from what he quoted, why didn't you pause and think about what could have made a difference?
In the text, the phrases are indeed in quotes. Obviously he didn't enter them that way into Google, because the numbers are completely wrong.
Heavens are not going to fall, wheher it is 8 million hits or 17 million hits.
You mean, 8 million vs. 32,300.

Hey, I didn't bring it up. Complain to Professor Roy.

Instead of trying to dispute every sentence, concentrate on the main issues.
We have.

Rampant speculation.
Inadequate controls.
No blinding.
No specifics of the solvents used.
Citations that don't support the claims being made.
A curious disconnect between the opening subject (the intermolecular structure of water) and the solvent used in one of the examples (ethanol).

Hmm. What did I miss?

JJM

17th July 2007, 05:40 AM

Did Dr.Roy say that he used quote marks? {snip}That is exactly what he wrote. Didn't you read that part?Instead of trying to dispute every sentence, concentrate on the main issues.

MurthyAgain, if you weren't in such a hurry to dispute every sentence, you might make fewer mistakes. You might even learn something. Wouldn't that be amazing.

Mojo

17th July 2007, 05:44 AM

Did Dr.Roy say that he used quote marks?

The phrases have quote marks around them in the article. And from the context, he is implying that the number of hits found says something about the amount of information already available about the structure of liquid water. If the search strings do not have quotation marks around them, the searches will bring up all indexed pages that have the words in the string on them; many (if not most) will not be about "the structure of liquid water": they will just have the words somewhere on the page in unrelated sentences. Without the quotation marks the search will also, for example, bring up any page containing the sentence "liquid water has no structure". This is not what the authors of the paper were looking for, is it? At best, it indicates an incompetence in the use of search engines.

bvw12

17th July 2007, 05:46 AM

Quote marks ("") matter in a database search. Slow down in your hurry to dispute every sentence, you might make fewer mistakes.

quotation marks ("") also matter grammatically. you seem to forget that they are also a simple grammatical or stylistic tool. note in this connection that roy embedded the search phrase within a sentence, so use of the quotes can (and according to correct english usage) would be a grammatical indicator, not a part of the search string itself (note in this sense that the comma is also within the quotes, but certainly not a part of the search string):

17 million hits on Google for “structure of water,”

also in the following phrase, a header, the quotes are clearly grammatical, enclosing the "term" in question:

Deconstructing the terminological confusion around the term “structure of water”

this is a simple matter - or so one would think. i suggest it should give all the brains around here pause, for how easily mistakes can slip into anyone's work, originator or critic.

neil

Mojo

17th July 2007, 05:49 AM

quotation marks ("") also matter grammatically. you seem to forget that they are also a simple grammatical or stylistic tool. note in this connection that roy embedded the search phrase within a sentence, so use of the quotes can (and according to correct english usage) would be a grammatical indicator, not a part of the search string itself (note in this sense that the comma is also within the quotes, but certainly not a part of the search string):

17 million hits on Google for “structure of water,”

also in the following phrase, a header, the quotes are clearly grammatical, enclosing the "term" in question:

Deconstructing the terminological confusion around the term “structure of water”

this is a simple matter - or so one would think. i suggest it should give all the brains around here pause, for how easily mistakes can slip into anyone's work, originator or critic.

neil

Do you think that Roy wanted to look for pages containing the sentence "liquid water has no structure"? Look at the context.

PixyMisa

17th July 2007, 05:57 AM

this is a simple matter - or so one would think. i suggest it should give all the brains around here pause, for how easily mistakes can slip into anyone's work, originator or critic.
The problem is, if Roy didn't include the quote marks in the search, the results are completely irrelevant. The first page of results might be on topic, but just a few pages in you're getting hits on climatology, plumbing, and the design of wireless computer networks.

Minor point, but still...

bvw12

17th July 2007, 05:58 AM

The phrases have quote marks around them in the article. And from the context, he is implying that the number of hits found says something about the amount of information already available about the structure of liquid water. If the search strings do not have quotation marks around them, the searches will bring up all indexed pages that have the words in the string on them; many (if not most) will not be about "the structure of liquid water": they will just have the words somewhere on the page in unrelated sentences. Without the quotation marks the search will also, for example, bring up any page containing the sentence "liquid water has no structure". This is not what the authors of the paper were looking for, is it? At best, it indicates an incompetence in the use of search engines.

boldface may be correct; but it also reflects that in critiquing roy's paper, you have mis-read his copy (see my post immediately preceding). not only on grammatical grounds, either - apparently, the numbers are in closer agreement with roy if one uses the search phrase without the quotes. it may also be that roy was looking for as many citations as possible, that could reasonably be assumed to stand in some fairly direct relation to the subject of interest - a more charitable pov, if one were inclined to charity.

of course, the best approach to the problem would be to search both ways and to comb both resulting lists and evaluate the items one by one for inclusion in the final count, or to diligently anticipate that this sort of objection would be raised within some corner or other of the more-or-less academic community, and to discuss one's search strategy at length, at least in a footnote....

but, personally, i think it is difficult to anticipate all of this, and that in our partisanship we can expend too much energy on the matter. i still have not read the entire passages thoroughly, but from what i have read, roy makes his points articulately ... maybe that would be a better place to ground a disucssion of his search findings.

neil

Gavinimurthy

17th July 2007, 06:01 AM

Rampant speculation.
Inadequate controls.
No blinding.
No specifics of the solvents used.
Citations that don't support the claims being made.
A curious disconnect between the opening subject (the intermolecular structure of water) and the solvent used in one of the examples (ethanol).

Hmm. What did I miss?

This is the sort of analysis I am looking for, though the above is just the tip of the iceberg. Let us have little more depth on the technological issues. Think of more.

Murthy

PixyMisa

17th July 2007, 06:05 AM

it may also be that roy was looking for as many citations as possible, that could reasonably be assumed to stand in some fairly direct relation to the subject of interest - a more charitable pov, if one were inclined to charity.
If that's what he wanted, then he missed by a mile.

of course, the best approach to the problem would be to search both ways and to comb both resulting lists and evaluate the items one by one for inclusion in the final count, or to diligently anticipate that this sort of objection would be raised within some corner or other of the more-or-less academic community, and to discuss one's search strategy at length, at least in a footnote.... You don't have to do anything of the sort. You just have to include the quotes, just as he did in the paper.

It is a minor point, but Roy raises it twice as though it had some special relevance, and it's completely and utterly wrong.

bvw12

17th July 2007, 06:07 AM

An understanding of the structure of liquid solutions is required .... (http://aolsearch.aol.com/aol/redir?src=websearch&requestId=8022bd29de39176a&clickedItemRank=3&userQuery=structure+of+liquid+water&clickedItemURN=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.vcu.edu%2Fcsbc%2Fb ccl%2Frutan.pdf&title=An+understanding+of+the+structure+of+liquid+ solutions+is+required+...&moduleId=matchingsites.jsp.M&clickedItemPageRanking=-127&clickedItemPage=14&clickedItemDescription=WebResults)
An understanding of the structure of liquid solutions is required for understanding. interactions in a broad range of biological systems. Water is a ...

that is from page 14 of my own google search - i stopped at page 27 with much the same kind of content. i did not go to page katrillion or whatever. without having scrutinzed all 170,000,000 of returned citations, i will concede that roy's search was less than ideally structured, and that he missed a decimal point in counting the listed results. otoh, you guys missed the comma. either way, what does this exactly prove?

Rolfe

17th July 2007, 06:16 AM

Hmmm, I actually started to compose the post below just after PixyMisa posted his 11.40 post (quoted), in between doing some actual work. By the time I got it up, much of my musings seem to have been covered, especially by Mojo.

Perhaps they were making the same mistake as Kumar (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=1014169#post1014169) ("Kayvee" to you, bvw12).

A day late and a dollar short, sorry. But here it is.

Introduction, first sentence:

Nope. Try it: The first phrase returns 32,300 hits; the second, 224,000.

I looked at the PowerPoint slides. They're terrible! It's difficult to imagine how any serious academic can put anything out with presentation this bad. It looks as if Kumar's Pakistani homoeopath friends did the visual aids! Still, I found something out. In an earlier thread on this topic, it was claimed that Roy was a Nobel laureate. This I found somewhat surprising. However, I note from the initial slides that there is no mention of such an award in his credentials list. There is however a throwaway remark that three Nobel prizes have been awarded for work on metallic sols. To whom and for what discoveries, not stated. OK, that's that cleared up. Why can't homoeopathy proponents learn to read?

So then I looked at the paper itself, out of sheer disbelief that any serious academic work could possibly incorporate what we dubbed "argument by Googlefight" when Kumar started doing it. (I think Kumar right (without any inverted commas) got more returns than Kumar wrong, so that proved he was right, or something.) [OK, Mojo, ten extra points for finding the post, I see it was Kumar is intelligant and Kumar is idiot.]

But it's true! The number of returns on a Google search is actually quoted by Roy et al. as if it had some meaning! I scarcely believe it.

Short digression. I recall Kumar's Googlefight argument (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=1015760#post1015760) when we were trying to explain to him the function of the inverted commas. I'll skip over the question about whether the crow should drink the water in the pot, which implied that Kumar thought the Internet could magically supply the answer to whether or not the water in one particular pot was safe to drink! His other example was about whether or not grapes were sweet. He contended that since the phrase - are grapes sweat - with no inverted commas, got him a lot of returns, and "are grapes sweat" got him none, then the former was the better way to ask the question. It was pointed out to him that exactly none of the links provided by the first search actually answered the question (because he was persistently mis-spelling "sweet"), so it was in fact useless. However if he could bring himself to spell the word correctly, a search on "are grapes sweet", with the inverted commas, while producing very few returns, actually answered the question. This all fell on deaf ears as far as I remember. He continued to assert that a search without inverted commas was superior because it produced more links.

So is that what's going on here? I get 24,300,000 returns for structure of liquid water (no inverted commas) and 170,000,000 for structure of water. However I get 32,200 for "structure of liquid water" and 223,000 for "structure of water" - much the same as PixyMisa got.

Huh, neither of these really figures.

The wording of the paper is very odd.

The “structure of liquid water” receives some 8 million hits on Google and the “structure of water” over twice as many. Any contribution that can be made to this vast body of knowledge is sure to be marginal. This paper does not report any such incremental advance with ultraprecise measurements about the structure of oligomers, femtosecond spectroscopy of bond breakage or phase transitions in glassy water. Instead, it examines the literature to establish only one proposition, that pure, thermodynamically stable or metastble liquid water can have more than one 3-D condensed matter structure. While we assemble here various sets of relevant data and lines of argumentation, by a coincidence, at the same time as this paper was first presented orally (April 2004), Kawamoto et al. published their paper providing the experimental proof of this assertion [1, 2].

I'm having increasing difficulty reconciling this nonsense with the concept that any of the people responsible are or have ever been serious academics.

First, the terminology is strange to me. To "receive a hit" to me seems to be talking about a web site getting a certain number of visitors. Yet they seem to be using this form of words to describe the number of links returned in a Google search. But are they? The numbers bear no relation to the actual number of links returned when one actually does these searches, either with or without the inverted commas. I wondered if they were meaning this was the number of times such a search had been performed on Google (over what time period?), but that makes no sense either.

Second, they are equating links returned on a Google search with a "vast body of knowledge". I hardly have to point out how imbecilic that concept is. Any serious scrutineer of any scientific paper would kill that assertion stone dead. Which rather illustrates the quality of the scrutineering, if any.

Third, they seem to be saying that the paper is purely theoretical, and presents no experimental data. Fine. There's a reason I should read this?

Fourth, there is a mention of someone having published some actual experimental data. It seems to be to "Kawamoto et al. [1, 2]. However, when we look at the reference list, references 1 and 2 are:
1. Roy R (2004) A contemporary materials science view of the structure of water. Symposium on Living Systems/Materials Research, Boston, MA, Nov. 28, 2004

2. Katayama S et al. (2004) Science 306:848

It took a little bit of thought to realise that in fact the reference citation is simply completely screwed up. First, reference 1 is not to the experimental work, but to Roy's verbal presentation of his own theories, which happened at about the same time as the experimental work was published. Instead of printingby a coincidence, at the same time as this paper was first presented orally (April 2004), Kawamoto et al. published their paper providing the experimental proof of this assertion [1, 2].

what should have been printed is
by a coincidence, at the same time as this paper was first presented orally (April 2004) [1], Kawamoto Katayama et al. published their paper providing the experimental proof of this assertion [2].

Oh yea, and "metastble " is obviously a mis-spelling.

This again argues for a totally amateur setup. Any competent scientific editor would have fixed the [1] having been put in the wrong place, and the name of the author of paper [2] having been completely mangled, and the mis-spelling.

I'm sorry, but when something is presented in such a cackhanded and unprofessional way, then why should I take anything in the paper seriously? These people are supposed to be serious academics, and serious academics know about the importance of presenting your work professionally, but their presentation - well, it has all the hallmarks of amateurish quackery.

By the authors' own admission, the paper is purely theoretical fantasising, apparently along the same lines as Lionel Milgrom's quantum logorrhoea. If they can't even present their work in a professional format (Milgrom at least manages to do that!), what incentive is there even to read further?

This does make me wonder. Is Professor Roy real? If there is such a person, and he did publish a good paper in 1956, is it actually the same person writing now? Or could this all just be a complicated Internet hoax? How to find out?

However, there's still Kawamoto (or is it Katayama?). Science 306:848 (http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5697/848).

Macroscopic Separation of Dense Fluid Phase and Liquid Phase of Phosphorus

Yoshinori Katayama,1* (http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5697/848#COR1) Yasuhiro Inamura,1http://www.sciencemag.org/math/link//dagger.gif (http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5697/848#FN1) Takeshi Mizutani,1http://www.sciencemag.org/math/link//Dagger.gif (http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5697/848#FN2) Masaaki Yamakata,2http://www.sciencemag.org/math/link//sect.gif (http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5697/848#FN3) Wataru Utsumi,1 Osamu Shimomura1http://www.sciencemag.org/math/link//Dagger.gif (http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5697/848#FN2)

Structural transformation between a dense molecular fluid and a polymeric liquid of phosphorus that occurred at about 1 gigapascal and 1000°C was investigated by in situ x-ray radiography. When the low-pressure fluid was compressed, dark and round objects appeared in the radiograph. X-ray diffraction measurements confirmed that these objects were the highpressure liquid. The drops grew and eventually filled the sample space. Decompressing caused the reverse process. The macroscopic phase separation supported the existence of a first-order phase transition between two stable disordered phases besides the liquid-gas transition. X-ray absorption measurements revealed that the change in density at the transition corresponds to about 40% of the density of the high-pressure liquid.

And so on.

Excuse, me, it's not really my subject, but does this paper have anything at all to do with the price of fish? I was wondering why it was Roy and not Kawamoto Katayama the homoeopaths were trumpeting, but it seems as if only Roy in the whole world believes this work has any bearing on homoeopathy - even the woos can see that citing the Science paper is completely irrelevant.

Look, this Roy stuff is so full of implausibilities even before you get as far as finding out what he's actually saying that I really don't think I'll bother. My main question now goes straight back to, does Rustum Roy actually exist at all, and if there is indeed such a person with these qualifications who published a seminal paper over 50 years ago, is it actually he who is responsible for the present unprofessional and implausible presentation. Or could it just possibly be a complete hoax?

Rolfe.

bvw12

17th July 2007, 06:24 AM

bvw12

17th July 2007, 06:29 AM

An excellent starting point.

Now here's the next question: How do you propose to ensure that any proof you obtain is sufficiently robust as to be effectively unassailable? What is your criteria for "proof"?

you like big questions, huh? ok - i have two standards:

1. comprehensiveness of the evidentiary record (which will differ depending on the type of evidence and the type of research), and

2. independent corroboration (not just replication, but also corroboration by independent means)

PixyMisa

17th July 2007, 06:36 AM

This is the sort of analysis I am looking for, though the above is just the tip of the iceberg. Let us have little more depth on the technological issues. Think of more.
Here's what I suspect may be a real deal-breaker, though I don't know enough about materials science to be certain. (I'm flying on undergrad chemistry and physics and whatever I've picked up since then. Plus my good friend Google.)

Muller et al were able to determine the structure of their supramolecular H2O assembly - I'm guessing by x-ray diffraction, though as I said, I don't have access to the full paper, and I don't know all the techniques in use these days.

If they could do that, and there were, as Roy and Chaplin suggest, similar stable or semi-stable structures in unconfined liquid water, we'd have found them by now. Roy claims that little research is done into the structure of water (while pointing to a huge number of Google hits... slightly weird, that...)

Indeed, this joint study (http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/103/21/7973) by UCSF & UCB researchers seems to pretty conclusively close the door on that. (They also provide a summary here. (http://www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/PBD-water-controversy.html)) They are directly looking for intermolecular structures of the sort Professor Roy is suggesting, and found nothing more complex than a tetrahedron - which was the prior understanding of the structure of liquid water.

PixyMisa

17th July 2007, 06:45 AM

that is from page 14 of my own google search - i stopped at page 27 with much the same kind of content. i did not go to page katrillion or whatever. without having scrutinzed all 170,000,000 of returned citations, i will concede that roy's search was less than ideally structured, and that he missed a decimal point in counting the listed results. otoh, you guys missed the comma. either way, what does this exactly prove?
Try again.

Page 2 - Structured Water Pseudoscience and Quackery - well, I guess it's relevant.

Page 3 - Masaru Emoto's nonsense about ice crystals; CSIRO's department of Land and Water

Page 4 - Department of Environment and Water Resources; Building a structure to support a cup of water (out of straws, pipe cleaners, rubber bands, paper clips and toothpicks!); the economics of water supply; and "Mentally Influencing the Structure of Water".

By page 5, only 4 of the links were actually related to the subject.

The search is rubbish; what this proves is that whatever Roy was trying to establish with his search was not, in fact, established.

wollery

17th July 2007, 06:56 AM

[minor derail]
I just typed "invisible man" into google, and got 1,940,000 hits. Without the quotes it gets 9,110,000 hits.

Does this mean that there is an invisible man? Or that research into invisible men is viable and being undertaken at serious scientific research institutes?

Google is not a reliable scientific research tool, although it can help you find reliable research, if you know how to sift through the crap which is the majority of what it churns out.
[/minor derail]

PixyMisa

17th July 2007, 06:57 AM

Look, this Roy stuff is so full of implausibilities even before you get as far as finding out what he's actually saying that I really don't think I'll bother. My main question now goes straight back to, does Rustum Roy actually exist at all, and if there is indeed such a person with these qualifications who published a seminal paper over 50 years ago, is it actually he who is responsible for the present unprofessional and implausible presentation. Or could it just possibly be a complete hoax?
His Wikipedia entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rustum_Roy) suggest that it is the same guy:Rustum Roy (born July 3 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_3), 1924 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1924)) is a materials scientist, science policy analyst, advocate of interdisciplinary education and alternative medicine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_medicine), and science and religion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_religion). Roy holds professorships in materials science (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materials_science) at Arizona State University (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arizona_State_University) and in medicine at the University of Arizona (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Arizona), as well as emeritus honors at Pennsylvania State University (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennsylvania_State_University) (Penn State) in three fields.Also:He works with Andrew Weil (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Weil)'s program in integrative medicine and whole person healing at the University of Arizona (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Arizona).

Mojo

17th July 2007, 06:58 AM

it may also be that roy was looking for as many citations as possible, that could reasonably be assumed to stand in some fairly direct relation to the subject of interest - a more charitable pov, if one were inclined to charity.

Actually, that is the less charitable point of view: that he constructed the Google search so as to bring up a lot of irrelevant hits to bolster his argument by Googlefight.

Mojo

17th July 2007, 07:06 AM

someone said: "Do you think that Roy wanted to look for pages containing the sentence "liquid water has no structure"? Look at the context."

no. where did you find that sentence? nowhere. you (or a previous poster) made it up. is it within the 171,000,000 citations returned, somewhere? probably not.

The sentence "liquid water has no structure" was just an example of what the search could have found. are there other mis-hits, so to speak, within the volume of returns? probably yes. Evidently there are, because a search for the phrase brings up far fewer hits. i stopped at page 30 or so of my search record, and all the returns appeared to be on topic. feel free to read the rest of them, and tell me where the relevance of the findings comes to an end.

Roy is citing the total number of hits he got to give the impression that this is a well established area, not just the relevant ones. If he wanted to cite only the relevant ones, he should have constructed his search to restrict the results to relevant ones.

Mojo

17th July 2007, 07:26 AM

By the authors' own admission, the paper is purely theoretical fantasising, apparently along the same lines as Lionel Milgrom's quantum logorrhoea. If they can't even present their work in a professional format (Milgrom at least manages to do that!), what incentive is there even to read further?

Mind you, Milgrom has a pretty impressive track record when it comes to misspelling the names of authors he cites.

Cuddles

17th July 2007, 07:49 AM

The mixture of well known hydrogen bonds and previously totally ignored van der Waals bonds

Here's yet another clue that it's utter bollocks. Hydrogen bonds are Van der Waal's bonds. They're just a special case. Van der Waal's forces are caused when non-ionic molecules influence the electron distribution within each other and cause a slight polarisation of the molecules, resulting in a small attractive force. Bonds between hydrogen and oxygen are already highly polar and so the force is much stronger, strong enough to be refered to by a different name.

MRC_Hans

17th July 2007, 07:58 AM

OK, went and dunnit:

The experiments of Rostrum Roy. Source: http://www.rustumroy.com/Roy_Structure%20of%20Water.pdf

Roy's experiments have already been hailed by some in the homeopathic community as the new vindication of homeopathic practice, even though Roy himself explicitly states that his reported results provide no indication of homeopathic efficacy.

However, let's look at what Roy is reporting.

The experimental results have been published as a lecture, no formal report has been published in any peer-reviewed journal.

Most of the report deals with water clusters. There is nothing new in this, as water clusters have been known for some time already. Water clusters are semi-stable configurations of up to some 400 water molecules. They exist under certain conditions when water is "stressed", either just around freezing, or in areas with surface tension.Obviously, water clusters are not in any way durable structures, otherwise water would not be a liquid.

Roy does not make any direct claims about a connection between water clusters and potentized homeopathic remedies, but he proceeds to report a set of spectroscopic analyses of some homeopathic remedies. Here, he attempts to show that the remedies have a spectrographic profile that differs from controls but is characteristic of the remedy.

In its subtler form, such weak bonds would also allow for the changes of structure caused by electric and magnetic fields and by radiation of all kinds, including possibly so-called “subtle energies”,which are the basis of an enormous range of claims about specially “structured” water.

Reference to subtle energies, the existence of which which is, at best, an unsupported thesis.

The burden of proof on critics of homeopathy is to establish that the structure of the processed remedy is not different from the original solvent.

Invalid attempt to shift the burden of proof.

The principal conclusions of this paper concern only the plausibility of the biological action of ultradiluted water remedies, they are based on some very old (e.g. homeopathy) and some very new (e.g. metallic and nanobubble colloids) observations which have been rejected on invalid grounds or due to ignorance of the materials research literature and its theoretical basis. This constitutes an excellent example of the common error in rejecting new scientific discoveries by using the absence of evidence as evidence for absence.

Straw man. Homeopathic observations have been rejected on many other grounds.

The “structure of liquid water” receives some 8 million hits on Google and the “structure of water” over twice as many. Any contribution that can be made to this vast body of knowledge is sure to be marginal. This paper does not report any such incremental advance with ultraprecise measurements about the structure of oligomers, femtosecond spectroscopy of bond breakage or phase transitions in glassy water.

Since when is Google searches a scientific authority (and this is not the last time he uses it)?

However, the rest is honest enough: They basically say that their paper adds nothing new to the research base.

Fig. 2 In sharp contrast with the hypothetical calculations based on Zachariasen’s random network theory, is the direct TEM evidence. Shown are some examples of binary and ternary glasses, some quenched, some heat treated which clearly show actual phase-separation. One can confidently assume that in many if not most glasses and in many liquids, structural (-composition) fluctuations must exist as precursors to such phase separation (after Mazurin and Porai-koshits) [11].

How exactly can one "confidently assume" that we can infer anything about properties of liquids by studying solids?

Turning from the possible nanoheterogeneity of structure, to kinetics , we examine the argument that the “rapid breaking and remaking of bonds” excludes the possibility of different structures co-existing in liquid water. One can safely assume that these kinetics do not change just because phase separation may be involved at essentially a single temperature. Obviously these very fast kinetics of breaking and re-formation of bonds are irrelevant since they take place within each structural arrangement of units, without statistically affecting the structure of the units themselves.

Another bland assumption. How on earth can we "safely assume" that kinetics do not change? How is it obvious that the constant and very fast very fast rearrangements within a given structure does not affect the structure as a whole?

Another relevant example, albeit metastable, is that of glassy carbon. TEM studies (Fig. 5)show that in glassy carbon, interlocking mixtures of 1—2 nm regions of sp2 bonded graphite are mixed with sp3-bonded diamond regions [21]. As we will see later, the relevance of this line of argument by analogy has now been established beyond any doubt.

Here, we get eerily Hahnemannian: After a row of more or less unsupported assumptions, the arguments is considered established beyond any doubt. I thought this kind of arrogance went out of fashion after the 19th century.

The appropriate question is on the longevity of particular structures, and the statistical distribution of particular structures, and the statistical distribution of such as a function of temperature.

Yes, that is obviously rather crucial.

Relevant data which bear on this question, but obviously provide no quantitative answers, are the facts that the concentration of the different clusters or fragments resembling “dense ice” which must be present in all water samples at say 3 or 4º C, is very much higher than that present at room temperature.

Essentially saying that we don't know, but making another assumption.

And these clusters do not disappear because of various
bond breakage phenomena. They are of course in thermodynamically stable equilibrium. (i.e. last forever).

Complete non-sequiteur. However, this is an interesting, albeit unfounded, claim: If we take it at face value and accept that those structures do "last forever", then how can they change to reflect properties of a given remedy? Seems Roy inadvertenly defeats his own line of logic, here.

Table I and Fig. 13 show the extreme degree to which water’s properties are anomalous. Note first in the figure that the properties of the vast majority of liquids have monotonic, linear, changes with some variable. Next, note the very, very different behavior of water. Next, note that it is not just one property in which very anomalous changes are found, but such changes are found in many properties.

Reiterating the well-know observation that water has a long row of rather unique properties. Water is, in terms of physical and chemical properties, a very unusual material, this is already well known.

However, this very observation considerably weakens Roy's many inferrences and assumptions about water, taken from other materials. How, when water is so special, can anyone assume that properties from any other materials can be taken to apply to water?

These anomalies clearly tell the materials scientist that there is no way to achieve these phenomena except by a combination of two of our key conclusions about the structure of water.

This is simply an assertion. And indeed, in the following:

Across the transition point in properties there has to be a change of structure. Secondly, there must be several quite separate structural transitions to account for just the property changes noted. There is no prima facie way of telling whether such absolutely confirmed familiar behavior can be explained by complex rearrangement of just two (or five) states or clusters, or whether it requires simpler re-arrangements of many different states. The crystal chemical connection invoked by Robinson is certainly operative, but it is not necessary that water consists of a mixture of only “two states”, which by some juggling could be adjusted to try to explain the plethora of anomalies by utilizing only two
structures. Our proposal is simply to posit that there are many possible structures.

It is admitted that this is simply an assumption.

So far, the paper has addressed the possible presence of durable structures in water. As can be seen, that part contains a lot of assumptions. Now comes the interesting part, namely, what has all this to do with homeopathy?

a. The role of epitaxy
Epitaxy, a term which does not appear even in most technical dictionaries, is a phenomenon very well known, studied and used in dozens of everyday technologies in materials science (See Barker; Royer; Pashley [48—50]). Yet it is never invoked directly in the literature on potential interference in the data, or on the super-sensitive molecular structural studies of water. It is not even referenced by the strongest supporters of homeopathy. Epitaxy is the transmission of structural information from the surface (hence epi) of one material (usually a crystalline solid) to another (usually but not always a liquid)

Subtleties of terminology appear in various papers, but it is structural “information” that is definitely transferred (for a recent example of the subtleties of the what and how information can be transferred in the preparation of certain industrially important phases, see Roy, Guo, 7 It is also plausible as reported by John Ives that especially with the succussing process, trace amounts of the glass (which is probably a complex aluminosilicate) are dispersed as nano-heterogeneities of silicate islands. (“Recent data on homeopathy research”, Proceedings at the Whole Person Health Summit, Washington, D.C., April 2005)
©2005 Matrice Technology Limited Materials Research Innovations 9-4: 1433-075X Materials Research Innovations Online 595
Bhalla and Cross [51]. In most cases, no (zero) matter is transferred from solid to liquid, but even major structural changes and patterning information is certainly transferred , e.g. GeO2 can be made to crystallize from aqueous solution in the quartz (SiO2) structure or the rutile (TiO2) structure (which is 50% denser), merely by using the appropriate epitaxial substrate. Hence it is clear that concentrations of the change agent or solute which dissolves in the liquid
phase, being changed, whether above or below Avogadro’s limit become wholly irrelevant, since it is zero.

Note the last paragraph (my emphasis). This is obvoiously false: Even if an imprint of a substance can be obtained and preserved in water (and bear in mind that this thesis is based on a chain of assumptions), then that substance must evidently be present to make that imprint, even if no substance is transferred.

Roy's claim here is equivalent to claiming that since no part of an engraving patrice is transferred to the engraved material, there is no need to have the patrice at all.

There is only one term for this: Nonsense.

In homeopathy, a specific material (animal, mineral, or plant source), is added to the liquid (water or water + ethanol). The preparation of the homeopathic remedy involves multiple serial dilution steps, each followed by multiple succussions (vigorous shaking or turbulence—by hand or mechanically). The resultant remedy is hypothesized to catalyze system-wide, hierarchically self-organized changes within a clinically ill person or animal [53, 54]. However, this paper is not concerned with any clinical effects whatsoever. The only relevant question for us is, in what ways can the “active agent” change, affect or
“imprint” the liquid structure [55]. The biochemical and medical community, unaware of the materials research field, assume that it is only the presence in solution of finite concentrations of the active agent that can affect a liquid. They are clearly wrong: structure can be transferred by epitaxy with no presence whatsoever of the controlling phase.

My emphasis again. Roy builds on his invalid assumption and claims that his opponents are thereby proven wrong. In this, apart from having no basis, he builds a straw man. The biochemical and medical community is not much concerned with structure. They are concerned with chemistry.

Even IF Roy's imprint could exist, and persist in a fluid, it would just be an image of the structure of the medical substance. Since no pharmaceutical effect is known that is based on structure alone, this bumpy road seems to lead to a dead end.

However, Roy has other hypotheses:

He mentions the effect of collodial silver and the minute amounts that are needed to get a medical effect. That is, of course, interesting, but as he admits, event though small, the efficaous amounts of collodial silver are well above the avogadro limit (several orders of magnitude, in fact).

Then there is nano-bubbles.

c. Other methods of affecting structure.
The role of succussing: pressure generation and nano-bubble entrapment. Pressure, after temperature, is of course the most important of the intensive thermodynamic variables in deciding what structure will form under new environments. Pressure is well known to have profound effects on crystalline H2O. Some 13 different crystalline H2O structures are known in a modest P-T region.

So, once more inferring from solid state to liquid state, and assuming the same rules apply.

We have shown as reported above, that while it
is largely unknown among even materials scientists, it is fully established that all common glasses (frozen liquids) change structure (and their density and refractive index properties) continuously with pressure, and they can be retained in their new states rather easily.

Here is another place where all this analogy making fails to compute. Common glasses are amorphous, and it could be argued that they are in the liquid mode always (although lots of physicists would disagree). Water, however, is not amorphous; in the solid (frozen) state, it is crystalline. So, at best, this is irrelevant.

He continues to explain how pressures generated during succussion might generate nano-bubbles, which might persist for prolonged periods. He then suggests that active substance could be trapped in those nano-bubbles. That might perhaps happen, but the nano-bubbles will obviously be diluted away at at least the same rate as non-entrapped active substance, so the thesis is really uninteresting.

But it doesn't end here. Roy speculates on about how there could possible be something about potentized homeopathic remedies, and with the next thesis, he heads off to the deep end:

d. The influence of magnetic and electric fields, and human “intentions” (subtle energies)

Human intentions. ... At this point one would be absolutely justified, from a scientific POV, to simply stop reading and dismiss the paper. I have not done so, however.

While the E or H fields contribute relatively little to the Gibbs free energy stability of most materials,10 they become profoundly important when these effects can be “locked into” a material as, for example, ordered domains in a magnetic ferrite, or in the domain structure of ferroelectric transducers. All modern electronics depends on memories which utilize such materials.

(my emphasis)
Incorrect. Not that it matters to the subject at hand, but it does demonstrate that the writer is perhaps not entirely up to date. The last statement has never been entirley correct, and it has not even been remotely correct for the last three decades.

There follows something about the effect of gigaherz fields on certain solids, but no hint about how that is relevant for the subject at hand.

Then:

In Tsinghua University in Beijing, Raman spectra were taken of distilled water before and after implantation of “qi,” or intention, by Dr. Yan Xin, the best known of China’s Qigong grandmasters, from a great distance (10’s to 1000’s of km.).

We are beginning to understand why the good professor has opted not to submit this paper to a peer reviewed scientific journal. .. Or if he has, why it has not appeared anywhere.

Having finshed the hypothesis, Roy goes on to evaluate the durability of such putative effects:

e. The kinetics of structural change
A final important issue in attempting to bring some of the results into the context of current (not classical) physio-chemical thought, concerns the kinetics of any structural change. We have dealt in earlier sections with responses to specific objections. If indeed one were to imprint “epitaxially”, specific structured information on to a homeopathic liquid remedy, or expose it to a human intention field, how long would such a (metastable) imprint last?

Surely a relevant question, and Roy goes on to compare with the structure of diamonds, which is also labelled metastable, and observes that diamonds are virtually forever. A rather interesting comparizon, considering that he has earlier in the paper pointed out the profound difference between the use of the term structure in solid state mechanics and liquids (the chapter 'Deconstructing the terminological confusion around the term “structure of water”').

Anyhow, the longest concrete timespans that Roy seem to be able to deduce from various sources seem to be in the order of hours, which obviously will not serve for homeopathy. He basically leaves it there.

In the chapter
f. Experimental tools for determining the structure of liquids including water

are reflections on how these theses could be tested.

g. Data from the literature on homeopathy consistent with the newer materials science models. This paper has attempted to review the literature on the structure of water through the prism of materials science, hence focusing on that literature. Of course large amounts of very relevant research also exist in the homeopathy literature, and in the following section we attempt merely to connect the two approaches.

That's fair enough.

The central thrust of this paper, which has presented an argument that nullifies the simpleminded argument of “zero concentration of solute, hence no possible effect,” is that it is structure NOT composition which has the effect.

This, however, is circular reasoning. Roy mentions a set of putative mechanisms that might preserve structure, but that does not in any way nullify the notion that composition is what is needed for effect. He presumes that homeopathy works (showing his real colors, here), and concludes that since the only mechanisms he could think of implied structure, he has now shown that structure is what counts.

That is very poor science.

He goes on to reference some of the usual host of studies that have, over time, provided various results that could be interpreted in favor of homeopathy, but does honestly acknowledge that none are beyond criticism.

This is where the paper ends. The conclusion is, in my opinion, not valid because of the mentioned uncongruencies and logical leaps.

In this presentation http://www.rustumroy.com/May%2016th%20Webinar.pdf ,
Roy presents a synopsis of the above paper plus some spectroscopic analyses of samples of homeopathic remedies.

One very interesting thing is that while all the above theories deal exclusively with water structures, the analyzed samples are water/ethanol based. Which essentially means that all bets are off (if there were any bets to begin with).

His key conclusions are:

Key Conclusions

• Homeopathic remedies are spectroscopically distinct from the
original solvent (water/ ethanol).

• Different potencies can be distinctly distinguished by the UV-VIS
and the Raman spectra.

The first one is, of course, interesting, however, the experiment doesn't really show that. It is stated that the remedy is purchased from the Hahnemann lab, but there is no indication of the source of the water/ethanol. Even if it is from the same lab, there is no guarantee that it is from the same batch, and even if that is the case, the results don't prove that the different spectra have anything to do with the homeopathic "content".

Spectroscopy is a very sensitive measuring method, essentially able to detect even very few molecules of a substance. Therefore, to infer anything from this, the controls must be established using extremely rigorous methods (a problem that haunts all spectroscopy trials for homeopathy published so far).

For spectroscopy to be valid, the control solution must be from the same batch as the one used for the remedy, and it must have gone through the same potentization steps, sans mother tincture, of course. Otherwise you have absolutely no way of knowing if you are just detecting random impurities introduced through the lab procedures.

In this context it is important to remember that the best commercially obtainable purity of water corresponds to 5-6C, so even the most rigorous laboratory practices will leave you with high potency remedies that have been in contact with several orders of magnitude more random impurities than anything else.

The same criticism is valid for the Raman spectra. All the trial demonstrates is that the samples happen to be not precisely identical.

Hans

MRC_Hans

17th July 2007, 08:11 AM

hans,

on the question of pertinence to homeopathic practice, we disagree. after all, if the remedies are nothing but water, as you believe, then homeopathy can not be a "real" medical intervention.

That is correct. No chain is tronger than the weakest link, and if remedies contain only medium, then homeopathy fails. However, it does not work the other way around: Even if remedies are shown to contain "something", homeopathy still hinges on other things as well, which have to be proven also.

I know it's an uphill struggle, but that's the way it is.

*snip*further, with it we can amputate a good portion of the skeptical argument,

Yes, that would defuse one argument against homeopathy.

that is, that part of it that deals with what is or is not likely to occur in future developments in physics.

No, that happens to be your private strawman. You have, elsewhere, beaten it to and beyond death, but that doesn't change the fact that it is your fabrication: Skeptics don't claim anything about future developements, we just observe that current physics fail to support homeopathy.

Hans

PixyMisa

17th July 2007, 08:12 AM

Yes, but apart from that, what did you think of the paper?

:p

MRC_Hans

17th July 2007, 08:17 AM

MRC_Hans

17th July 2007, 08:33 AM

Yes, but apart from that, what did you think of the paper?

:pI think that if my memory serves me right (I think this was addressed in Dana Ulmann's thread), the good prof. Roy has published some papers dealing with nuclear physics, and something indicates he should have been sticking to his area of expertise.

Hans

Gavinimurthy

17th July 2007, 08:47 AM

Dear Hans

Thanks for your analysis. I will study the power point presentation, once again, in the light of your observations and come back.

Murthy

krazyKemist

17th July 2007, 08:50 AM

from roy's paper. any discussion?

Miyazaki et al. (Science, May 21, 2004) show infrared spectroscopic evidence for oligomers of different shape and sizes from n=4-27 in (H2O)n [41]. Shin et al. (May 21, 2004) present intriguing IR data near the 3.7μ O-H stretching band in oligomers from 6-27, around the “magic number” of n=21 [42]. From neither of these papers can one tell whether the authors believe that water—all waters under undelimited conditions—contain 100% of these molecules, or a majority. Nor is there any comment on how such clusters are distributed in space, or whether different size clusters are themselves formed into separate regions of the nano-heterogeneous bulk water.

****
Clearly the origin of some of the inherent confusion in the field is based on the materials scientists’ and the chemists’ use of the same term to mean different things. Chemists use “structure” to describe the structure of the molecules or ‘structural building blocks.’ Materials Scientists use “structure” to describe the 3-D structural architecture of the material. The former describe the size and shape of the bricks or cement blocks; the latter describe the shape and size of the walls and the room and how the bricks and blocks are arranged within it.

Generally, material scientists are chemists themselves. The confusion in this paper is the use of the word "oligomer", borrowed from polymer science (another field of chemistry), and implies a fixed, solid, long-term, high energy connection between water molecules (what chemists call a "covalent bond"), similar to what happens in polymerisation. Such a bonding does not exist in water. The authors of the paper are refering to hydrogen bonding in water. The confusion lies with the difference between a hydrogen-bond (called H-bond in the field), which is a low-energy, short duration, weak intermolecular bond, and the intramolecular, high-energy covalent bond. Structure, even within chemistry, may mean both an assembly of molecules, or an assembly of atoms, which constitute a molecule.

the Kemist

Rolfe

17th July 2007, 09:21 AM

His Wikipedia entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rustum_Roy) suggest that it is the same guy:

OK, thanks. That seems to confirm my other thought, that he was an academic scientist who had "gone woo" in the same way as Milgrom. This seems to be the case. I'm still quite stunned by the amateur-quack quality of the presentation though. Even Milgrom does a great deal better than that.

I'm giving this a serious look, because as Hans says, the homoeopaths are making so much of it. Not a lot there, though.

Water is the subject of the first 15 slides, which seem to be a rehash of the paper, and again include no experimental data. Milgrom without the class.

Slides 16 to 26 seem to be dealing with the antimicrobial properties of silver, in aqueous solution, which to me is hardly a controversial area. However, he seems towards the end of that section to be seguing into a discussion of homoeopathy, without the relevance being entirely clear. I can't find any definite statement that any of the silver "sols" he's discussing is actually diluted past Avogadro's limit 10^-23), although he does refer to the "nano" range (10^-9), and at another point to something being "ultradilute". Can anyone make head or tail of that section? In slide 26, the left-hand graph of the UV-vis spectra seems to be saying something, but I'm damned if I know what - I can't make out what the concentrations or dilution factors of his test materials are. If in fact "ASAP10-201" are preparations diluted beyond Avogadro's limit, then it might be saying something interesting, but lacking not only the accompanying speech but any sort of materials and methods section, we can make little of it. I'd suspect systematic error.

Slides 27-32 have the actual homoeopathic preparations. Here is an interesting feature. Roy has up till now been talking about aqueous solutions. However, he moves on to (presumably commercial) homoeopathic remedies supplied by Hahnemann Laboratories. Again, no materials and methods section. Only two preparations are said to have been supplied (Nat Mur and Nux Vomica), but six are analysed (three different "potencies" of each). We're left to assume that all six came pre-prepared from Hahnemann Laboratories, but that's not stated.

In fact seven preparations are analysed, because there is also a line for (variously described) "plain EtOH", "unsuccussed Ethanol" and "the original solvent".

Slide 28 deals only with Nux Vom and the "plain EtOH", and is very questionable. JJM seems to have put his finger on it a page or two ago. What is the solvent and where did it come from? Is it in fact the stock solvent used for the remedy manufacture, supplied by Hahnemann Laboratories along with the remedies? That's what it should have been, to have any relevance at all. However, if that were the case, I'd have serious reservations. It would mean that the authors were relying entirely on a third party to produce their experimental samples. Is this wise? With or without dishonest intent, there's far too much scope for trouble there. Who picked out the bottles that were to be sent to Roy's lab? Where did they get the solvent sample from? Do we know for sure it was from the very same bottle or batch used to prepare the test remedies? If it wasn't, then the results are meaningless. And given the importance of this point, I'd want to make sure there was no possibility that anyone could accuse the homoeopathic laboratory of deliberately giving Roy a different sort of ethanol for the solvent sample as was used in the remedies, so as to ensure a result!

Alternatively, did Roy simply pick up a bottle of "ethanol" in his lab, and use that as the control? If it wasn't from the same bottle as that used to prepare the actual remedies, then the whole thing is worthless.

I think JJM is right (posts 36, 37 and 59). The three Nux Vom spectra look the same to me, and would agree with the suggestion of a glass cuvette (only, the use of quartz for UV work is so standard that I have difficulty believing anyone would even think of using a glass one). Alternatively it might be the spectrum of the solvent. The problem is caused by the lack of any provenance for the solvent preparation used as the control, and the extremely strong suspicion that if has been contaminated.

Slide 29 I can't make head or tail of. Here he introduces the Nat Mur (NaCl to the rest of us, as contrasted with Nux Vom which has for its mother tincture a complex plant-based concoction) for the first time. There is one set of open circles and one set of closed circles on each of six graphs. However, the caption says that the open circles are Nat Mur and the closed circles Nux Vom, while the label on the graphs identifies the left-hand three as Nat Mur (three different potencies) and the right-hand three as Nux Vom (the same three different potencies). Duh? Oh yes and the caption also talks about ten preparations of each "medicine", not saying if this was ten of each potency or not, and I can't see anything on the graphs that looks like ten of anything.

It may be that access to the speech that went with this would clear some of the points up, but I have no clue what slide 29 is supposed to represent. Anyone else doing any better?

Slides 30 and 31 are Raman spectra, which I am not familiar with. However, they look like noisy graphs to me. I'd need to know a lot more about this, in particular how repeatable the results were between and within batches, before I could say whether they demonstrated anything at all.

The last slide in that group is the conclusions Murthy quoted.

Key Conclusions
• Homeopathic remedies are spectroscopically distinct from the
original solvent (water/ ethanol).
• Different potencies can be distinctly distinguished by the UV-VIS
and the Raman spectra.
• Nat Mur and Nux Vomica are distinctly different while the same
potencies with different succussion also show a clear evidence of
difference in the structure of the individual samples.
• No studies /claims whatsoever on the clinical effects of the remedies
are made.

The first bullet point can only be supported by the slide 28 figure, as it is the only one which seems to analyse any "solvent". However, the provenance of the "solvent" sample is so dubious that this graph is rendered totally moot. In addition, he specifically states that the solvent in this case was ethanol. He has shown nothing about the properties of aqueous homoeopathic preparations comparted to the aqueous solvent. So the "water" part of that statement is entirely unsupported.

The second bullet point does not seem to me to be supported by the UV-vis spectra presented. I see no clearly-demonstrated difference between potencies. The Raman spectra may show differences, but we have no information about the repeatability of the traces shown, they could be totally cherry-picked from some noisy data.

I don't know where he's getting the support for the third bullet point at all. Slide 28 shows only Nux Vom. Slide 29 (both remedies, UV-vis) is incomprehensible, and slides 30 (Nat Mur, Raman) and 31 (Nux Vom, Raman) can't be compared.

Fourth point. Very wise.

The last nine slides are just a bit of homoeopathic apologia, with everything from the usual misinterpreting of 70% of patients saying they feel a little better perhaps as "70-80% clinical improvement" to a namecheck for good old Harald Walach, with figures reproduced from Elia (q.v.) and Rey (q.v.).

So what are we to make of this? The only interesting stuff by any stretch of the imagination is the spectra presented in slides 28 to 30. However, this is nothing to do with the memory of water, we're looking at ethanol. Which makes all that stuff about water polymerisation pretty moot. How about telling us how ethanol is doing this, or alternatively, show that water will do it too.

Then of course, we simply don't have the information (such as where the ethanol came from, or how repeatable the Raman spectra are, or even what the hell is the correct legend for slide 29) to know if any of that is valid. I'm not holding my breath for a well-presented and well-performed edition of this work.

If he really has some means of telling a homoeopathic preparation from its stock solvent or one homoeopathic preparation from another by means of either UV-vis spectra or Raman spectra, he'll have to be a lot more rigorous in demonstrating this.

First, all preparations muct be prepared under controlled conditions. Either get the protocol from the homoeopathic laboratory and prepare the stuff yourself, or get the homoeopathic technicians to do the preparation under scrutiny. You must be able to show that no possible contamination distinguishes the different preparations. Simply asking a homoeoapthic laboratory to supply remedies does not address this.

Second, the spectra should ideally be run blind. The experience of Benveniste demonstrates that even a test believed to be objective can be influenced by operator knowledge of what is being tested.

Third, the work should be repeated sufficiently to show that any differences are not just random variation (or worse still, cherrypicking). Repeat spectra should be run for the same preparations, and the entire thing (with preparation of new batches of test material from scratch) repeated at least twice.

Fourth, the results should be presented in a proper professional manner, with full details of methodology, so that methodological problems can be spotted and the whole experiment repeated by any independent lab that wants to try it.

Not holding my breath.

Frankly, if there is an absorbance peak at about 320nm in ethanol (JJM has pointed out that actually there isn't!) which magically disappears when the ethanol is used to make a homoeopathic preparation, why hasn't Roy won the million dollars already?

Rolfe.

PixyMisa

17th July 2007, 09:28 AM

I think that if my memory serves me right (I think this was addressed in Dana Ulmann's thread), the good prof. Roy has published some papers dealing with nuclear physics, and something indicates he should have been sticking to his area of expertise.
He is a materials scientist of some standing; he has papers going back to the 40's. He's done some work not in nuclear physics but in nu