Talk:Masaru Emoto/Archive 1

Hey Guys
I tried this, it works. Why so much criticism? If you don't believe it works just try it yourself before dismissing it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.11.31.158 (talk) 05:36, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

The criticism section of this article was way overboard, presenting a real POV problem. I cut it down by eliminating the least scientific parts. It seems someone really felt the need to do a hatchet job on this and they didn't care at all about the quality of their sources. 108.202.113.201 (talk) 23:03, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Swiss institute
Here Emoto mentions that he set up a non profit organization in Zurich, Switzerland called Wise Crystal, that he “had to give up the center later”, and that he "learned from the mistake". WISE stands for World Institute of Subtle Energy. Does anyone know anything more about this?--Niku 06:58, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

In his book, Emoto spends about 2 pages detailing how much his work is admired by Joan S Davis, an "accomplished scientist" at the Zurich Technical University. Of course, Emoto's book contains no references or citations, so I tried to dig up something myself. Google seems to have no record of Ms Davis, nor Zurich Technical University. Can anyone attest to either's existence? Messiahxi 19:48, 18 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Eidgenössischen Technischen Hochschule Zürich (ETH Zurich) I'd guess. Funny that searching for a foreign institute using an English version of the name would fail to produce results... as far as locating the good Dr., you may need to go make friends with someone who is fluent in German. 64.186.109.208 (talk) 10:23, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Lorenzen, Weinstock, and MRA
Dr. Lee H. Lorenzen and Ronald J. Weinstock mentioned in the article are both businesspersons/researchers who were or are active in areas such as water clusters and magnetic resonance, controversial fields just like Emoto's. It would be helpful for the article to figure out what the Magnetic Resonance Analyzer promoted by Emoto actually does. These are the info sources I have found so far:
 * 1) Some info on Weinstock is here
 * 2) Emoto describes the purpose of his MRA device here
 * 3) US Patents can be looked up here  and describe the alleged functions of inventions. Ronald J. Weinstock and his wife Sigrid Lipsett have been issued patent numbers:
 * 5,592,086
 * 5,517,119
 * 5,317,265
 * Dr. Lee H. Lorenzen has been issued patent numbers:
 * 5,711,950
 * 6,033,678

--Niku 06:58, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Cleaning up this article
Now that Emoto has worked with an external team at IONS and successfully completed a double-blind study of some of his claima, this article needs to be radically cleaned up.

Basically all the references on how Emoto is not practicing real science are silly and irrelevant at this point, since he just completed such a double-blind study (a replication study is underway as we speak).

If I do not hear any objections on this page over the next week or two I'll take a crack at it. Sdaconsulting 19:50, 17 October 2006 (UTC)


 * I would hold my horses. IONS is known its own controversies. I wouldn't be surprised if the experiment is done by another party but the outcome will be totally different. It should be noted that two scientist featured in What the Bleep are also from IONS. I personally don't think this new study by IONS will change the stance of most mainstream scientist. --priyadi 10:42, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Do they pass out "mainstream scientist" badges somewhere?

Sorry, those are weasel words, as defined in Wikipedia's "Avoid Weasel Words".

The fact is, this is a double-blind independent replication, and so all of the attacks based on a lack of double-blind studies are now out of date. Regardless of the results of other studies from scientists who are certain they will fail to confirm the studies and, surprise, will fail to confirm them (see confirmation bias) Sdaconsulting 20:09, 20 October 2006 (UTC)


 * ok then go ahead editing the article, i'll try to balance it out. --priyadi 10:06, 21 October 2006 (UTC)


 * ok, i tried to rebalance the article. deleted all references of double blind outside its own section. added a few things in 'double blind' section. changed the section title to be more appropriate to recent updates. --priyadi 10:43, 21 October 2006 (UTC)


 * and FYI, confirmation bias also works both way.


 * LOL that's because we create our own realities.... ok I know that was a cheap shot Dndn1011 01:09, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Hi!

Are there any links to more information about the double blind test? As there is a lot of skeptic information available and I didn't manage to find any scientific confirmation on the internet about Masaru Emoto's statements and findings.

I find it verry logical that the structure of water changes by energy that we don't know of today. There are parrots that can respond to thinking, you can think of a word and the parrot will say it. Also dogs can become happy when you're driving 2-3 streets from your house.

Best Regards, Mees Pierson


 * As an aside, no one understands how conscious thought manages to cause physical effects at all. Not even for the human brain.  Somewhere, our thoughts influence our bodies (even as crudely as moving a limb) and there is a lot of philosophical questions that are yet to be answered to explain how this works.  At a fundemental level, being able to influence water by thought is not any more strange than the reality we observe everyday as it is.  One thing though there were studies I believe on how thought could effect the growth of plants.  This would seem related.  I am sure double blind experiments must have been carried out by now by someone on that question.  As for the parrot and the dog, this is not at all clear; dogs have a very sensitive sense of hearing and smell.  The recognise the sound of the vehicle.  The parrot may be reading your face.  Dndn1011 22:10, 18 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Mees, I have never seen a single study in a reputable peer-reviewed journal that supports either of the claims you make. If there has been such a study, I would be very interested in finding out why the authors don't have an extra million dollars from the JREF. As for the "structure of water changes by energy that we don't know of today", such a statement is entirely irrelevant to thought or writing changing the structure of water. Even then, it is highly unlikely that there are non-trivial effects in the structure and dynamics of water that we don't know about. Water has been very closely studied, and there are models based on sound physical theories that describe water very accurately. Most of the difficulty in applying the models lies in the fact that it is a many-body problem, not that we don't understand what is going on. And even with that issue, reputable snowflake (water crystal) researchers (there are around three of them, as far as I can tell) have made what appear to be significant (as yet unpublished) breakthroughs in computational modelling of snowflake formation in the last few weeks.
 * The study you are looking for was not published in a reputable peer-reviewed journal. There is no scientific confirmation of Emoto's work, and if the article portrays the work in a scientific light, that is in violation of WP:V as there are no appropriate sources for that portrayal, per ArbCom precedent in the Pseudoscience case. --Philosophus T 09:35, 1 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I am no advocate of one view or the other, but your statements have a lot of unverifiable claims. "Even then, it is highly unlikely that there are non-trivial effects in the structure and dynamics of water that we don't know about.", how can you demonstrate this in a verifiable way?  Just for fun I typed "unanswered questions about the molecular structure of water" into google and found lots of unanswered questions, such as:
 * "Researchers continue to tussle over how many bonds each H2O molecule makes with its nearest neighbors." (http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/309/5731/78b)
 * "No one understands, for instance, why liquid water is able to carry so much heat. "If the heat capacity of water were half of its actual value," says chemist Ken Jordan of the University of Pittsburgh, "the temperature fluctuations in our environment would be more extreme, and this would have important implications for life itself."
 * "No calculation carried out to date," Jordan says, "is able to account quantitatively for the surface tension of liquid water." (http://www.psc.edu/science/Jordan/Jordan.html)
 * Dndn1011 20:51, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I'm a fundamental theorist. All of those are trivial mathematical details to me... More seriously, what I meant was that while the things you describe could be plausibly explained by mathematical phenomena which we don't understand, Emoto's theories would require that there be fundamental discrepancies in physical theories. It would be extremely difficult for such discrepancies to have slipped by far more precise and controlled tests. --Philosophus T 01:09, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Clean-up
I have reviewed this article, and made major revisions. Most of them involve clarifying and de-commenting the criticism section. Re. the proported double-blind study: I and others have reviewed this study. It is approximately as bad as Emoto's usual procedure, and is not in fact double-blind, so it does not merit special mention. See Talk:What the Bleep Do We Know for further discussion. I don't know if the CSICOP will do another debunking, but the obvious problems with the work have not been corrected: flaws in double-blind methodology, high probability of false positives, unclear evaluation criteria, clear systematic and cognitive biases.

I make this edit at the request of a fellow Caltech student who is watching the article. Michaelbusch 04:24, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Don’t even get me started on this thread. Clean up your own research prior to making changes. Alternatively see What the Bleep discussion. Cheers. AS 61.68.120.191 05:28, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
 * You flamed there. Don't start here. Michaelbusch 06:35, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Like I've said I am open to discussion. Are you willing to participate? Otherwise you are the one flaming. I have backed all my edits with discussion. You aren't. As far as I can tell you are the one vandalising and simply deleting what you don't like. I am intending to formally issue intervention for mediation. Will you participate to reach a constructive solution or keep dodging answers? How credible are you if you are afraid to stand up to scrutiny? AS Tinsue 11:50, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

I have rewritten a portion of the Criticism section, specifically the 2nd and 3rd paragraphs. While I agree with the spirit of the original wording, I think it sounded more editorial than encyclopedic. I tried to improve the wording while retaining the primary points. I did keep a slightly altered version of the original in my "For Example". I'm sure it could use some some citations, but I think my changes are appropriate. Thoughts? Messiahxi 16:14, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Randi
I really get irritated by referrences to Randi, even though I actually agree that this is pseudoscience, and agree that the lack of a double blind study creates a big hole in the theories of Masaru. A double blind study should be pretty easy to organise. But I have observed that Randi's rebuttles generally against any non-scientific view use misleading and unfair arguments. Randi is no more a scientist than Masaru, in my opinion. Randi often weakens the case for the scientific view by presenting arguments that are not in themselves scientifically water-tight. On a side note, people believe in all kinds of things that are not scientifically proven, and some things that are scietifically 'proven' and later turn out to be false (like absolute time, for example). Often scientists ignore counter evidence and continue with their research into something they have a passion for. Often these tracks bear no fruit, but occasionally they do. Ordinary people believe whatever they want to believe in a similar way. The scientific method is not the only way to guide one's life. It is vitally important to respect other people's ideas regardless how improbable the reasoning behind them. There is evidence to show that having strong beliiefs changes the behavior of the people believing. Believing in things that are scientifically unproven does not (inspite of what people like Randi say) invariably result in negative consequences. These beliefs can have positive consequences. If for example there is no scientific evidence for the healing power of thought and prayer, there is plenty of evidence that many people gain comfort from such thoughts. What is wrong with that? There is nothing scientific in a comforting word. Let people believe what Masaru says if they wish. It is up to them. For the purposes of wikipedia, it would be incorrect to call Masaru a scientist and his research science. Funnily enough he says that himself. The article is tagged as pseudoscience. Reasons why this is not considered scientific are given. There is no more to see here, move along please....
 * I'm sorry, it seems like you have a distorted view of what science is. Nobody lives their life by the scientific method, and I don't think that's what Randi advises anyway. Emoto is not a philosopher, he is making scientific (testable) claims. He's not saying, "Thinking good thoughts will make you a better person", he's saying, "Thinking good thoughts will change the structure of water crystals." So, Randi is saying, "OK, prove it", and Emoto is ignoring him.
 * The danger here is that if Emoto's claims go unchallenged, then people have a greater chance of believing that what Emoto is doing IS science. Sure, if somebody wants to believe that talking to water makes better water, and they're an ordinary person, no big deal. But suppose that that person has power. What if a city has a polluted stream, and instead of paying for a clean-up crew, they decide to save money and pay for a group of mystics to stand by the water and pray to it? If Emoto's claims are false, then it would be a waste of taxpayer money. Despite what you say about him, I really doubt that Emoto is going to stand up and say, "Now wait a minute! That's not what I meant!" He wouldn't sell very many books that way.
 * As to the article itself: I understand that Emoto's fans are offended by the references to Randi and keep deleting them. However, the JREF Million Dollar Challenge has been around a long time, and has been offered to many people, not just Emoto. The fact that he has been offered, and hasn't taken up the challenge, is very relevant. Bennie Noakes 15:08, 6 January 2007 (UTC)


 * And I completely agree with you. My issue is more to do with the direspectful attitude that Randi takes when presenting his arguments and as I said the arguments he uses are often quite unscientific in themselves in my opinion.  Ultimately, references to Randi are not really science either, and so it is questionable whether they really belong here.  Or maybe they do, if this is not a scientific article.  Kind of paradoxical I guess.  heh. Dndn1011 23:52, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Randi may be a jerk, but he is a very competent jerk. His science is usually good, and he takes very few chances. Michaelbusch 23:56, 7 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I removed the statement about next expecting to pay out. He never expects to pay out.  As far as I know he never has paid out...  and yes, you are right, he is competant.  He is very good at what he does. Dndn1011 23:59, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
 * It is important that this stays, because it makes it clear that when Randi invites someone to take the challenge, that person is most likely promoting complete nonsense. Michaelbusch 00:03, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
 * You are so tiresome, Michaelbusch. The statement does not add anything to the article. I say this not because I think there is anything in Masaru's thoeries from a scientific standpoint (I do feel it is unlikely to be proved scientifically), but because it is a silly snipy comment that is unescessary. It is more suited to a newspaper article than wikipedia. Please open your eyes. I speak as an neutral editor. I have been trying to push for NPOV, but every attempt has been deflected.Dndn1011 00:09, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Mr. Randi is well-known as a debunker. This is the guy that took down Uri Geller! So, if you have someone of that caliber challenging you, it is very relevant. There is nothing POV about this fact. I still do not understand your position. Bennie Noakes 07:11, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
 * "that person is most likely promoting complete nonsense" is purely POV. I do not understand YOUR position that it is not, Bennie Noakes.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 112.202.86.63 (talk) 01:21, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Before you assign god-like qualities to Randi, you would do well to investigate the stories of others who have taken him up on his most famous slight of hand, the so-called million dollar prize. I have read numerous stories, complete with transcripts and correspondence, and whatever it was the hopeful was hoping to prove, it would not matter; I could just as well say that I will give a million dollars to anyone who can successfully claim a Randi prize, because, like Randi, I don't have the money either. I can forgive the mass media for jumping to attach this 'debunking' challenge, because Randi is in show business and PR is his game, but Wikipedia should be immune to Randi's press agents; if you want to quote a debunker, quote me the man's domain peers, not some boastful antagonistic stage magician. 216.185.253.130 15:06, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Perhaps you’d like to pass on some of these “numerous stories,” then. &mdash; NRen2k5 07:17, 22 August 2007 (UTC)


 * It's been more than a year and I'm still waiting for your stories. — NRen2k5 (TALK), 10:41, 14 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Still waiting… — NRen2k5 (TALK), 16:29, 15 January 2009 (UTC)


 * The reason why nobody succeeds at Randi’s “Million Dollar Challenge” is actually because it’s so damned fair. Every effort is made, with the challenger’s participation, to establish a testing methodology that’s fair both to Randi and to the challenger. A lot of people whose “powers” rely on deceit and trickery will refuse to help establish a methodology and then turn around and say that they were stonewalled by Randi. Then there are the people who are so convinced they have powers that they refuse to listen to reason. When their powers are proved nonexistent, they rationalize it by picking some element in the test to lay the blame on, or by accusing Randi of trickery.


 * I recall reading about the test of a ‘dowser’ who claimed he could find gold with his ability. The test was done in a library. They did a dry run without the sample of gold present to see if any areas in the room interfered with the man’s dowsing. He found a couple such areas, so they made sure to do the actual test well away from them. The dowser (no surprise) failed to find the gold in the actual test, and rationalized it by blaming a shelf of encyclopedias nearby with gold lettering on the spines. A very flimsy excuse considering that it was actually brass, and that it did absolutely nothing to him in the dry run. — NRen2k5 (TALK), 19:14, 22 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Who gives a shit about your POV, Nren2k5. Cite references, contribute to the article, make it neutral or shut the hell up. :)

ehhh ... Anyone noticed these BIG holes in Randi's test? It says here in the wiki article "Emoto claims this can be achieved through prayer, music or by attaching WRITTEN WORDS to a container of water." Why have 1900 people focus positive thoughts to a roomful of bottled water? For THREE DAYS. When you can simply paste typewritten letters on the jars of water and freeze them? Wouldn't it be better to eliminate human factors inasmuch as possible, knowing the fallacy/inconsistency of human focus? Three days? I mean... I'm surprised Emoto accepted the conditions of the test. -MB —Preceding unsigned comment added by 218.186.8.242 (talk) 16:20, 1 August 2010 (UTC)
 * That's not a big hole. It's exactly one of the conditions that Emoto claims change water. Where is "the hole"? (Besides in Emoto's pseudoscience, that is). 201.231.81.53 (talk) 03:37, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Additionally, playing soothing/rock music to the water does the trick too. -MB (not to be confused with Michael W Baush) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 218.186.8.242 (talk) 16:23, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Randi is not an expert in so many things. To regard him as a generic expert in all things scientific is ridiculous. He's essentially a negative person who apparently wants science to halt in its tracks. It is foolish, I think, to site him at all. 108.202.113.201 (talk) 23:06, 10 April 2012 (UTC)


 * I tend to agree that Randi overinflates his claims, and that he's really no expert. His controversies have cost him memberships in several skeptical organizations. He would rather reduce everything he disagrees with to the absurd than to actually investigate rationally. His idea of "scientific rigor" is to stack the cards against those he "investigates" and instead promotes hatred and the irrational sort of skepticism which has caused science to lose ground in areas of study relating to human development, psychology, sociology, quantum physics, and other areas of scientific interest which may in fact help us to understand the truth about ourselves. This failed magician now makes a living by aggressively promoting ad-hominem attacks as science. 71.213.45.164 (talk) 12:31, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Removal of Own Content
I added a comment here that turned out to be pointless, and so removed it. Sorry for any inconvenience. &mdash; Eric Herboso 00:16, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Removal of Undergraduate Comments
I removed the self-referencing comments of an undergraduate student at a minor university. Other work and texts from peer reviewed scientists and individuals with advanced degrees already covered the points made within the block of text. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.119.223.76 (talk) 02:33, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Radin articles
There is a more recent article from Dean Radin, repeating the same experiment:. Both have fairly obvious flaws BTW: the first does not randomize the bottles at all (treated bottles were labeled A and B, control bottles C and D), which might have caused a number of artifacts from photographer fatigue to unconscious guessing. Even if there would have been randomization, the same artifacts could still arise by chance, due to the small number of bottles; the statistical analysis assumes all 40 crystals to be independent experiments, which makes no sense given that there were only 4 bottles. As for the more recent experiment (which does randomize bottles, though there are still too few of them), it is actually a failure, as it can be seen on Figure 4: the untreated bottles were found more aesthetic than the treated ones, and the evaluation criteria are then manipulated to hide this. (Also, bias is introduced by using several types of image evaluation criteria and then hand-selecting which ones to analyze.) I'm not sure what is Wikipedia's policy about flawed results where there are no reliable sources saying they are flawed, but at any rate, they shouldn't be given much weight in the article. --Tgr (talk) 12:22, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Dean Radin comments this article here: http://deanradin.blogspot.com/2010/06/maybe-check-is-in-mail.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.226.203.42 (talk) 16:45, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Upgraded Spanish version
I have upgraded the spanish version stuying all the Emoto-Radin articles. Now spanish version is a lot more documented that english version (rare). I think some conclusions could find its way into the english page because they are new material only published here in wikipedia. I am also open to peer-review of findings and conclusions to enrich them more. It will help understand Emoto quakery. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.22.149.104 (talk) 11:47, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

"Peer-reviewed"
I removed the words "the peer-reviewed" from in front of the reference to Explore: The Journal of Science and Healing.. Investigation of [ the website] (and other places) gave no indication of it having peer-reviewed status. As this status has a significant impact on the perceived credibility of the journal, it was inappropriate to identify the journal as such. However if someone can confirm the peer-reviewed status of this journal then by all means reinstate the description. Manning (talk) 01:41, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
 * A google check gives several relevant references including this: Author guidelines "The author should specify a category designation for the manuscript (original research, review article, brief report, hypothesis, case report, research letter, letter to the editor). (---) Original research (---) They are subject to blinded peer review; that is,authors and reviewers are not identified by name during the review process. (---) Brief Reports are subject to blinded peer-review in the same manner as original research manuscripts. (---) Review articles undergo the peer review process"
 * The Explore article mentioned here, [ "Double-Blind Test of the Effects of Distant Intention on Water Crystal Formation"] must be what the paper consider as original research, therefore subject to peer review. Hepcat65 (talk) 06:31, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, there's "peer reviewed" and there's "peer reviewed", i'm not sure where the wiki policy stands on this issue. I would have thought you couldn't use the journal's own claims to prove they are peer reviewed. I can print anything and call it "peer reviewed" but it's not going to actually mean anything. Their editorial mission reads like a who's who of pseudoscientific nonsense: Ayurveda, Homeopathy, Touch therapy, Spiritual Transpersonal healing (haven't even heard of that one before), and prayer. Unless a more credible source can acknowledge this journal's status as "peer reviewed" I do not believe their own publicity is enough to substantiate this claim. Vespine (talk) 04:55, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * here is a link which shows that the journal is in fact "peer reviewed" however its impact score is extremely low. The eigen factor of the top thousand journals listed on that site is above 0.01, Explore's score is 0.00045 . Out of about seven and a half thousand journals listed in 2008, Explore is one of only nine listed in the category of "INTEGRATIVE & COMPLEMENTARY MEDICINE" and amongst those it ranks sixth, out of all of them it ranks 6249th. So while it is "peer reviewed" it's not exactly what you'd call high impact. Trying to explain this in the article is impractical, therefore I think it is more appropriate NOT to include the words "peer reviewed" in the article. Vespine (talk) 00:39, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Or we call it the low impact integrative and complementary medicine peer reviewed journal: Explore... with this as the source. Vespine (talk) 00:43, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I have made the edit and removed "peer reviewed". As the "Journal of Scientific Exploration" is also peer reviewed but doesn't explicitly state that fact either. I don't think it's necessary to include the term in either case especially as these journals impact factor is very low. Vespine (talk) 04:10, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

NPOV
This article's bias has switched from unnecessarily biased in favor of Emoto's work to unnecessarily biased against it. Requested NPOV review, and am in agreement that it is an embarrassment to Wikipedia. Perhaps we should not mistake the person for their theories (as this is called "ad-hominem" and is far from neutral, violates critical thinking and good logic, and violates best practices within Wikipedia). Triple-blind tests should not be included on Emoto's bio page, especially if he was not personally involved. 71.213.45.164 (talk) 12:09, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
 * If the article is to cover Emoto's work, then it should cover all aspects that have been reported by reliable sources, including both his positive double-blind result and the triple-blind trials with negative results. I've cut the Kristopher Setchfield source as it seems to be self-published (the given source is a website ending with Setchfield's observation that "keeping this paper online for over five years has been a considerable expense", suggesting it was never published; I certainly can't find it in any journal), and we could use a specific source for the James Randi claim, but apart from that the article seems balanced. I don't see any personal ad hominem attacks against Emoto, simply refutations of his work and criticism of his methodology. --McGeddon (talk) 11:35, 27 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Actually, I've cut the Randi line for now ("In 2003, James Randi publicly offered Emoto one million dollars if his results can be reproduced in a double-blind study.") - per WP:BLP we shouldn't be implying anything about a living person (specifically that Randi deemed Emoto worthy of a specific, public offer, rather than it just being the standing JREF prize) if we don't have a source. --McGeddon (talk) 11:45, 27 March 2013 (UTC)