User talk:Dreadstar/Bleep/Archive


 * This material from the article needs sources and must meet WP:RS WP:V WP:NPOV and WP:NOR


 * This is not an all-inclusive list of material from the article that needs to be properly sourced or removed.

Statements about quantum physics
Essential aspects of quantum mechanics are bypassed in the movie. However, few of the scientists involved are actually professional physicists doing research in quantum mechanics, and one of those that does do such research, David Albert, has complained that his views were deliberately misrepresented.

The movie also fails to explain precisely how the theory of quantum mechanics actually proves any of the mystical or religious teachings found in the film. Statements from physicists are made which are then intercut with statements from medical doctors, people who have created their own religion, and others. No logical argument connecting the findings of quantum mechanics with the movie's core message is offered.

Most of the film's appeals to quantum mechanics are wildly inconsistent with what physicists have discovered from quantum mechanics. The idea that the measurement (observing capacities) of conscious observers creates reality is implied to be a widely held position in the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics. However, the movie's interpretation of this position is far from what most physicists actually believe.

Some of the film's experts, particularly Amit Goswami, repeatedly refer to the process of measurement and observation in quantum mechanics and speculate about the relation between consciousness and the material world. They claim, for example, that human beings have the capability to create their own reality; Dr. Miceal Ledwith even asserts that human beings have the capability of walking on water. Evidence is not offered.

In contrast, physicists do not believe this ability to freely choose the future to be true in anything other than a metaphorical sense. The facts of measurement and observation are far more prosaic. Specifically, if a system is in a state described by a wave function, the measurement process affects the state in a non-deterministic, but statistically predictable way. In particular, after a measurement is applied, the state description by a single wave function may be destroyed, being replaced by a statistical ensemble of wave functions. The nature of measurement operations in quantum physics can be described using various mathematical formalisms such as the relative state formulation or its equivalent form the many-worlds interpretation. Noted physicists such as David Deutsch do take this interpretation quite literally.

Physicist Heinz Pagels, in The Cosmic Code, writes: "Some recent popularizers of Bell's work when confronted with Bell's inequality have gone on to claim that telepathy is verified or the mystical notion that all parts of the universe are instantaneously interconnected is vindicated. Others assert that this implies communication faster than the speed of light. That is rubbish; the quantum theory and Bell's inequality imply nothing of this kind. Individuals who make such claims have substituted a wish-fulfilling fantasy for understanding. If we closely examine Bell's experiment we will see a bit of sleight of hand by the God that plays dice which rules out actual nonlocal influences. Just as we think we have captured a really weird beast &mdash; like acausal influences &mdash; it slips out of our grasp. The slippery property of quantum reality is again manifested."

Lead section

 * In the first paragraph:
 * What the Bleep Do We Know!?  (also written What tнe⃗ #$*! D⃗ө ωΣ (k)πow!? and What the #$*! Do We (K)now!?) is a controversial 2004 film that combines documentary interviews and a fictional narrative to posit a connection between science and spirituality based upon the Ramtha's School of Enlightenment of JZ Knight/Ramtha, of whom the three directors are devotees.


 * The source does not seem to support the claim being made. Please read through the Salon.com article and find the statement that clearly says that the film was based upon the Ramtha's School of Enlightenment"  If it's there, I missed it.


 * ''In the second paragraph:
 * The film has received widespread criticism from the scientific community. Physicists, in particular, say that the film misrepresents the meaning of various principles of quantum mechanics and is pseudoscience.


 * We need to source:
 * 1) "widespread criticism from the scientific community." - There is no current reference
 * 2) Physicists, in particular, say that the film misrepresents the meaning of various principles of quantum mechanics and is pseudoscience. Current ref is a letter to the editor, which is no RS, and to include the "pseudoscience" label in the lead, it needs to be shown to be a 'notable controversy' per WP:LEAD.

Factual errors section

 * For these corrections to be included, we need to find a source who had made these corrections in relation to the film i.e. a film review that said what this section is saying.
 * None of the sources included below contain the information required per the above, new and proper sources need to be found for each claim. 

Factual errors

 * At the beginning of the movie, it is stated that humans only use 10% of their brains. This is incorrect: while the majority of the brain may not be active at any one moment, all of it is essential for normal function.
 * The movie states humans are "90% water" when in fact newborns have around 78% body water, 1-year-olds around 65%, adult men about 60%, and adult women around 55%.


 * The movie also relates a story about Native Americans being unable to see Christopher Columbus' ships. However, there is no mention of this in any of the journals of those voyages, and the oral traditions of the local population were lost in the following 150 years of Spanish rule. The story in the film may be a garbled and mis-interpreted version of an incident described in Carl Sagan's Cosmos.  Episode XIII describes an oral retelling of how the Tlingit encountered the La Pérouse expedition in the 1780s.  The Tlingit were afraid to look directly at the ships at first, because they imagined that the ship and its sails were manifestations of Raven, who might turn them to stone.  One of their party was an old man who was nearly blind, who decided to take a canoe in closer, and eventually understood the vessels and their crew for what they were.


 * The animated sequence showing electrical signals moving directly across a synaptic cleft is not entirely incorrect but may be misleading. Signals are carried between neurons chemically via neurotransmitters; signals are propagated electrically only within individual neurons and via gap junctions.


 * It is also claimed in the movie that 20 amino acids are created in the human body. However, only 12 can be synthesized by humans; the remaining 8 amino acids are essential and must be acquired through food consumption or dietary supplementation.

Controversial studies

 * The following two sections need to be sourced as well, as with the above sections. None of the references in the section relate to the movie.
 * The hado.net source does not back up the claim it is used for, however if this related link shown to be a WP:RS, it can be used as reference for the Bleep Article.: http://web.archive.org/web/20050312064739/http://www.hado.net/

Transcendental Meditation study
As described in the film, the study involved using 4,000 people in June and July of 1993 to practice the Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi programs to attempt to reduce violent crime in Washington, D.C. (which has one of the highest per-capita homicide rates in the United States). By counting the number of homicides, rapes, and assaults (HRA), the study came to the conclusion that group practice of the TM-Sidhi program reduced the violent crime rate, HRA, by 23%. Based on the numbers reported in the study, the HRA crime rate was about 30% higher in 1993 than the average crime rate between 1988–1992. The HRA crime rate showed a decline around the middle of the two month period where the TM-Sidhi program was practiced and remained relatively low (by 1993 standards) for several months afterward, though the decline was small enough that the reduced HRA crime rate was still about 10–15% higher than average at that time of year.

The results of the TM-Sidhi study were first reported in 1994 by the Institute of Science, Technology and Public Policy, part of the Maharishi University of Management founded by Maharishi Mahesh. The study was published in 1999 in the peer-reviewed journal Social Indicators Research.

This experiment in meditation won John Hagelin the 1994 Ig Nobel Prize for Peace, an award for work "that cannot, or should not, be reproduced." (This award is also billed as being granted to work that "Makes people laugh, then makes them think")

Water crystals
Masaru Emoto's work (The Hidden Messages in Water) plays a prominent role in a scene set in a light-rail tunnel, where the main character happens upon a presentation of displays showing images of water crystals. In the movie, "before" and "after" photographs of water are presented as evidence that specific words written on pieces of paper and affixed to different containers of water have the power to transform the water into being able to freeze into beautiful crystalline shapes instead of ugly crystalline shapes.

Emoto's work is criticised for being more artistic than scientific. His doctoral certification is on alternative medicine from an unaccredited institution. His work has never been subjected to peer review, and he does not utilize double blind methodology. Emoto also claims that polluted water does not crystallize. Depending on the properties of the pollutant, heavily polluted water will still form crystals, though the crystals may contain more crystallographic defects than pure water would. These changes in the way the crystals form can be readily explained using basic chemistry and physics. James Randi has characterized Emoto's work as nonsense, pseudoscience and quackery.