Seven Soldiers: Frankenstein #3 and Pseudoscience
Generally, I ignore Grant Morrison’s more eccentric declarations and ideas. Every once in a while though, there is a statement that I simply cannot ignore and must address. Seven Soldiers: Frankenstein #3 contains such a statement.
It would be understandable if you thought Dr. Emoto was a creation of Morrison’s. His name does have that comic book ring to it. However, Dr. Masuru Emoto is a very real person (or at least Emoto is real, the “doctor” part is the subject of some controversy*).
Emoto claims that when positive or negative thoughts are directed at a sample of water, and that sample is then frozen and thawed, the resulting ice crystals differ on whether the thoughts focused on the water were good or bad. Positive thoughts result in beautiful ice crystals, while negative thoughts result in ugly misshapen ones. Emoto has even gone so far as to claim that positive or negative words taped to the water container can have the same effect.
Sadly, there’s not one iota of science supporting his claims. It’s all sloppy pseudoscience and wishful thinking. His results are nonsense for several reasons, but let me focus on the two main ones.
1. Science is independently reproducible. Given the same equipment and training, anyone should be able to reproduce experiments and gain the same results. In legitimate science, this happens. When it doesn’t, we become very suspicious — to say the least. No other independant researcher has been able to reproduce Emoto’s results.
Before you believe any research touted on the news or internet, wait and see if the results can be legitimately reproduced by other researchers. If they can’t, don’t bother wasting your time on the claims.
(This replies to all science: if it’s not reproducible by others, it’s likely that something fishy is going on. Consider cold fusion that we all heard so much about a few years ago but that has now been relegated to “might-have-beens.” Or more recently the Korean cloning scandal. Neither of these experiments were reproducible and both ultimately were shown to be false in large part).
2. Science experiments are designed to eliminate — or at the very least minimize — bias. Emoto’s experiments don’t avoid bias, instead they welcome it. His studies are not randomized and not blinded. He knows before looking at crystals which sample he is looking at and whether it is positive or negative; he knows what results he wants to find. Consciously or unconsciously this leads to a selection bias.
Personally, I wonder about positive and negative words. It seems to me that the same words can have different connotations depending upon the situation and the observer. For example, what if I taped the name “Osama bin Laden” to a glass of water? To me and most Americans, that would be a strongly negative word. To certain Muslims though, his name is regarded postively. So which crystals would form, beautiful or ugly? Same goes for “Tom Delay,” “Abortion,” or “Reaganomics” — who’s to say which are positive or negative? Even emotions are not so clear cut. What if I taped the word “love” to a glass of water? Certainly love can be a beautiful thing, and it usually is. But what about the love of an alcoholic for his liquor, or the love that causes an abused spouse to return to their abuser, or a misguided love that leads to murder. Love is not always good (nor hate always bad).
More Information:
- The Wikipedia article on Masura Emoto
- Randi on Masura Emoto’s Experiments (second story down).
- Images of the Emoto’s Water Crystals ( warning – this site features very suspect medical advice — but pretty picturesof crystals ).
*Emoto earned his degreee from the Open International University for Alternative Medicine whose doctorate program requires one year, five “papers”, and $350.
May 11th, 2006 at 1:51 am
And here was me expecting you to mention that liquids aren’t crystals.
May 11th, 2006 at 9:00 am
Perhaps the fact that Grant used it in a comic featuring a re-animated, century-plus old dead man who the issue before had been to Mars . . . indicates he thinks it’s bogus as well?
Nice tweak on the relativism inherent in labeling water “Tom DeLay.” See also, recent Mythbusters episode with plants and “good music” and “bad music”: some plants got classical, some got Metallica. What if some plants just like to rock more?
May 11th, 2006 at 1:37 pm
“This replies to all science: if it’s not reproducible by others, it’s likely that something fishy is going on.”
I think you mean *applies*. Anyway, it should be noted that there are sciences where we can’t really set up reproducible experiments, but observations may nevertheless be valid – specifically sciences like astronomy, geology, paleontology, etc. One person’s observation of a meteorite falling to Earth isn’t invalid just because the experience isn’t reproducible by every other person that stands in the same spot at the same time of night; nor is a new fossil find invalid unless and until someone else finds a similar fossil in the same stratum (although that would be welcome confirmation and one should always be on the lookout for fakes ala Piltdown Man). In some observational sciences, we just have to satisfy ourselves with the ‘experiments’ that nature sets up for us, and don’t have the luxury of controlling the independent conditions.
Which doesn’t apply to crystalline formation in ice, naturally.
May 11th, 2006 at 1:58 pm
There’s also the implicit claim that the water must ’speak’ English, as opposed to some other language. What is the consequence of a word that exists in more than one language, but means different things in each? For that matter, how does the water react to a homonym?
And how about when the word is a number? Does the water act differently when labelled with a perceived ‘good’ number (”lucky seven”) as opposed to a ‘bad’ number (”unlucky thirteen”)?
May 11th, 2006 at 3:31 pm
Remember, this comes from the writer who once asked his readers to masturbate so his series wouldn’t be cancelled –Morrison is not exactly the poster boy for scientific accurancy.
May 11th, 2006 at 3:34 pm
Scott approaches it like a scientist.
Loren approaches it like a lawyer.
So the question remains, it is science or faith-based when it is observable from and/or for a large distance of time and space but not repeatable or reproducible?
We view paleontology, geology, and archaelogy from the present date and recording data and theorize, summarize, and notarize stuff about the past from items collected and analyzed in the present day. Doesn’t involve faith in something unseen?
and Dr. Emoto was a quack. But in a science fiction fantasy universe filled with mystics, magicians, and psychics, I’d bet Dr Emoto was the DC Universe equevalent of Dark Phoenix.
May 11th, 2006 at 3:37 pm
All of which brings to mind what sort of nutcake Cyclops has been married to. If you ain’t the Phoenix, and the Phoenix killed billions, and you can only read minds and levitate crap…. why dress up as a psychotic cosmic genocidal lunatic? Or take that name? Or wear her colors?
====
If Dr. Emoto was working with Bizarro while experimenting or if he switched to the Mirror Universe, what would happen?
May 11th, 2006 at 4:03 pm
I cringed when I saw Emoto mentioned in that issue, especially since I’d recently seen the dreck that is “What the Bleep Do We Know?” I haven’t been able to decide, however, if this constitutes a more egregious use of popular myth and pseudoscience than Morrison’s “million monkeys” in “World War III.” You’d think someone tied to the Red like Animal Man would know that all chimps *don’t* learn something once a million have.
May 11th, 2006 at 8:43 pm
Is it bad that I read all this and now I’m wondering if I can spare $350?
May 11th, 2006 at 10:18 pm
“So the question remains, it is science or faith-based when it is observable from and/or for a large distance of time and space but not repeatable or reproducible?”
It’s science if it’s independently verifiable. Also astronomy, paleontology, evolutionary biology, archaeology, & sociology can exploit ‘natural experiments’ where even if we can’t control or recreate the conditions of an event we can compare the outcomes of similar events in a variety of situation.
—
“All of which brings to mind what sort of nutcake Cyclops has been married to. If you ain’t the Phoenix, and the Phoenix killed billions, and you can only read minds and levitate crap…. why dress up as a psychotic cosmic genocidal lunatic? Or take that name? Or wear her colors?”
Can’t you people just give it a rest already!! Just once you accidentall;y incinerate one lousy planet, while temporarily insane and fleeing blindly across the galaxy mind you and because it happens to be inhabited, all of a sudden you’re another Galactus. Like the Shi’ar haven’t killed way more than that. Repeat after me, ‘It was just one planet’. Say it! Don’t make me turn you into crystal.
May 12th, 2006 at 1:17 pm
Chris Arndt writes: “We view paleontology, geology, and archaelogy from the present date and recording data and theorize, summarize, and notarize stuff about the past from items collected and analyzed in the present day. Doesn’t involve faith in something unseen?”
Not really, because from the observed evidence we can make predictions about future observations of similar kind *or of different kinds*. ie, if our hypothesis about the observation is correct, we would expect to see x, y, and z. If our hypothesis is incorrect, we might expect to see a, b, and c.
For instance, if they hypothesis is continental drift based on continental boundary shapes fitting like a puzzle, one isn’t limited to seeking a second observation of a megacontinent breaking up. Other subsequent observations can confirm the hypothesis, such as evidence of mid-ocean subduction or spread which would provide a mechanism for continental drift.
May 25th, 2006 at 11:57 am
Well, presumably that way we can find out which political party water belongs to. Should each molecule get a separate vote, do you think?
May 25th, 2006 at 6:38 pm
So, what happens if you tape on words like “fire”, or “drought?” :-)
More seriously, I smell a definite whiff of “psychic influence” behind the supposed pan-animism.
June 1st, 2006 at 4:02 am
As most people surely have, I discovered Emoto’s work via the movie, What the bleep do we know?
Cause I have very little else to do and my brain can always use some excercise, I’m writing a little about what I thought it was about, here we cut right to the chase.
The subject (observer) is irremovable from the object (observation). Plato espouted this a long time ago, its pretty elementary stuff.
As the subject predicates the object, the object is subject to the predications of the subject. Thats where the controversy starts, since science becomes a conglomeration of subjective POVs predicating objective measurement, how the BLEEP could you measure this phenomenom objectively?! (or anything, for that matter)
So science and mysticism split inexorably once again, suprise suprise.
Dr. Emoto ought to publish more information about his process, but that might have an impact on his book sales.
Perhaps the experiment would be reproduceable if thoughts and intentions were reproduceable, and measureably so.
June 22nd, 2006 at 8:46 pm
It is a comic book, get off your soapbox. Next thing you know you will tell us that the cosmic radiation around the Earth will not turn us into the Fantastic Four.
June 22nd, 2006 at 10:18 pm
Official Comment
The difference is that Stan Lee never claimed he was doing real science while Emoto does.
Leave a Reply
Contact Me
About
Subscribe:
The Best Of...
Special Topics
Archives
Categories
Twitter
Comic Blogs
Medical/Science Blogs
Currently Reading
Arbitrarily Interesting Medical Condition
Syndrome
The Net:
Contents may have settled during shipping. Past results are no guarantee of future performance. No animals were harmed during the production of this product. Void where prohibited by law. All rights reserved. Not valid with other offers or specials. Professional driver on a closed track. Your financial institution may impose other fees. All models are over 18 years of age. Employees must wash hands before returning to work. Results not typical. Many suitcases look alike. 18% gratuity added to tables of six or more.
Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball.
© 2004-2010 Polite Dissent. Powered by WordPress