Emoto's message from water?

Question

Dr. Emoto took pictures of water crystals in a dark field microscope that showed under different mental stimulae, positively implied stimulae produced more visually appealing crystals while negatively enforced water produced 'ugly' water crystals. He recieved a lot of criticism for not applying the double blind scientific method to his research. So I ask, what could possibly be altered if even the researchers didn't know the properties of the control from the experimental?

Answer 1

Nothing was altered - it was all in his mind.  He knew which ones he had made 'bad' and then looked for the conclusion he wanted.  Naturally, when the test was done without him knowing which bottle was which, he couldn't make the distinction.  It didn't actually work.  There's no reason it should have.

Answer 2

The most glaring deficiency is the response being measured, that is, "ugly" vs. "pretty" crystals. These are not scientific measurements and are very subjective. To make this more credible he would need to find a way to analytical measure a change in the crystals, perhaps via geometry, fractal number, etc.. That way the experiment could be repeated and hopefully confirmed by independent researchers using the same objective methods. This would also do away with the need for the double-blind study since the crystals are now being measured absolutely by a physical standard.

Answer 3

On this extremely rare occasion I agree with TR.

In the world of science one has to measure something which in this case would at the very least be defining how one is measuring beauty.

The double blind is simply the gold standard in medical and other types of scientific research. It is not always the best choice for every type of research.

Dr. Emoto's work while very interesting could easily be refined to address these criticisms and if he chooses not to do so he should at least explain his rational for not wanting to impose this additional control into the experiment.

I have included a link to his web page below.

Psi