Aesthetic appeal of ice crystals

[chaggle]

Anyone come across this before? Any opinions?

http://www.victorzammit.com/week6sixsix/

DOUBLE-BLIND TEST OF THE EFFECTS OF DISTANT INTENTION ON WATER CRYSTAL FORMATION The hypothesis that water “treated” with intention can affect ice crystals formed from that water was pilot tested under double-blind conditions. A group of approximately 2,000 people in Tokyo focused positive intentions towards water samples located inside an electromagnetically shielded room in California. That group was unaware of similar water samples set aside in a different location as controls. Ice crystals formed from both sets of water samples were blindly identified and photographed by an analyst, and the resulting images were blindly assessed for aesthetic appeal by 100 independent judges. Results indicated that crystals from the treated water were given higher scores for aesthetic appeal than those from the control water (p = 0.001, one-tailed), lending support to the hypothesis.
Citation: Radin, D. I., Hayssen, G., Emoto, M., & Kizu, T. (2006). Explore, September/October 2006, Vol. 2, No. 5.

[Croydon Bob]

Anyone come across this before? Any opinions?

I don't know about that specific story but Victor Zammit is a well known raving nutter. He has an obsession with James Randi and has told lies about him. He also likes to mock Randi's name! Pot/kettle, etc.

Anything on his website is likely to be as bogus as the BCA.

[chaggle]

I don't know about that specific story but Victor Zammit is a well known raving nutter. He has an obsession with James Randi and has told lies about him. He also likes to mock Randi's name! Pot/kettle, etc.

Anything on his website is likely to be as bogus as the BCA.

I agree. I was directed there by a conversation I am having on the spiritlove forum. It just looks like a proper trial. I guess it's just bonkers lies. But if anyone knows better....

[Mojo]

I don't know about that specific story but Victor Zammit is a well known raving nutter.

The article features Radin and Emoto as authors! I don't recognise the other names.

[Mojo]

http://www.victorzammit.com/week6sixsix/

The practice of law gave me a powerful advantage in assessing afterlife evidence, teaching me what evidence would be ‘admissible’ in proving the afterlife.

yeah, right, because the legal rules on admissibility of evidence in court are so relevant to the outside world.

[Matt]

For the lulz

http://www.aaskolnick.com/dammit/

[FarSideOfTheMoon]

I'm sure I've read a debunking of this intention ice nonsense before. Ages and ages ago, but have vague recollections that experimental error can make it a very convincing effect.

[skbuncks]

Gokul43201
Oct19-06, 06:37 PM

Doesn't this experiment merely "prove" that the positive thoughts of the 2000 people affected the judgements of the 100 judges? Were the judges wearing tin-foil hats?

http://www.physicsforums.com/archive.../t-139004.html

skb

[Mulder]

... resulting images were blindly assessed for aesthetic appeal by 100 independent judges. Results indicated that crystals from the treated water were given higher scores for aesthetic appeal than those from the control water (p = 0.001, one-tailed), lending support to the hypothesis.

I'm afraid I have little faith in any experiment that uses judges, blind or otherwise, to assess aesthetic appeal. If they'd used a mathematical formula instead, it might have been more impressive. I predict that if a group of skeptics repeated the same test, the result would be insignificant.

[Trinoc]

The ice crystals with the good intentions focussed on them were all in one freezer cabinet and the controls were all in another freezer cabinet ... Oh dear!

So, one cabinet accidentally produces prettier ice crystals than the other ... 50% chance of success ... and of course if it had been the other 50% then the results would have claimed that the good intentions made the crystals less pretty. Can't lose!

[Mulder]

Ice crystal formation is essentially chaotic, unpredictable and highly dependent on initial conditions. Thus the crystals in any given formation would tend to resemble each other and differ from those in another separate formation with different initial conditions.

If I was doing this test, I would use thousands of fridges and take a single sample of a few crystals from each. Budget? What budget?