Water’s great. It tastes good, it cleans my pits, it flushes away the more horrid of my excretions, and it can even cut steel. Is there anything water can’t do?

Of course there is. Water can’t vote in a general election. Water can’t reproduce. And water doesn’t have memory.

You would think that these things would be obvious, and yet one of the basic tenats of homeopathy is that water does indeed possess a memory. When we put a chemical in it and then shake it and dillute it until all that remains is pure water and a sore arm, the homeopaths believe that the water remembers the chemical nature of the chemical. This is silly. Water is shaken by the course it takes rolling down the mountains. It does not remember the deer poop it mixes with. Water is shaken by hurricanes, but does not remember the dust and the microbes it mixes with. So why would water remember the gypsy tears it is mixed with when they’ve been diluted to nothing?

But don’t take my word for it. Here’s a great article called Water and the Structure of Memory by Stephen Curry. He uses the model of the bodies natural antibody defence system to show how silly this notion is. Definitely worth the read.

Me, I’m glad water doesn’t remember. It gets plenty shaken up when I flush, and there are some things I don’t want my water to remember.

Jim