I am succussed and diluted


Jaques Benveniste. Note the white coat- he's a scientist.DigiBio added 7 April 1999
Jacques Benveniste used to tell us that water has a memory. Now he tells us that he can transmit the biological properties (or even the magical homeopathic qualities) of chemicals by email. He is, of course, being oppressed by the great French conspiracy to preserve the teachings of Descartes, as well as by the Newtonian/Einsteinian axis of conventional science. Dr Benveniste is one of the most honoured scientists of our time, having won an unprecedented TWO Ig Nobel awards and getting the 1998 Pigasus Award from James Randi. Now he is a Quintessence laureate, can canonisation be far away? (I was channelling the spirit of Rene Descartes the other day and I asked him about his intellectual descendent. Rene cogitated for a while and then said "nil cogitat ergo loon est".)

A supporter of Dr Benveniste wrote to me:

From: MBUTTERS00@aol.com
Date sent: Tue, 7 Sep 1999 11:39:57 EDT
Subject: digibio

I have always found it interesting that there continue to be those that scoff at the attempts of others who attempt to peel back the darkness, knowing full well that they may find nothing in it's illumination. This is certainly true in the case of Dr. Benveniste.

Dr. Benveniste may be on to something. I have visited his lab, replicated his high dilution experiments, and agree that something is occurring that does not fit the accepted clinical models of biophysics. The fact that they are not understood does not make them any less real! His high dilution experiments, and electromagnetic resonance theory is a possible explanation, but only time and research will confirm it.

Dr. Benveniste's high dilution experiments have been successfully replicated in several very reputable labs around the world, including Karollynska in Stockholm Sweden, possibly the most reputable biology lab in the world.

Remember, cutting edge science often creates controversy, especially with those that who's lifetimes have been spent pursuing an apposing theoretical track.

Mike Butters BioCom LLC

If you can replicate Dr Benveniste's findings, then you are definitely a candidate to collect the $1,000,000 on offer from James Randi. I suggest you quickly contact Mr Randi (his web site is at www.randi.org) and submit a claim as soon as possible, before any of the other people who have proved the possibility of electronically transferring water's memory get in and take the money. You will, of course, have to comply with all the rules of the challenge, but this should not be a problem as you have already performed the experiments successfully under what were presumably well-controlled conditions.

You have nothing to lose here and everything to gain. I, on the other hand, face not only embarrassment at being proved wrong but also financial loss because I have pledged a contribution towards the $1,000,000 prize.


Dr Benveniste then wrote to me himself:

Date sent: Wed, 29 Sep 1999 17:59:43 +0200 
From: jacques benveniste <jbenveniste@digibio.com>
Subject: Re: Mike Butters letter

This refers to Mike Butters' letter of Sept. 7

Mike Butters is perfectly right. Our experiments have been recently reproduced in a major American University and several labs in France. We should be launching momentarily the international replication by 10-15 other labs worldwide. However Mike should not state that the Karolinska has reproduced one of our previous technique. An attempt was made on a different biological system than ours and too many variables forced them to abandon the project. So, the name of this Institute must not be mentioned. Upon completion of the present replication job, a scientific report will be submitted to a major journal. I have no intention whatsoever to deal with people foreign to the normal scientific process. All participants sign an affidavit showing that they abide by the same rule. Thank you for posting my letter.

J. Benveniste, MD
Dr. Jacques Benveniste, Laboratoire de Biologie Numérique
Digital Biology Laboratory, 32, rue des Carnets, F-92140 Clamart

Non ragioniam di lor, ma guarda e passa. Dante, Divina Commedia, L'Inferno, III

Dr Benveniste,

Thank you for your comments and for the clarification of the situation with the Karolinska Institute. I understand your reticence to deal with James Randi because of your differences in the past, but I believe you are both seeking the truth even if you choose different paths to get there. I look forward to seeing the results of your research when it is published, While I am sceptical of your theories because of what I know of science, being sceptical implies being open to possibilities and not just knowing everything in advance.

As you said "Thank you for posting my letter", I assume you have no objection to my posting your letter and this reply to my web site. I believe that showing this correspondence will help visitors to the site to understand the issues better.


And Dr Benveniste wrote back:

Date sent: Wed, 06 Oct 1999 10:11:50 +0200
From: Jacques Benveniste <jbenveniste@digibio.com>
Subject: Re: Mike Butters letter

Dear Mr. Bowditch,

My turn to thank you for posting my letter. I welcome contacts with an "open sceptic", a brand that I hardly encountered up to now. I wish to discuss two points.

Indeed there were differences between Randi (plus the now vanished great inquisitor Stewart and the chief engineer Maddox) and me. But these differences were huge and furthermore they were not based on their part on genuine scientific analysis but on ideological prejudices. These people are raging a war against homeopathy and anything that would appear to support it must be shot to death without judgment. (Indeed nobody would dare to claim that the raid of the fraudbusters in my lab in 1988 has anything to do with a serious and dignified scientific evaluation process). But the core of the problem is this: a major scientific progress, the ability to record and transfer, later to modify, biological signals, has been delayed ten years by this unscientific attitude. At a time where no noticeable progress is emerging, after half a century of research and wasting zillions of dollars, in the management of major diseases affecting mankind, this will remain, I assure you, as a major blow to progress and an obscene perversion of the once ethical scientific evaluation system.

You state that you are sceptical of my theories. This I don't understand. "Scepticism" is a feeling, which does not belong to the realm of experimental research. The latter is based on a series of statistically significant set of data. If a result stands up, you must accept it, whether you like it or not, whether it fits in the current paradigm or not. Killing data because they are "hard to reconcile with what we know..." is the exact counterdefinition of scientific research, and the current prevalence of this fascistic behavior largely explain the standstill of fundamental research. In my case, there are no theories. I have done thousands of experiments and finally could record specific biological activities with a computer sound-card. These facts indicate that the biological signal is composed of frequency spectrum at least in the 20-20K Hz range. To this, the answer was: ha! ha! but again no scientific analysis of data.

I do not dislike guerillas, but only in love affairs. It has no place in science. This is why I follow the normal scientific process. If some want to join the club, fine. But I have no intention to perform tricks on stage.

Sincerely,

J. Benveniste, MD.


Email the
Copyright © 1998 - Peter Bowditch