Possible Effect of Human-Experimenter on Homeopathic-Like Aqueous Preparations

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Please explain all abbreviations in Tables 1, 2, and 3, including names of homeopathic preparations.  Tables should convey their information in a stand-alone manner.  

The English grammar used is generally very good, but this paper could use a native English speaker to finalize it.  

Author Response

We are grateful to the reviewer for an attentive reading the manuscript and appreciating our work. In the new version, all tables contain the complete names of all homeopathic remedies. In addition, the new version of the text was finalized by an English native speaker.

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper is devoted to analysis of optical properties of water treated by non-chemical methods. This work is performed on a high scientific level, by using modern technological equipment. Results are processed by statistical methods. The methodology with “open” and “hidden” control is of interest and enables investigating a number of hypotheses related to influence of human experimenter on results. There are two major issues and several minor comments.

 

Major issues:

1. It is unclear why authors decided to publish negative results? This is methodologically unusual approach that requires multiple inverse-formulated hypotheses and generally should have a good motivation (since negative results can be simply explained by poorly performed experiments).

I failed to find such hypotheses in this work, authors in the Sec. 2 express only a positive-formulated hypothesis about “control-experiment” differences. For instance, the paper in the present form does not answer the question about reasons of negative results: unproper sample size, poor experimentation, wrong solutions, inappropriate measurement methods? Without such multiply tested hypotheses, the obtained negative results do not possess any significance for scientific community.

 

2. Analyzing tables 1 and 2, we see a number of differences between experiment and control (both K and hc). It is unclear, why authors decided to ignore them in their conclusions in Sec 4 and 5?

Authors express: "There is no noticeable repeatability of differences with the controls for homeopathic-like preparations from one experiment to another one in this spectral diapason” and then conclude “Therefore, there is no specificity of spectral characteristics for homeopathic-like preparation of certain substance.” After it authors generalize:

“Therefore an application of quantum mechanics approach to these phenomena can be justified. In quantum mechanics, the so-called “observer effect” (see, for example [18]) is well known. According to it the human-experimenter working with the studied solutions using a spectrometer may render his own impact to the quantum state of these aqueous preparations when he knows (expects) the measured sample type”.  

It seems that in trying to explain unclear “unspecific spectral characteristics”, authors involved even less understood “quantum observer”. Why something unclear is “justified” by something unknown?

 

Minor comments:

1. I would suggest essentially reducing Sec. 4 and 5. If Sec. 1-3 are readable and of interest, two last sections represent an interpretation attempt (to some extend also misleading with analogies from quantum mechanics).

2. The sec. 3.4 requires more detailed explanation. Generally, a reader would not understand the importance of specific spectral characteristics. Moreover, even the question whether nonchemically treated solutions should possess a spectral specificity is open. I would consider this question as the second central focus for this paper.

3. It is reasonable to increase the sample size and to limit the selection of experimental solutions only to 2-3 most promising ones (based on preliminary tests).

4. Most sentences like “Furthermore, it is not evident in what part the results and conclusions obtained for homeopathic-like preparations may be expanded to traditional homeopathic medicines” would make sense to reformulate in positive-style, otherwise they create impression that authors doubt in their own results.

5. Example of misleading formulations: "... the frequency of occurrence of significant spectral differences between homeopathic-like preparations and hidden “hc” / apparent “K” controls was found.
As one could see above, the specificity of the revealed spectral differences in homeopathic-like preparations by parent substances is imperceptible."

What are the authors trying to tell the reader with these two mutually exclusive sentences?

 

General comments:

This work is definitely of interest; however, it is too misleading and not readable in the present form. I would encourage authors to reformulate this paper in more classical positive-result style with two focuses: 1) consequences of “open” and “hidden” control; 2) spectral specificity of nonchemically treated solutions. It would make sense to focus more on experimental evidences and to remove most of misleading “quantum/placebo/coherent domains” explanations in Sec. 4, 5 and to resubmit this paper.

 

Author Response

We agree with all comments of the reviewer. Unfortunately, the main author of this manuscript, Doctor Vladimir Korenbaum, died after a long and serious illness. Despite the fact that this manuscript has 7 co-authors, the text of the manuscript was completely written by one person - V.I. Korenbaum. In accordance with general opinion of the team of authors, I (NB) decided to rewrite the manuscript taking into account the comments of all reviewers. In fact, this was a rather difficult task. Indeed, if I had written this text myself, I would probably have written it differently, but when rewriting, it was important for me to preserve the unique style of presenting information that was characteristic of V. Korenbaum. I would also like to fully preserve his original paradigm: when studying the effect of homeopathic medicines, it is necessary to take into account the role of a person - an experimenter who prepares and studies these medicines. Perhaps this point of view looks controversial, but the team of authors would like this message of V. Korenbaum to be preserved in a new version. Of course, speculations about the analogy between quantum mechanics / placebo / coherent domains have been removed from the latest issue. We agree with the reviewer: there is no need to try to explain the incomprehensible by the inexplicable. In our opinion, the new version of the manuscript is more understandable for the reader. In addition, the text was significantly reduced by removing some philosophical reasoning. We have also removed subjunctive sentences and mutually exclusive statements from the new version. We would like to emphasize once again: we completely agree with the comments of the reviewer, but we would not want to change essentially the original author's text for ethical reasons: V. Korenbaum was our friend and colleague.

In what follows we give the list of specific corrections / responds to the referee’s criticism.

1. Sections 4 and 5 have been rewritten / reduced.
2. The text of Section 3.4. devoted to the frequency of occurrence of significant spectral differences between homeopathic remedies and hidden / visible controls was slightly changed. We emphasized the basic message of this section: the incidence of statistically significant differences between the blind homeopathic remedies and the visible control "K" is significantly higher than the incidence of statistically significant differences between the blind homeopathic remedies and the hidden control "hc". This indicates a certain role of the human experimenter in the formulation of the results of homeopathic research. Actually, this is precisely the meaning of our work. We understand that this is a rather controversial issue, but this is precisely the point of view of V. Korenbaum.
3. We agree with the reviewer’s opinion that the size of sampling needs to be increased. At the same time, for that it is necessary to repeat all the experiments. When we started this work, we did not know the optimal sampling size. Apparently, after the death of V. Korenbaum, any new experiments, the results of which could be included in a new version of the manuscript, will not be carried out.
4. We agree with the referee’s comment that subjunctive phrases mutually exclusive sentences should be removed from the text. It was done.

 

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Colleagues,

I regret the death of Vladimir and well understand his point of view. The co-authors have tried to maintain the style and main idea of this work, while improving its quality. The article in this edition has become much more readable and understandable for a wide audience. I recommend this work for publication in the present form.