Distinguishing Crazy from Sane in Science Is Often Difficult — Dr. Luc Montagnier and DNA “Water Memory”

08 January 2011

Luc Montagnier — why some of us are interested in what he does

Luc Montagnier’s latest science adventure has raised some eyebrows, and his life’s intellectual journey raises questions about how we rationally determine just where on the tiny bubble of knowledge to push in order to widen it.

Dr. Montagnier, now 78, is a well-known French virologist. His 2008 Nobel Prize in medicine (shared with two other recipients) came for isolating the HIV virus. He founded, and leads, the World Foundation for AIDS Research and Prevention.

Luc Montagnier’s ideas about “water memory” — Is the Nobel laureate around the bend or still of good mind?

Last month, Dr. Montagnier managed to get the attention of the two most prestigious general science publications, Nature and Science, for announcing two related projects, neither of which impresses the mainstream as being even slightly rational.

The first of these will occur in China, where he takes on the leadership of a new research institute associated with Jiaotong University in Shanghai.

Montagnier told Science:

The main topic will be this phenomenon of electromagnet waves produced by DNA in water. . . .

What we have found is that DNA produces structural changes in water, which persist at very high dilutions, and which lead to resonant electromagnetic signals that we can measure. Not all DNA produces signals that we can detect with our device. The high-intensity signals come from bacterial and viral DNA.

I have found these signals coming from bacterial DNA in the plasma of many patients with autism, and also in most, if not all, patients with Alzheimer, Parkinson’s disease, and multiple sclerosis.

It seems that the bacteria we are detecting are coming from the gut. So it is quite possible that products from gut bacteria end up in the plasma and cause damage to the brain.

Montagnier’s second project, directly regarding autism, will take place in France:

[T]he Nobel laureate is about to launch a small clinical trial of prolonged antibiotic treatment in children with autism disorders. The trial will also use techniques based on Montagnier's research into the notion that water can retain a 'memory' of long-vanished pathogens, and that DNA sequences produce water nanostructures that emit electromagnetic waves, published last year.

Montagnier thinks that the 'memory' structures in the water can resonate with low-frequency electromagnetic signals, which he hopes can be transmitted over the Internet. He claims that very dilute solutions of pathogen DNA also emit such signals, and he intends to use this as a sensitive 'biomarker' for chronic infection.

Yes, it gets even more question-provoking

When Science asked Montagnier about detecting signals from significantly diluted solutions of DNA, he replied:

We find that with DNA, we cannot work at the extremely high dilutions used in homeopathy; we cannot go further than a 10^-18 dilution, or we lose the signal.

But even at 10^-18, you can calculate that there is not a single molecule of DNA left. And yet we detect a signal.

This is (if true) indeed memory in water. The substance is gone, but the water holds a physical record of it having been there.

Montagnier’s purported findings would turn science on its head

There are a boatload of reasons to be skeptical of Montagnier’s claims. Let me name just two.

(1) Nobody has ever “seen” water remember anything. That’s why it’s a quintessential fluid at the temperatures Montagnier is studying.

To my mind, he seems to be implying that the nano-structures that he claims cause, or are results of, memory in water may be operating on a quantum scale.

Quantum mechanics are indeed bizarre. But no one yet (to my knowledge) has managed to successfully transfer quantum actions to a macroscopic scale for the incredibly long periods of time Montagnier implies exist.

(2) Why would pathogenic viral and bacterial DNA have electromagnetic qualities in water that other DNA lacks?

Isn’t that a bit too convenient?

My suspicion is that Montagnier’s ideas parallel the un-believability of cold fusion, which also involved water.

But we skeptics could be wrong

And that’s my point.

Science occasionally advances when a seemingly hair-brained idea, diligently pursued, turns out to be plausible or even correct.

It is often not possible to tell where to focus research in order to be probablistically successful in actually taking it to a definable conclusion.

Pushing the envelope of what we know outward

Exploration is, by definition, a journey unmapped and initially unmappable.

Science often has to push the wall of the knowledge balloon just to be pushing it. There are times when what we think we know holds us back.

Nutcase or courageous explorer? — No way to tell yet

The fact that Dr. Montagnier is 78 could explain either (a) his self-assured willingness to pursue anti-establishment ideas or (b) the alleged unclear thinking of which he is suspected.

Skepticism — a two-edged sword

Skepticism in science is warranted. However, it has a tendency to chain us to what is known.

Perhaps adventurous skepticism is a more productive approach. A willingness to seek and try, knowing that the probabilities are against us, in the hope that one of our explorations will actually open a door into something new.

Adventure, tempered by skepticism

Curiosity-based experimentation is adventurous skepticism in action.

May we both live long enough

I will be fascinated to see what Luc Montagnier turns up. I hope we both live long enough to see results.

Science is an eternal motivator of actuated human intelligence.

PeteFree.com

Distinguishing Crazy from Sane in Science Is Often Difficult — Dr. Luc Montagnier and DNA “Water Memory”