This is Science!

Careful what you say!

On Gwyneth Paltrow's blog, appropriately named goop, one finds the following insights into natural science:

I [Gwyneth Paltrow] am fascinated by the growing science behind the energy of consciousness and its effects on matter. I have long had Dr. [Masaru] Emoto's coffee table book on how negativity changes the structure of water, how the molecules behave differently depending on the words or music being expressed around it. Below, Dr. [Habib] Sadeghi explores further.

Said Dr. Sadeghi explains:

Japanese scientist, Masaru Emoto performed some of the most fascinating experiments on the effect that words have on energy in the 1990’s. When frozen, water that’s free from all impurities will form beautiful ice crystals that look exactly like snowflakes under a microscope. Water that’s polluted, or has additives like fluoride, will freeze without forming crystals. In his experiments, Emoto poured pure water into vials labeled with negative phrases like "I hate you" or "fear." After 24 hours, the water was frozen, and no longer crystallized under the microscope: It yielded gray, misshapen clumps instead of beautiful lace-like crystals. In contrast, Emoto placed labels that said things like "I Love You," or "Peace" on vials of polluted water, and after 24 hours, they produced gleaming, perfectly hexagonal crystals. Emoto’s experiments proved that energy generated by positive or negative words can actually change the physical structure of an object.

Getting all Emoto-nal

It's difficult to argue with such hard science experiments as that; so be careful what you say around the office water cooler. Molecules can not only be selfish (as is the case with genes) but can also grow depressed or elated depending on what they overhear or (in Emoto's case) read. Well, science marches on and all that.



Meanwhile, much anxiety is expressed over creationists, a group of people anxious that their beliefs should be accepted as Really Truly Science!™  None of the Taste-Makers in Late Modern Society would be caught dead associating with their ilk and will mock them as "science-deniers" (rather than more truthfully as "science wanna-bes"). They are about as dangerous as anyone outside the Iron Gates.

Folks like Paltrow, however, are already within the gates, and her occult beliefs are accepted at all the best salons and cocktail parties and will circulate through the minds of all the bien pensants along with the vague notion that it has all been "proven" by pukka "scientists."

But surely even liberal as well as conservative devotees of reason can join hands on this tripe. The Real World™, TOF regrets to inform, isn't actually like that.