There are people who think that “positive” or “negative” words have a magic-like effect on natural processes.
From what I’ve seen, this was originally popularized in 2004 by Masaru Emoto’s book “The Hidden Messages in Water,” where part of his claims were that snowflakes would develop differently in containers labeled with negative or positive emotions.
Image
Naturally, this turned out to be a complete lie, but many people, such as those in the original post, still believe that words can somehow influence things like mold development on food.
Ah, yes! Of course, there’s that other half of the post - the “experiment” itself. What I said about words applies to the people involved, it’s not the mold in the jar who “believes” in the placebo, I completely skipped over that part.
For a laboratory scientific experiment to prove something, anything at all, it has to pass a threshold known as sigma-5, which means that the margin or odds of error must be less than one part in around 3 million. There has to be a laboratory certainty of 99.99994%
There are a million-plus-one ways that a supposed “controlled experiment” can go askew and wrong. In the case of the jars, my guess is that they packed the “unloved jar” more aggressively. That kitchen experiment is messier than a school lab, and a school lab doesn’t cut it even for a sigma-1 I would reckon.
ArchRecord@lemm.ee 3 months ago
There are people who think that “positive” or “negative” words have a magic-like effect on natural processes.
From what I’ve seen, this was originally popularized in 2004 by Masaru Emoto’s book “The Hidden Messages in Water,” where part of his claims were that snowflakes would develop differently in containers labeled with negative or positive emotions. Image
Naturally, this turned out to be a complete lie, but many people, such as those in the original post, still believe that words can somehow influence things like mold development on food.
gens@programming.dev 3 months ago
I watched a youtube video about it. It’s temperature that dictates how a snowflake looks. Simple as that.
LodeMike@lemmy.today 3 months ago
Thank you. The thing I was missing was the fact that the other one had mold.
niktemadur@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Ah, yes! Of course, there’s that other half of the post - the “experiment” itself. What I said about words applies to the people involved, it’s not the mold in the jar who “believes” in the placebo, I completely skipped over that part.
For a laboratory scientific experiment to prove something, anything at all, it has to pass a threshold known as sigma-5, which means that the margin or odds of error must be less than one part in around 3 million. There has to be a laboratory certainty of 99.99994%
There are a million-plus-one ways that a supposed “controlled experiment” can go askew and wrong. In the case of the jars, my guess is that they packed the “unloved jar” more aggressively. That kitchen experiment is messier than a school lab, and a school lab doesn’t cut it even for a sigma-1 I would reckon.