Water memory is the purported ability of water to retain a memory of substances previously dissolved in it even after an arbitrary number of serial dilutions.
Ingatan air adalah kemampuan yang dianggap dimiliki oleh air sehingga mampu menyimpan rekaman atas bahan-bahan atau senyawa-senyawa kimia yang pernah terlarut di dalamnya bahkan setelah pengenceran berapa kalipun.
Water memory is pseudoscientific in nature; it contradicts the scientific understanding of physical chemistry and is generally not accepted by the scientific community.
Ingatan air berlawanan dengan pemahaman ilmiah atas kimia fisik dan pada umumnya tidak diterima oleh komunitas ilmiah.
In 1988, Jacques Benveniste and colleagues published a study supporting a water memory effect amid controversy in Nature, accompanied by an editorial by Nature's editor John Maddox urging readers to "suspend judgement" until the results could be replicated.
Pada 1988, Jazques Benveniste menerbitkan penelitian yang mendukung efek ingatan air dalam Nature—memicu kontroversi, ia didampingi oleh editor Nature John Maddox yang memberi tahu pembaca agar "menunda penghakiman" sebelum hasil penelitian direplikasi.
In the years after publication, multiple supervised experiments were made by Benveniste's team, the United States Department of Defense, BBC's Horizon programme, and other researchers, but no one has ever reproduced Benveniste's results under controlled conditions.
Bertahun-tahun setelah penerbitan hasil penelitian Benveniste, sejumlah percobaan—yang diadakan di bawah pengawasan—diselenggarakan oleh tim Benveniste, Departemen Pertahanan Amerika Serikat, program Horizon milik BBC, dan peneliti lain tetapi hasil percobaan Benveniste dari tahun 1988 sama sekali gagal direproduksi pada keadaan terkontrol.
To that end, Benveniste and his team at Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (INSERM, French for National Institute of Health and Medical Research) diluted a solution of human antibodies in water to such a degree that there was virtually no possibility that a single molecule of the antibody remained in the water solution.
Maka dari itu, Benveniste dan timnya di Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (INSERM, Institut Kesehatan dan Kedokteran Nasional Prancis) mengencerkan larutan antibodi manusia dalam air hingga hampir tidak mungkin satupun molekul antibodi tersisa dalam larutan air tersebut.
Benveniste stated: "It's like agitating a car key in the river, going miles downstream, extracting a few drops of water, and then starting one's car with the water."
Benveniste menyatakan: "hal ini serupa ketika seseorang mengadukkan kunci mobil ke dalam sungai, berjalan jauh ke arah hilir, mengambil beberapa tetes air sungai, dan menghidupkan mobil dengan air tersebut.
Benveniste submitted his research to the prominent science journal Nature for publication.
" Benveniste mengajukan penelitiannya agar diterbitkan dalam jurnal ilmiah ternama Nature.
There was concern on the part of Nature's editorial oversight board that the material, if published, would lend credibility to homeopathic practitioners even if the effects were not replicable.
Jajaran pengawas editorial Nature mengkhawatirkan bahwa jika laporan tersebut diterbitkan maka praktisi homeopati akan mendapat pembenaran walaupun penelitian tidak dapat direplikasi.
There was equal concern that the research was simply wrong, given the changes that it would demand of the known laws of physics and chemistry.
Terdapat juga kekhawatiran bahwa penelitian tersebut pada dasarnya salah karena penemuan di dalamnya berujung pada perubahan hukum fisika dan kimia.
The editor of Nature, John Maddox, stated that, "Our minds were not so much closed as unready to change our whole view of how science is constructed."
Editor Nature John Maddox menyatakan, "Pikiran kita tidak sedemikian tertutup hingga tidak siap mengubah seluruh pola pikir bagaimana sains terbentuk."
In the end, a compromise was reached.
Pada akhirnya, kompromi terjadi.
The paper was published in Nature Vol. 333 on 30 June 1988, but it was accompanied with an editorial by Maddox that noted "There are good and particular reasons why prudent people should, for the time being, suspend judgement" and described some of the fundamental laws of chemistry and physics which it would violate, if shown to be true.
Laporan penelitian Benveniste diterbitkan dalam Nature volume 333 pada 30 Juni 1988 dengan lampiran editor oleh Maddox yang berkomentar, "Terdapat alasan yang baik dan khusus mengapa mereka yang berhati-hati sebaiknya, untuk sementara waktu, menunda penghakiman" dan mendeskripsikan sejumlah hukum dasar kimia dan fisika yang dilanggar oleh penemuan dalam laporan, jika benar.
Additionally, Maddox demanded that the experiments be re-run under the supervision of a hand-picked group of what became known as "ghostbusters", including Maddox, famed magician and paranormal researcher James Randi, and Walter W. Stewart, a chemist and freelance debunker at the U.S. National Institutes of Health.
Di samping itu, Maddox meminta agar percobaan dilakukan kembali di bawah pengawasan kelompok orang-orang yang dipilih—disebut sebagai "ghostbusters", yaitu editor Nature Maddox, pesulap dan peneliti paranormal terkenal James Randi, serta kimiawan dan debunker Institut Kesehatan Nasional Amerika Serikat Walter W. Stewart.
Under supervision of Maddox and his team, Benveniste and his team of researchers followed the original study's procedure and produced results similar to those of the first published data.
Di bawah pengawasan Maddox dan kawan-kawan, Benveniste dan tim penelitinya mengikuti prosedur penelitian sebelumnya dan menghasilkan temuan yang serupa dengan data yang pernah diterbitkan.
Maddox, however, noted that during the procedure, the experimenters were aware of which test tubes originally contained the antibodies and which did not.
Namun, Maddox mengomentari bahwa, pada pelaksanaan percobaan, para peneliti mengetahui tabung reaksi mana yang pada mulanya mengandung antibodi dan yang mana yang tidak.
Benveniste's team then started a second, blinded experimental series with Maddox and his team in charge of the double-blinding: notebooks were photographed, the lab videotaped, and vials juggled and secretly coded.
Tim Benveniste kemudian melakukan rangkaian percobaan blinded dengan Maddox dan kawan-kawan yang bertugas melakukan double-blinding: buku catatan dipotret, lab direkam menghasilkan video, serta vial diacak dan diberi kode secara rahasia.
Randi even went so far as to wrap the labels in newspaper, seal them in an envelope, and then stick them on the ceiling.
Randi bahkan membungkus label dengan koran, menyegelnya dalam amplop, dan menempelkannya ke langit-langit ruangan.
The blinded experimental series showed no water memory effect.
Rangkaian percobaan blinded menunjukkan ketiadaan efek ingatan air.
Maddox's team published a report on the supervised experiments in the next issue (July 1988) of Nature.
Tim Maddox menerbitkan laporan percobaaan yang dilakukan di bawah pengawasan pada penerbitan Nature selanjutnya (Juli 1988).
Maddox's team concluded "that there is no substantial basis for the claim that anti-IgE at high dilution (by factors as great as 10120) retains its biological effectiveness, and that the hypothesis that water can be imprinted with the memory of past solutes is as unnecessary as it is fanciful."
Tim Maddox menyimpulkan "bahwa tidak ditemukan dasar yang cukup untuk mengklaim bahwa anti-IgE pada pengenceran tingkat tinggi (dengan faktor 10120) tetap menghasilkan efek biologis dan bahwa hipotesis atas kemampuan air dalam merekam jejak solut yang
Maddox's team initially speculated that someone in the lab "was playing a trick on Benveniste", but later concluded that, "We believe the laboratory has fostered and then cherished a delusion about the interpretation of its data."
Pada mulanya, tim Maddox menyangka bahwa seseorang yang bekerja di laboratorium tersebut "mempermainkan Benveniste" tetapi mereka kemudian menyimpulkan, "Kami yakin bahwa pihak laboratorium menemukan dan lalu memelihara delusi atas interpretasi data penelitiannya."
Maddox also pointed out that two of Benveniste's researchers were being paid by the French homeopathic company Boiron.
peneliti dalam tim Benveniste dibayar oleh perusahaan homeopati Prancis Boiron.