[Acting Like Godot]

Originally Posted by MrsCogan

But DR and GK new so the test was not double blind.

The test is double blind because:

First Blind

TK, when taking photos, did not know whether samples were from treated bottles or control bottles.

Second Blind
The 100 judges did not know whether the photos were of the treated bottles or control bottles.

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Now DR and GH knew, but they have nothing to do with the process of taking the photos or rating them.

However, DR did raise in his own paper the possibility that his own intentions and GH's intentions may have affected the water samples in some way (that is, the effect is not due, or not exclusively due to, to the effect of the 1,000 praying people in Tokyo, but possibly to DR's and GK's own intentions).

Frankly, I can't see why you would worry about it, since your own position is that the thoughts of no one, (whether DR or GH or TK or ME or the group of praying people or the 100 judges or you or me) would be able to affect the molecular structure of the water samples.

Neverthelss, DR does seem to be concerned about it. DR has mentioned that he plans to do a triple blind experiment, to see if the results can still be replicated; see the last line of this article.

My guess is that for the triple blind experiment, another person will be asked to place two bottles in Room X, and two bottles in Room Y, and that person will be asked to do the labelling later, but the person won't be told at all that two bottles will be prayed over.

TK should not have preselected which photographs were to be evaluated. He should have submitted every single photograph for evaluation and taken the same number of photographs for each bottle.

Good point, Mrs Cogan. If I had not previously watched the footage of how the photography is done, I would have made the same point as you.

Basically, during the thaw process, the crystals start forming out of nothing (ie they are very, very small, and they start growing). First they have a simple structure, just a few specks really, and as they grow, they may develop a more intricate structure, like this:



or they may just "freeze" in their development like this:



You don't know how much each crystal will grow, or what shape it will ultimately attain, and very importantly, exactly when they will stop.

Therefore you've just gotta keep taking photos periodically, until the crystal stops growing. Then you'll submit the last photo you took of it.

Also, there should have been 100 bottles and not just 4.

Each water crystal is grown out of one petri dish, where you only need a little water. So, yes, 4 bottles is enough for a few hundred petri dishes, maybe more than a thousand.

in other words water that has a lot of minerals in it forms better crystals.

Possibly. However, your point is irrelevant in the present context because all four bottles used the same kind of water.

yes, especially since he knows in advance how the experiment must turn out .... (1) and (2) are the "wrong" answers and this experiment was arranged so that only (3) could be the result.

Sure, Mrs Cogan. Now you quickly go think of new reasons to substantiate your claims above, then let me know, ok?