Evaluation of Emoto's research

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The paper discusses Emoto’s work of observing the water crystal structure under microscopic
conditions. Emoto’s water crystals consisted of exposing water in glasses to different words,
picture, music and examining the aesthetic properties. Emoto claimed that water exposed to
positive thoughts and feeling will result in clear water crystals and that negative feeling would
yield in hazy water crystals. The book “The Message from Water” is a popular book on human
thoughts having a direct observable effect on the ice -crystal formation. Since human body is
made up of water, it can be completely bizarre that human thoughts would affect molecular
structure of water. (Setchfield, 2005)

Emoto studied in Yokohama Municipal University after studying international relations. In his
mid- 1990’s, he started researching in detail on water. In 1992, Dr. Emoto became a Doctor of
Alternative Medicine at the Open International University for Alternative Medicine in India in
1992. Consequently, in 1999, because his work was given importance, he published the book
“The Message of Water”. Many independent publishing companies have given consideration to
his narrative and collection of photos of ice-crystal such as “The Hidden Messages in the
water”.(Setchfield, 2005) Then in November 2001, book “Water Knows the Answer” was
published not only as a photo book but as an explanatory book. These work of Emoto thrust his
work into the international spotlight and portrayed his work as proven scientific research.

After experimenting for couple of months, the objective of Dr. Emoto’s Masaru was validating
the results of the research with scientific proof. According to Sharp (2015), Emoto’s research is
proved with profound evidence and his results can be used as a method to positively heal and
transform people with mental problems. However, commenters have criticized Emoto for
insufficient control and not sharing appropriate details with the scientific community. For
example, according to Wikipedia, William A. Tiller, another researcher stated that “Emoto’s
experiment short of proof since they could prove the other factors of the supercooling of the
water”.

In response to these controversies and our analysis of the Emoto’s research results and
experimental procedure it cannot be accepted as a valid research. The results of Dr. Emoto
Masaru is not convincing because it seems to be illogical and inappropriate according to the
research criteria published in “Evaluating Research Quality” by Litman (2008). After analyzing
his research work, the project has strange results with human emotions involved in the
formation of ice-crystal structure without any proper evidences.

To start off, the conclusion of Emoto’s research is based on possibly biased data and analysis
method that may negatively influence the soundness of his work. It needs to be noticed that
Emoto doesn’t provide the whole dataset of his research. In each control group experiment, for
example observing the crystal of frozen water after showing different letters, Emoto only
demonstrates very limited number of pictures with “expected performance”. In other words, He
doesn’t show us the results of analysis in the experimental errors. So, it is possible that either
Emoto and his research team didn’t use big enough dataset to conduct the research or they did
find some results that violated his previous assumptions, but they decided to hide those
“unexpected results” in the end. Even if the dataset they used is big enough to reveal water’s
universal response to different variables and they didn’t hide any results from public, there is still
possibility that the results could be affected by researcher’s unintentionally subjective choice of
results because of its lack of “blind test”. Emoto states they didn’t conduct any blind tests on any
samples and he believes that “the researcher’s aesthetic sense and character is the most
important aspect when taking crystal photographs”. (Setchfield, 2005) Therefore, the conclusion
of Emoto’s work is really invalid due to the possible biased dataset and analysis method they
used during the research.

Another flaw of Emoto’s water experiment was the sample collection. In “Healing with Water”
(2004) Emoto says that he has used the distilled water for comparing the various crystal forms
of water produced by various effects of music, emotions or contamination. However, he is not
clear about how the water was distilled. Water is distilled in various scientific ways including
filtration, chlorination, reverse osmosis etc. By distillation only the chemical, organic and
inorganic impurities are removed from the water. But there is no any process of filtration or
distillation that can filtrate out the effects caused by music or human emotions. So, it is possible
that the distilled water gets affected by the surrounding environment, mood of the people in
distillation industry before it eventually gets delivered to the consumer. (i.e. In this case Emoto
or the place from which he is collecting the sample of distilled water). Since Emoto’s conclusion
explains about the change in shape of crystals of water by various phenomena involving no any
chemical or physical reaction with the molecule, there should be appropriate explanation about
how distilled water is preserved in its original state without being affected.

For a rigorous and credible research, the condition setting of the experiment should be
standardized and easy to replicate for other scientists so that the experiment can be easily
examined by different research teams. However, according to Emoto’s research essay, it is
almost impossible to set two identical experimental environments and reproduce the same
crystal twice perfectly. This fact implies that the results can be greatly influenced by the
uncontrollable environmental uncertainties. Therefore, without the specific and standardized
experimental procedures, we cannot decide whether the results are accurate enough to support
Emoto’s conclusion.

Even if there is no problem in the experiment procedure, the research is still suffering from lack
of previous research or theories to support his work. When we carefully look into Emoto’s essay
about this research, there are only two citations in the reference list and one of them is from
Emoto’s own work. This indicates that Emoto and his research team didn’t have sufficient
background research before actually designing and conducting the whole experiment. Even if
the concept of this research is totally new and it is difficult to find similar researches to compare,
it is still necessary for them to look into the previous research that relevant to their topic, for
example the researches about the formation of ice crystal. So, it is highly possible that some
parts of the experiment are just built upon Emoto’s “imagination” rather than solid theoretical
basis.

Finally, we cannot ignore the possible commercial intention behind this research that may make
this experiment far from being an objective scientific research. It is not rare to see some
companies selling their products by claiming their products are based on a newly discovered
theory that will make a great difference. However, in most cases, those claims and theories are
just “make believed” and cannot hold water under careful examine. Therefore, we should be
really careful about the commercial agendas related to a certain scientific research. On Emoto’s
website called Masaru Emoto’s Hado World, there are some commercial products based on his
research. For example, there is a therapeutic product called KAZUTAMA (means “spirits in
numbers” in Japanese) that claims to be effective in helping people improve their mental well-
being, sleep quality and so on. So, it is highly suspicious that the theory presented by Emoto in
his research is biased and extravagant to help him sell his products and earn more money out
of them.

Based on criteria discussed above, Emoto’s experiment seems to have major flaws with respect
to the requirements of a good research. His experimental procedure and approach of making
limited data available to people makes his project more dubious. Some guidelines to make the
experiment more academic and research oriented are pointed out below.
1. The researcher should use appropriate procedure of data collection for example single
blinded or double blinded. (Double blinded preferred)
2. Concept of collecting distilled water doesn’t make sample more original to be compared
with the water affected by music or emotion.
3. The experimental procedure should be well explained so that the data and pictures can
be replicated following the similar procedure.
4. Appropriate literature review and supporting theories should be referenced.
5. The research should be free from any political, social or commercial intention of getting
any profit.

To sum up, Emoto and his research team didn’t provide enough information to support their
analysis and results.
 References

Chen, Y. (2009). Is Emoto's research pseudoscience or science? Unpublished manuscript.

University of Idaho, Moscow, ID.

Emoto, M. (2004). Healing with water. Journal of Alternative & Complementary Medicine, 10(1),
19-21.

Emoto, M. (2010). What is the Photograph of frozen water crystals? Retrieved from
http://www.masaru-emoto.net/english/water-crystal.html

Litman, T. (2008). Evaluating research quality: guidelines for scholarship. Victoria Transport
Policy Institute.

Wikipedia contributors. (2018, October 16). Masaru Emoto. In Wikipedia, The Free
Encyclopedia. Retrieved 18:28, November 2, 2018, from
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Masaru_Emoto&oldid=864347155

Setchfield, K. (2005). Review and analysis of Dr. Masaru Emoto’s published work on the effects
of external stimuli on the structural formation of ice crystals.

Sharp, S. (2015). Miraculous Messages for Water How water reflects our consciousness.
Retrieved from http://www.wellnessgoods.com/MESSAGES.ASP

Zhang, J., Patel, H., Haung, C., EDITED Evaluation of Emoto’s Work