![](http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20070307011024/memoryalpha/en/images/thumb/5/51/Polywater-%28naked-now%29.jpg/180px-Polywater-%28naked-now%29.jpg)
So to make it up to the Polywater Marketing Board, here's a photograph of topless George Takei (from an early public-safety film encouraging responsible use).
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTOIm_XtmHQ6zJ76nd0fhMht8GrXxOk-0scDM7RQElTju-RL1frGEQe1Dfj7vgm19_6L4wmuY1boP4W4QzCukw25cTvryrXulGXgWtAfVloFvSupK1qkgDMy-EMlkNatuMvVG-0liTz3hC/s400/Sulu-confronts-BridgeCrew.jpg)
But wait, there are many of these polymorphs of water, one for each item in the homœopathic pharmacopeia! Bellavite's group reckon that water can also crystallise into a form behaving like an alkaloid -- again, self-replicating -- to explain how strychnine analogs can affect mouse behaviour at dilutions of 10-60:
...in high-dilution pharmacology, there is no linear or proportional relation between the molecular concentration of active substances and the therapeutic effect. Thus far there is no satisfactory or unifying theoretical explanation for these claims, though some hypotheses suggest a role of the nano-heterogeneous structures and dynamics of the solvent water (or water–ethanol) on a mesoscopic scale...
Now I am worried that the water in the bathtub will organise itself around my body if I spend too long soaking and form a kind of hydraulic tulpa that displays all my physical and chemical properties.
![What lies beneath](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVc76EOYM-6XwrTZ81tbz-ETrW_eJCnhLNcODZ6TTRO5bXjWH21qH4uvlM42GNMMFHoAmHc0XV-jghEyxtCQBFQu11b938LJ_FDaXM_-pZSVwPJh5MFNj8ngv0NfR3cuKFepnzaSZH6TRC/s400/abyss_water_face.jpg)
This is despite Gene Wolfe's authoritative description in his exhaustive non-fiction account, The Book of the New Sun:
¹ There was talk of a polywater gap with the USSR and great jubilation when it closed in 1969.
² I have no idea how much immunology research by Chirumbolo and Bellavite was genuine before they went off the rails and devoted themselves to smuggling homeopathy, naturopathy, and Chinese crank medicine into mainstream journals. Chirumbolo is a technical assistant according to the University website and a Senior Researcher on his own website.
Their continued tenure at Verona is perhaps explained by a comment thread in Crooked Timber a while ago, devoted to "Gambetta’s theory of the signalling benefits of incompetence in Italian academia":
“Being incompetent and displaying it,” [Gambetta] writes, “conveys the message I will not run away, for I have no strong legs to run anywhere else. In a corrupt academic market, being good at and interested in one’s own research, by contrast, signal a potential for a career independent of corrupt reciprocity…. In the Italian academic world, the kakistocrats are those who best assure others by displaying, through lack of competence and lack of interest in research, that they will comply with the pacts.”A comment by Dr Science summed up how incompetence works in a milieu of entrenched favouritism and mutual back-scratching between quasi-feudal fiefdoms:
I think the point is that incompetence is a truthful signal of loyalty. The incompetent must be loyal, they have no alternative.A subsequent Crooked Timber thread discussed incompetence in more general terms. The closest anyone came to defending the Italian academic milieu was to point out that Economics departments in English-speaking universities are just as corrupt and incestuous.
³ Predictably, Quantum Mechanics is involved:
22 comments:
Hydrohypothetically, how would one dilute polywater for homeopathic purposes?
1.AFAF
2. Receive Answer
3. ???????????
4. POLYPROFIT!
Oddly, homeopathic polywater does not seem to be part of the pharmocopeia, possibly because combining two forms of pathological science would be like crossing the streams.
So, do you mean to say that my homeopathic phrenology treatments, involving the creation of microscopic bumps on my noggin, are all in vain?
Oh, how will I cure this crippling ennui and moral turpitude?
Maybe a dilution of moral turpentine will cure the moral turpitude...
Isn't "drunken inebriation" needlessly repetitive?
Now I am worried that the water in the bathtub will organise itself around my body if I spend too long soaking and form a kind of hydraulic tulpa that displays all my physical and chemical properties.
Stick to showers, says I.
That'll be five dollars.
~
"This is a very difficult concept to understand."
No shit.
Perhaps I lack the essential incompetence...
combining two forms of pathological science would be like crossing the streams
And if both streams are self-replicating... 8-0
Listen, I drink good, godly, TRADITIONAL water made of TWO elements, not this disgusting POLYwater. Who knows what's in it? I bet Mormons drink it!
Well OBVIOUSLY quantum phenomenamons aren't limited to the sub-atomic scale. This explains why I keep getting a paycheque when I spend the day drinking: clearly I am still in my office. Fellow employees have noticed my weirdness but they fail to put the clarifying "quantum" in front of that.
I bet Mormons drink it!
Like "5 Wives" Vodka (banned in Idaho due to Political Correctness).
Isn't "drunken inebriation" needlessly repetitive?
My dubbelganger had probably been drinking when he wrote that.
As long as he wasn't snacking on some poor bastard's face at the time, I say go right ahead.
Carry on...
Is it Friday night yet?
5 Wives? Ha ha ha! I'll have to google that vodka!
Your theory about incompetence bringing success in corrupt academic circles could be life imitating art... state and institution funded art that is, since Tom Wolfe's "The Painted Word," anyway.
... only the funded artist usually really believes in and works hard at the crap in question.
As long as he wasn't snacking on some poor bastard's face at the time, I say go right ahead.
Carry on...
mikey misspelled carrion.
There goes my idea for ice9 cubes.
You could always try polywater crackers instead.
A.K. sighting at 1:25.
~
Is not. You can't prove nuthin'
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