National Geographic Sent ‘Crystal Healing’ Water Bottles To Science Writers

There’s no question that crystals are pretty. But the aesthetic visual pleasure is where it stops for most crystals. All too often we’ve seen “celebrity health experts” like Gwyneth Paltrow promote crystals and other forms of dangerous pseudoscience. Paltrow’s brand, Goop, has promoted products such as jade eggs (read: polished rocks) to place in your vagina as well as encouraged people to put coffee in their ass. It’s one thing for non-scientist celebrities like Paltrow to endorse nonsensical and potentially dangerous behaviors. They’re celebrities after all. Their job is to act in a show or film and provide entertainment. As a result, we shouldn’t expect them to be beacons of scientific literacy.

But now we have a problem. Recently, National Geographic, who is well known for their stories about wildlife, science, history, and archaeology, sent packages to science writers to promote their new show, One Strange Rock. Contained in the package Gizmodo writer Ryan F. Mandelbaum received was this:



It’s a water bottle that contains ‘healing’ crystals.

Mandelbaum points out that the instruction manual for the water bottle (yes, there’s an instruction manual) makes it clear that at no time should the water you’re putting in the bottle come in contact with the vial of rocks (or “crystals,” if you will) inside it.

...

All of the “science” cited in the brochure comes from widely debunked research from the likes of Japanese author Masaru Emoto—you know, the researcher who claimed humans could impact the chemical structure of water with their thoughts—or unnamed “German scientists.” Some of the claims are really wild. At one point, the pamphlet says: “Everything in nature vibrates. Gems naturally act like a source of subtle vibrations. These vibrations inspirit water, making it more lively and enjoyable.” This is nonsense, and any reference to electricity in crystals (like piezoelectricity, when charge accumulates on some structures in response to physical stress) is neither exclusive to crystals nor relevant to healing or enlivening drinking water. (“Ha! Yeah. Nah,” astrophysicist Katie Mack told me in a DM.)

Read more at: https://ascienceenthusiast.com/national-geographic-sends-crystal-healing-waterbottles/