At a time when the British Medical Association is calling for an end to national funding for homeopathy and detractors are describing it as “nonsense on stilts”, a Nobel prize-winning scientist has made a discovery that suggests that homeopathy does have a scientific basis after all. In July, Nobel Prize winning French virologist Professor Luc Montagnier shocked fellow Nobel prize-winners and the medical establishment by telling them that he had discovered that water has a memory that continues even after many dilutions.

Until Montagnier’s research, the bulk of mainstream doctors and scientist had maintained that there was no scientific way that multiple dilutions used in homeopathy could possibly work. In part, such views stemmed from lack of understanding. In larger part, such views likely stemmed from a desire to stem the rising popularity of homeopathy and eliminate it as a competition to mainstream medicine – much the same as happened in the United States a century ago.

One of the foundations of homeopathy maintains that the potency of a substance is increased with its dilution. Montagnier discovered that solutions containing the DNA of viruses and bacteria “could emit low frequency radio waves” and that such waves influence molecules around them, turning them into organized structures. The molecules in turn emit waves and Montagnier found that the waves remain in the water even after it has been diluted many times. To a lay person, that may not mean much, but to a scientist is highly suggests that homeopathy may have a scientific basis.