The IAR's deafening silence on "informed water"

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A deafening silence has been clearly discernible in recent weeks in a small Italian region, the Aosta Valley . It is the silence of an institute dedicated to agricultural education and research, one of the best in Italy: the IAR, Institut Agricole Régional.

The region is seething with nonsense, spread by various proponents regarding the agricultural benefits of so-called "informed water," which has already been discussed extensively on these pages as one of the greatest and most ridiculous examples of pseudoscience one could ever encounter . Yet, faced with those who claim unlikely effects on strawberries, lettuce, corn, rice, and so on, faced with those who maintain that this represents a genuine revolution and cutting-edge agricultural technology, the IAR, the region's leading institution in the sector, leaves alone those few researchers who, leading major European research projects, have made their outrage felt against those who would take "powdered water" seriously, to which more water must be added to obtain... water.

Why, given the clear position taken on the matter by the relevant councilor, to which the Foundation that presides over the IAR is accountable, has the institute still not taken a position, and instead actively chosen to maintain silence? Perhaps the institute is waiting to see the election results, given its close ties to the regional administration and given that informed water has now become a political symbol ?

Perhaps, mindful of the famous "France or Spain, as long as we eat," does the institute's director want to steer clear of controversy, lest he risk finding himself on the wrong side of the political arena tomorrow? I don't want to believe it. The IAR has hundreds of scientific publications that testify to the high standards of its researchers and laboratories, who participate in interesting multinational research projects . It is the region's guidance and advisory body on agricultural sciences, and it also has a consolidated relationship with the public, both through its school and through many interesting communications events, which I myself have occasionally attended. It is therefore unthinkable that it should abandon its researchers, who were the first to write and tell the truth: that pseudoscience has no place in agriculture, especially in a region that has an institute dedicated to research in the sector, except as a hobby for a few incurable cognitive maniacs who cannot escape such tall tales.

The IAR will certainly step in, it must be said, with all the weight of its authority and expertise in the field, to refute the nonsense of those from outside the Valley who have managed to weave their way through cognitive biases and political squabbles to incite over a thousand Aosta Valley residents to request the testing of a hoax, as if it were a duty to experiment with anything one invents in the morning, in the mists of sleep. The things to try at random are endless: to choose, one starts from hypotheses that are the consequence of what we already know (and this is not the case with informed water, which is based on clear pseudoscience) or from interesting evidence that suggests the need for rigorous testing, not from the will of the people or someone's fantasies . I am certain, absolutely certain, that the IAR will be able to emphasize these and other points; because the slumber of reason, and the resulting silence, breeds monsters.

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