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Science

Praying Doesn't Help 452

Posted by michael from the duh dept.
dannywalk writes "Duke University Medical Center in North Carolina have run a study to see if praying for sick people makes any difference. Apparently it doesn't. 'Before their operations, they were randomly split into two groups, and half were prayed for by Christians, Jews, Buddhists and Muslims. However, checks revealed they had fared no better than those not prayed for.'"
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Praying Doesn't Help More

Praying Doesn't Help

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  • Obviously (Score:2, Funny)

    by borgboy ( 218060 )
    God didn't respond to the prayers so as to test peoples' faith.
    </sarcasm>

  • What exactly makes this /. newsworthy? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Mattcelt ( 454751 ) on Thursday October 16, 2003 @09:34AM (#7228609)
    Hmmm, seems that perhaps we need a moderation system for article posters? (Score -1; Troll)

    This is going to be a hugely active thread here, and it's not going to do anyone any good, because those who always believed that prayer was bunk are going to say "I told you so" and the people who always believed in prayer are going to say "It doesn't prove anything". And we're going to be right back where we started.

    This one would have been better left to the religious websites, not the geek ones.

    • the people who always believed in prayer are going to say "It doesn't prove anything"

      I'd like to expand on that a bit.

      The Bible never says that a prayer automatically translates to healing. God never promises a life of ease just because we believe. So it would be kind of like saying, "Seat belts don't help because when people drive off of cliffs, they die. Thus we shouldn't buckle up @ all.". It's a crude illustration, but hopefully it gets the point across.

      As you said, this article is a troll. Therefore

      • The seatbelt analogy is fantastic!

        Therefore I rate this article as "-1 Michael".

        GREAT ZINGER! However, it'll get us both voted down to -1... but it was worth it!

        • No, no, no (Score:3, Interesting)

          by GCP ( 122438 )
          Mod points are no substitute for reasoned debate.

          I'm not religious, but it seems to me that the study is a reasonable one to do. If it turned out that prayer had a measurable, salutary, repeatable effect, that would have meant that there was something going on that would be worth investigating further.

          On the other hand, if there's no difference, it doesn't disprove God or prayer. Even though I'm not a believer, I know that the *theory* is that there is a God listening to the prayers who isn't an automaton
      • Your seatbelt analogy doesn't make any sense. It translates to "Prayer helps people as long as they don't get cancer. Thus we should keep praying," which is not exactly a convincing endorsement.

        Not trying to be insulting, but it's this kind of pseudo-logic which misleads vulnerable people into joining churches. It sounds good - just as long as you don't think about it too deeply.
  • "Thou shalt not look to see if I am actually here." -God

    Damn heathens.
    • God should have thought to create man without curiosity if he didn't want us looking around.

      Doug
      • then god would have made a pre-programmed being. that's not how people work. no one is pre-programmed for anything. that's what the other animals are for, they have instinct, we have to learn. that's how god wanted it to be. otherwise, he would've programmed eve to not eat the apple.
        • Um, humans have instincts too.

          God lied to Eve about the apple, too. Read your Bible - God says she'll die if she eats it, the snake says she'll merely gain knowledge.

          Free will's an illusion, too, if God is all knowing, all powerful, and created all. He knew Eve would eat the apple when he created her - it's his fault, not hers.
          • What, she's alive?
          • what instincts do humans have? we aren't born with the ability to live our own lives without the help of others. animals are sent out on their own using their own instinct once they are able to fend for themselves. the human world is far more complex, it's not possible for humans to just go out on our own without having learned anything from our parents and elders.

            the bible is not meant to be taken literally. obviously adam and eve did not die. but in this case, die meant to lose all the innocence of
            • what instincts do humans have?

              "Suck on mommy's nipples" would be a good example of an instinct.

              That's not to say we don't learn any of our behavior from our parents, but the same goes for the animals. Lions teach their young how to hunt, for example.

              the bible is not meant to be taken literally

              Got a Bible reference for that? Is there an appendix or something that says "well, don't take this section literally, but these parts you should take verbatim"? I must have missed those on my perusal...

              he k
              • if you've ever read the bible, you will notice many many many contradictions. which is why it is necessary to not take it literally. which is why priests have homilies to help us understand what the bible is saying. there is no part of the bible that should be taken verbatim. do you truly believe that 7 days after the earth was formed that man lived? how do you explain the existence of dinosaurs for millions of years before man? the church has even said that each of those days was more than a day.

                how
                • You seem to think that humans are so different from the other animals. Not much separates us from chimps, dolphins, etc. other than our ability to use complex language.

                  Other animals learn, and we have instincts just like them (even if we mostly surpress them in our society).

                  how do you know lions teach their young to hunt?

                  Female lions will chase down and cripple a prey animal, then allow their young to kill it.
          • Um, humans have instincts too.

            Yep. Though it might be better to call them "biological drives" than "instincts."

            God lied to Eve about the apple, too. Read your Bible - God says she'll die if she eats it, the snake says she'll merely gain knowledge.

            Eve did die, and God never said that she'd not gain knowledge. And, according to the biblical accounts, Eve's descendants all died sucessuvley quicker than Adam or Eve did.

    • Re:They Forgot (Score:2, Funny)

      by Glytch ( 4881 )
      I've found the answer! God is actually Schroedinger's cat!

    • Re:They Forgot (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Daniel Dvorkin ( 106857 )

      "Thou shalt not look to see if I am actually here." -God

      Yep. Or as the article says:

      Many theologians say that, even if you believe in the power of intercessory prayer, such a trial is doomed to failure because it "puts God to the test" - and there are clear instructions in the Bible not to do this.

      Which neatly encapsulates the fundamental difference between science and religion; in science, you always look to see if something's actually there. And anyone who says, "I'm going to assert that this is tru

      • If you check the gospels you'll see that Jesus never performed on demand - there were plenty of opportunities for him to demonstrate conclusively that he is God, and he never took any of them.

        I haven't worked out yet what his algorithm was that started with "Miracle?" and ended with "Yes" or "No", but actual need, rather than want or perceived need, seems to play a major part, and "Perform for me, good doggy" always seemed to lead to "No." Yet there were plenty of miracles reported in the Gospels.

        In my o
    • This god geezer has it all thought out, hasn't he? There's just nothing a rational man can do to measure this god geezer in an objective and repeatable way that will stand up to peer review.

  • Next study: Don't pray (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ccady ( 569355 ) on Thursday October 16, 2003 @09:41AM (#7228632) Journal
    Now they need to have another study: tell patients that they are being prayed for , yet don't do it, and see how well they fare. My guess: they'll have increased recovery.

  • obvious answer (Score:4, Funny)

    by moof1138 ( 215921 ) on Thursday October 16, 2003 @09:47AM (#7228655)
    This one is really straightforward to explain. You see, in addition to prayer by the One True Religion, the prayers of infidels were also mixed in. Since the prayers of infidels are actually prayers to the Dark One who does the opposite of what was asked, these amount to anti-prayers. Hence they cancelled out their results.
    • Naah, it's far simpler than that. It's the onset of extreme age you see; God's probably just deaf and incontinent by now... That also explains why there's so much bad shit going down at the moment... ;)

    • Re:obvious answer (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Tyreth ( 523822 ) on Thursday October 16, 2003 @10:59AM (#7229379)
      From a Christian perspective there are a few thoughts, but one of them is not "do not put God to the test". If prayer really is supposed to aid most (or even a measurable percentage) people, then it should be able to be proven - whether through intentional or accidental experience. For example, someone is missing a foot - they are prayed for and the foot grows back.

      It doesn't go without saying though, that God is not a neutral, unintelligent force that is manipulated by the hands of men. Many people treat prayer like a magic spell, a way we can force His hand to our will. The truth is (from a Christian perspective, obviously not from a New Ager or others who believe that all things make up God) that if a person's time to die has come, they will die. I am of an increasingly minority view in Christianity today. After the New Testament was completed, the spiritual gifts (healing, prophecy, miracles, etc) ceased. Their purpose for that time had been completed, and they ended - as had happened in times before. Then over the next 400 years, culminating with Christianity becoming the official religion of Rome, the supposed miraculous increased in number. But these were not the true gifts - they were pseudo miracles, hypnotism, trickery and deception.
      This experiment confirmed what I already believed - that prayer is our chance to worship God, to make known our heartache, and pray for His intercession in ours and other's lives. We can request from Him a miracle for healing or other things. In reality, such true miracles are very rare. As someone said, for the few thousand that Jesus fed miraculously, millions still have to cook their meals every night. The miracles are a sign of His power, but by no means common.

      The truth is, I don't expect God to make much of a difference for all those prayers made, regardless of whether it's a test or just a ministry, regardless of whether they are all from the "One True Religion" or not. If God has any power at all, then we are His servants, not the other way around.

      • Great response! I'm just sorry at how many people will try and attempt a flamewar on this.

        This is a real Christian perspective, it is not offtopic, nor trollish. You got the science perspective in the story, and the parent is a good Christian angle.

        Also, I'd like to add (Christian perspective, obviously) that God knows whats wrong, so you aren't "drawing extra attention" by praying, just asking for him to do his will.

  • Not scientific at all (Score:4, Funny)

    by pmz ( 462998 ) on Thursday October 16, 2003 @09:47AM (#7228656) Homepage

    How would a scientist claim that he removed a deity from the control group? How could the scientist prove this?
    • The point of the study was not to test the existence of God. God may very well have been mucking around in the results as she felt fit to do. God could have been helping some people and killing others. However, God's involvement wasn't the question being asked here. What the scientists wanted to know was whether God's involvement was effected by prayer. Yes, he's mucking around with the patients, but does he muck around any more with patients that are prayed for? It would be completely unscientific to
      • but we are not to test god and that is what the bible tells us. so this experiment is completely unscientific because it is testing god and prayer.

        the other thing we are forgetting about prayer is that anyone can say "dear god, please heal me and take this disease out of my body". it's not the words that matter. that's not prayer. it's a matter of believing that it will work, having faith in god that he will help you. how are you do know how much faith in god those people who prayed for the patients h
        • Ah. I see you're lucky enough not to live in the Bible Belt. The various religioous nuts that I put up with on a daily basis would claim that:
          1. God's existence can be tested and proven.
          2. Prayer will work even if you don't believe in it.
          3. The fact that all you want to do is test his existence won't stop him from intervening.

          I am a Christian myself and largely agree with what most of you said. The problem is that I deal with people on a daily basis who claim that the works of God are Entirely scientific.

          • no, i live in new england. the only people i deal with that might say some of that are "born-again" christians, the ones that don't believe catholics are christians. i don't believe science can prove the existence of god, and you will probably notice that all of those people that say that it can are not scientists or are not about to setup an experiment to prove it.

            as far as the blind study, you're probably right about how it was done. they probably went to the preacher to have his congregation pray for

        • It's a matter of belief and faith alone

          Not entirely accurate. God has left evidence printed on the pages of history. How about all of the prophecies in the Bible which have come true?

          One case in point is Jesus. It is a historical fact that he lived, and all of the evidence points to the fact that He rose from the dead. Most of the original apostles were tortured to death. All they had to do to avoid death was to admit that Jesus did NOT rise again. So they gave their lives because they believed --

          • The parent's argument is bunk.

            Just because the apostles believed something true and were willing to die
            rather than recant that belief is not proof that what was believed was
            actually true.

            Also, if apostles knew it was a hoax but wanted the movement to continue,
            they might have been willing to die anyways.

            Also, it wouldn't have required all the apostles to perpetrate a hoax. One
            or two might have faked the resurrection and the rest might have believed
            it was true.

          • Not entirely accurate. God has left evidence printed on the pages of history. How about all of the prophecies in the Bible which have come true?

            Except all of the most important ones. Jesus led his disciples to believe that the Second Coming would occur within their lifetime. Its been nearly 2,000 years now, where the hell is he?

            It is a historical fact that he lived

            There's rarely such a thing as historical fact. There are historical sources, from which one may make historical inferences; but facts

      • It would be completely unscientific to claim that there is no God

        No less scientific than claiming there are no purple polka-dotted aliens on Mars... :-p
        • Not exactly. Your claim would be scientific. It would be unscientific to claim that there's no invisible aliens on mars who amke no sound and are permeable by all matter and energy. Purple Polka-dotted aliens can be seen. God, if he exists, is so nebulous that he can redefine himself to by pass any test. The existence of God would bypass all rules of logic ( p -> q and q -> ~p could both be true). Any test that eliminated the existence of logic is not scientific. Therefore, the very concept of

  • prayer is not the whole point... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Slowping ( 63788 ) on Thursday October 16, 2003 @09:49AM (#7228665) Homepage Journal
    The prayer itself is not the point.

    Remember this slash article [slashdot.org] about the pain of rejection?

    What scientists should be looking at is the power of positive thought and feeling of social acceptance in improving quality of life for recovery.
    • i think that you bring up a very important point, one which the study doesm't address. Either prayer has relevancy, or it does not. But the context is important. First, the question would be does prayer help the person if they do it themselves, and then if it is done by someone else with their knowledge, especially someone who knows them well. And finally, the 'does it help from a stranger whom you don't know is praying for you,' question.

      I'm inclined to think that the first two would be strong 'yes'

    • Everyone knows a patient's positive thought helps heal. That's not worthy of investigation. This experiment was trying to detect whether prayer helps.

  • woo! (Score:4, Funny)

    by kurosawdust ( 654754 ) on Thursday October 16, 2003 @09:56AM (#7228698)
    Oh YEAH! In your FACE, Mrs. "Please God help my kid beat cancer"! Woo!
    *does endzone dance*
    Who's the man?
    Who's the man?
    Not God!
    YEE-HAW!

  • Studies Showing The Opposite Too (Score:3, Informative)

    by TheFlyingGoat ( 161967 ) on Thursday October 16, 2003 @10:03AM (#7228740) Homepage Journal
    So the editors are trolls now? For every scientific study "proving" that prayer doesn't work, there's one proving that it does. For example, look at this Wired article [wired.com] which talks about a faith healing study done at UC San Francisco Medical Center. It's just one of many. Nobody who believes in prayer will be swayed by this report, and those who don't believe won't be swayed by the one I linked to. Pointless article in a slow news week.
    • For every scientific study "proving" that prayer doesn't work, there's one proving that it does

      There was at least one recent, well-publicized study in which having remote people praying for patients was found to have some sort of positive effect. I suspect the point of posting this study is to inform us that the original study's results are contradicted, without giving the original study more attention than it deserves.

      I tend to agree that these studies are a waste of time.

    • Re:Studies Showing The Opposite Too (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Flamerule ( 467257 ) on Thursday October 16, 2003 @11:30AM (#7229712)
      For every scientific study "proving" that prayer doesn't work, there's one proving that it does. For example, look at this Wired article which talks about a faith healing study done at UC San Francisco Medical Center. It's just one of many.
      But this one is the largest, most comprehensive ever. It's worth more than the other, smaller ones.
      Nobody who believes in prayer will be swayed by this report [...]
      Most people who believe in prayer wouldn't even be swayed by the destruction of the Earth and the death of all humans, so I think we can safely ignore them.
      and those who don't believe won't be swayed by the one I linked to.
      Uh, dude, I don't think you read that article as closely as you should have. Besides the fact that it only involved 20 patients -- as opposed to the 750 patients in this new study -- eventually it also gets around to pointing out how the study in question was illegitimate. Quote:
      WHAT TOO FEW PEOPLE KNOW ABOUT TARG'S FAMOUS AIDS STUDY: That her study had been unblinded and then "reblinded" to scour for data that confirmed the thesis - and the Western Journal of Medicine did not know this fact when it decided to publish.
      And what did one of the researchers do?
      [...] He had also seen which group each patient was assigned to, treatment or control, but he swore he didn't remember and maintained he was therefore impartial.
      Did you read that!? One of the researchers, who had been privy to the assignment of patients into groups, then went back through the patients' charts to gather more data. Blindedness was totally compromised... and incidentally, this incident displays a more-than-cavalier attitude toward the science in the study.
      [...] This isn't what science means by double-blind. The data may all be legitimate, but it's not good form. Statisticians call this the sharpshooter's fallacy - spraying bullets randomly, then drawing a target circle around a cluster.
      The writer also notes:
      I learned all this from Dan Moore and confirmed it with Mark Comings. Moore seemed unaware how explosive his version of the story was. "I was always troubled over the sifting it took for the data to hold together," he said. "I think Fred and Elisabeth missed the real story, which was the difference between medical science and alternative medicine. Triple-drug therapy was literally saving lives. We were only looking at secondary things."

      With this information, I reread the paper with an awe for how carefully they chose their words. Only with the benefit of this hindsight do holes emerge, ones that had been clouded by the scientific language and statistical commentary.

      Unbelievable. And an eminent biostatistician who looked at the study said:
      Spiegel continued: "It does change her work considerably. It puts it into more of an exploratory study, rather than a confirmatory study. It would be wrong to say it'd been proven."
      That's an understatement. And finally, thanks to the study's insufficiently random selection of patients, and laughably small sample size:
      [...] In other words, the study provided fairly convincing evidence that if you had AIDS back in the mid-1990s, the older you were the more likely you were to die.
      So this pro- faith healing study was a total crock of shit. No one's going to be swayed by it because it's imaginary, and it only demonstrated the poor science being put out by faith healing people.
    • I thought she admitted on her deathbed that she had fudged her own study to give hope to the hopeless. Can anyone else confirm?
  • There is a long tradition in most religions of Prayer for the sick. Do I belive G-d may cause a sick person to become well due to prayer, yes. Do I belive G-d will always do this, or do it on a regular basis, no. I belive miracles are posible and do happen, but not on a regular basis. After all if I was sick with cancer and knew that I could become well by getting a bunch of my friends to pray for me, I would do that and not go to a doctor.

    It should be noted that a large number of Rabbis over the years hav
  • This has serious research implications.

    For one, it means that my research project is doomed. Not even God can save it, it seems.

  • Perhaps they are missing the point. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MarvinMouse ( 323641 ) * on Thursday October 16, 2003 @10:12AM (#7228834) Homepage Journal
    Being a somewhat slacking Roman Catholic, I look at the people who pray for various things, (especially other people's health), and I've realized that while I have no idea whether the prayer helps the person prayed for or not, it does definitely help the person praying. Sometimes people feel helpless, like there is nothing they can do when someone they love is dying, and prayer gives them some hope that they are doing something to help out.

    As well, prayer research studies are hard to rate because there will always be questions of faith of those in the study, whether connectedness is important, and what the one "true faith" is. All of which will alway make is easy to discount/support any conclusions.

    Personally, I take prayer from a very sociological and psychological viewpoint. It provides some form of hope to people who feel otherwise helpless. It gives them the opportunity to feel that they can do something, anything to change what they feel needs to be changed.

    Whether it works or not, in the end, is irrelevant.
    • Placebos may make some people feel better, but I'm not going to start taking sugar pills if I get sick.

      Religion is a psychological crutch to a large percentage of the world, but I think they'd be better off if they gave it up. Not that I'm advocating a cold-turkey approach.
    • [Prayer] does definitely help the person praying. [slashdot.org]

      You seem quite certain of that. Perhaps you could conduct an experiment to prove it to the skeptics, some of whom might claim that those whose prayers are rejected, like those who prayed for the sick in this study, are definitely harmed by the disappointment.
    • It provides some form of hope to people who feel otherwise helpless. It gives them the opportunity to feel that they can do something, anything to change what they feel needs to be changed.

      The problem here is manyfold, but I'll focus on two. One, someone else already mentioned -- the energy spent praying could be better used doing something, anything that will actually work. There does exist a culture of superstitious believers who will pray and do nothing else.

      But more importantly, to me, is that this
  • Nothing fails like prayer!

  • Mind over matter (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Apreche ( 239272 ) on Thursday October 16, 2003 @10:15AM (#7228871) Homepage Journal
    Being prayed for by others obviously wont help your odds in any activity. But I'm a firm believer in mind over matter. The placebo effect is great evidence of this. If someone truly believes that they will survive through some surgery, or live another day because of some deity or something, then they probably will. Their religeon, deity, values and morals could all be completely false and it doesn't matter. Because in their brain they truly believe that X will happen, it does. Because you truly believe a surgar pill is actually the perfect cure for your ailment, it will be.

    That's my real problem with religeon is that it gives some imaginary omiscient being credit for the achievments of flesh and blood people.

    "Save me Jebus!"

    Jebus didn't save you, you saved you. Because you believed you would survive the surgery, you did. It had nothing to do with your Jebus, who is completely imaginary and such.

    I probably could have gotten my point across in fewer and better words, but I'm too lazy now.
    • I probably could have gotten my point across in fewer and better words, but I'm too lazy now.

      How's about this: Thou art God.

    • Except that what you are describing isn't salvation, not as Jesus promised it -- it is about preparing you to find God, not the other way around. I think that some Christians (including a few at my church) get this mixed up and read things too literally, and this causes unfortunate confrontations which are based as much on our own predjudices as any independently verifiable fact or ontological truth.

      This might suprise you, but Christians are not a monolithic group of like-thinking robots. We have argume

  • Uhhh... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by cavemanf16 ( 303184 )
    I don't get it. Why try and apply the scientific method to faith? That's just silly. God isn't Santa Claus; HE IS GOD! Duh! I'm sure God is a bit wiser than us (if you have faith that he is omniscient, omnipresent, etc. - basically infinitely perfect in all things). Why a scientist would try to apply a 4 dimensional measuring system to an infinite being (God) is beyond my comprehension.

    C'mon, logically, either you believe in God or you don't. You can't measure that. You can infer by a person's actions with
    • So, if God is so powerful, omniscient, omnipresent etc. why does he always get disproved in tests like this one?

      I mean every deity worth their salt could atleast make every experimental result ambiguous, randomly give the experimenters a bad head cold that only goes away when they stop the experiment, lose the paperwork etc. etc.

      Why couldn't he just make it extremely debateable, put some spurious ideas into the experimenters heads that leads them down false trails etc. etc.?

      I mean clear, unambiguous pro

      • So, if God is so powerful, omniscient, omnipresent etc. why does he always get disproved in tests like this one?

        Because He wants to.

        Honestly, the Almighty has said on many occasions that He doesn't like being tested, and that He'll take action to falsify tests as best suits His plan.

        Science has long proven that, if God exists, He doesn't want to be found by science. He does still reveal himself in personal ways, but not in such a way that He can become part of science's cold dogma.
  • Thanks for posting this wonderful article so the large Anti-Christian (or Anti-[Insert Faith Here] for that matter) Slashdot community can let their mindless God bashing begin.

    I'm sure God loves to be involved in "scientific studies". How many times have you stopped to take a survey by those freaking people that stand there in the shopping mall?

    Dr Richard Sloan, from the New York Presbyterian Hospital, described the concept of a prayer "dose" as "absurd".
    He said: "It requires us to abandon our unde
  • During the 16th century the insurance companies wanted to know whether ships with priests or missionaries onboard were a better insurance bet; so they went through the record books looking to see if they sank less. I mean surely God wouldn't kill his own people spreading the word of God to heathens in storms would he?

    Turns out it made no difference at all. Having a Holy Joe on board means you get no better chance of not swimming with the fishies.

    So the logical conclusion is that obviously the Moslems or

  • That someone felt this study needed to be done? or that someone might be surprised by the results?

    or is it that they didn't test the various belief systems against each other? - maybe they were afraid of the results.

    obviously to do this pointless study right people would have to be segregated by religion, seeing as most religions feel that the others are wrong, and therefore the praying won't work.

    either way its a bunch of nonsense.

  • Prayer or Pray-ee? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Halvard ( 102061 ) on Thursday October 16, 2003 @10:54AM (#7229325)
    Perhaps it's the pray-er and not the pray-ee that benefits by feeling better that they are trying to make a difference.

  • In other news (Score:3, Funny)

    by rudy_wayne ( 414635 ) on Thursday October 16, 2003 @11:12AM (#7229517)
    The earth is not flat.

  • You know, wishing won't make it so
    Hoping won't do it, praying won't do it
    Religion won't do it, philosophy won't do it
    The supreme court won't do it,
    the president and the congress won't do it
    The UN won't do it, the H-bomb won't do it,
    the sun and the moon won't do it
    And God won't do it,
    and I certainly won't do it
    That leaves you, you'll have to do it
  • Isn't the typical Christain position something like "God requires our faith". If so, wouldn't God have to not answer these prayers to keep Man from proving stuff that Man is not supposed to?
  • Clairvoyance, telepathy, and out-of-body travel don't seem to help on standardized, multiple-choice exams.

    They should get some of the patients to pray for the others, and see if the ones who pray do better. Then, they should tell some of the patients they're being prayed for, and see if those do better than the ones they don't tell.

    This study could be valuable if it provides a baseline set of procedures for studying questions like this. That they didn't find any difference suggests that their methods

  • Two tests were run.. one a while ago with a smaller group, and one now with a larger group and more rigorous conditions. Ok, but I'm wondering how the discrepancy is being accounted for?

    Remember people, the scientific method doesn't favor any particular hypothesis over any other.

    I'd like to know why the first test succeeded and the second failed. Maybe we can learn what happened in the first and do that more and help people recover from sickness more effictively.
  • Did any of the peoplr praying benefit from the prayers?
  • I'm not going to speculate whether god exists or prayer works. (Shocking.) But I'm trying to reason through why people continue to pray, even when results aren't observed...

    1. Person of faith prays for X to happen.
    2. One of two outcomes occurs:
    a. X happens. God answered prayer and/or it was god's will,
    so existence of god confirmed and person's faith grows.
    (More prayers to follow!)
    b. X doesn't happen. Person of faith believes it was god's will,
    so existence of god confirmed and person's fai

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