The SDMB Threadspotting focus on prayer caused me to wonder:
I was told of a Harvard Medical School study (published, somewhere) that supposedly tested the effect of prayer on disease. The story goes that there were two groups of comperably sick folk, one was prayed for, and the other (control) was not.
The sick people did not know the prayers, or even that they were being prayed for. The prayers did not ever meet the people they were praying for, and nobody cared what religion the prayers believed in or even to Whom they prayed.
I read the study a while ago. They did find improvement in the “prayed-for group.” However, the study was flawed in that it had a huge number of dependent variables that defined just what they meant by “improvement.” This meant that they were quite likely to have achieved some statistically significant differences by chance.
Now, if they continue to do independent studies of this type and the same pattern shows consistently, that might constitute some evidence of something.
Right now it’s really no different than one of those “guess what card I’m looking at” studies. If you only look at a single sample, you don’t really have proof.
IIRC, it was sponsored by the Templeton Foundation, which is affiliated with the HMS. They have since turned to studying the effects of patient’s own spirituality (and other attitudes) on health, which has proved to be a much more promising avenue.
I read about this study, and it didn’t do much for me. Too many odd variables. However, personal faith does seem to have an affect on people’s health. Keep in mind that personal faith is not the act of belonging to a particular religion, it is the true belief that the Universe (God, Goddess, Unknown Force, High Self, whatever) can and will help you if you know how to ask properly.
Then again, psychosomatic illnesses and healing have long been known to happen, so I’m not saying anything new.
If one group of sick people were told that there were some nuns (or whatever) praying for them, and another group was told that nuns were NOT praying for them, I have to think that a placebo and nocebo effect would have come into play.
But the experiment isn’t possible. Do you mean to tell me that the one group of sick people had NO ONE praying for them? Not family, not friends? How about whether they prayed for themselves? That would screw up the results.
Also, of course, the bottom line: no religion thinks that prayer works like aspirin. The prayers of some people is weightier than than the prayers of other people. Isn’t that why the Catholic Church has saints, because saints are (dead) people whose prayers are particularly efficacious?
So the whole thing is ludicrous. Another attempt by the loonie-fringe to make us think that there can be scientific “proof” for items of faith. Humpfh.
I have to admit that, at first, this study made me feel the way CKDextHavn seems to (see the “loonie-fringe” comment above). But, then I reconsidered:
I am a religious person, but that has nothing to do with my opinions on this particular matter (I think!). You see, what struck me about this study was that there was no connection between the pray-ers and the pray-ees. No one’s personal religious beliefs entered the picture, and psycosomatic effects were avoided.
It sees straight-forward: Those who were the object of prayer healed faster.
What am I missing?
Point #2:
No - I think you’re mistaken. I am not Catholic, anhave no intimate knowlege of the Church, but I believe that anyone can pray and all prayer is answered. It would certainly make me feel like I’m wasting my time if someone else has a more-direct route; why should I bother to pray, then?
I think that the way it works is that prayer is a lot like dealing with Vito Corleone: Some people owe him favors and some are owed favors by him. If I owe the Don a favor, I can’t ask for another until I pay my original debt. But, if I’ve done something he (or He) asked me to do, then I’ve earned the right to ask for something in return.
My point about the prayer study is that any results are highly suspect, because the test cannot rule out the possibility of people in the non-prayer group actually praying for themselves. It’s like, you want to prove that aspirin cures headaches, you need to run a test where one group gets aspirin and the other group doesn’t; you can’t allow individuals to take the aspirin themselves, regardless of which group they’re in… Worthless study.
Sdimbert, I’m missing your point. On the one hand, you seem to be saying that everyone’s prayer is of equal weight? On the other hand, you’re comparing prayer to “favors” from the Godfather, where there is clearly NOT equal weight?
I don’t know about reality, but the Bible certainly does not show everyone’s prayer to be of equal weight. You try praying for a special arrangement of dew (Gideon), or that life be restored to the dead (Elisha), or that lightning come down and ignite the sacrifice on your altar (Elijah) and see where it gets you.
So, my point: suppose that there is a very holy person praying for a few of the people in one group, unbeknownst to those conducting the study. Doesn’t that invalidate the results?
On a broader level, I think this is all quite silly. It’s akin to people looking for the remains of Noah’s Ark (or his cousin, Jonah of Ark), or of looking for logical “proof” of the existence of God by playing computer word-games with ancient texts. It’s fairly clear (at least to me) that if there is a God, He doesn’t want any such “easy” proofs of His existence sitting around, nor would He want any easy proofs of the efficacy of prayer (which would be the same thing.)
Nope, it ain’t gonna be that easy, and anyone who comes up with a “scientific proof” of some religious tenet, I’d suggest you need a grain of Lot’s wife before swallowing.
Dex is, of course, correct. Please post a link to this “study.” Absent a study to scrutinize, this topic does not belong in General Questions, or even Great Debates. But I can’t move threads to the LBBB (Yet. Bwahahahaha), so please post the link.
Yes–the control group was the “unprayed-for” group.
As CKDextHavn points out, this isn’t really an acceptable operationalization of prayer/no prayer though, because you can’t guarantee that the no prayer group wasn’t being prayed for in some fashion.
Of course Benson study has the same flaws as the Byrd study.
Sdimbert, I’m not sure if I was clear about the dependent variable problem. The prayed for group didn’t simply “get better faster.” Both groups were measured on a great many variables. The prayed-group improved on some of these and didn’t differ on others. On the basis of a single study it is highly likely that this was due to chance.
cher3: Thanks for the link. manhattan: LBBB? CKDextHavn: Here goes…
I agree with your first point (the suspect nature of the “control” group), to a point. I qualify my agreement only becuase the efficacy of the study has only a little to do with my OP. The study caused me to think… that’s all. Whether the study is “worthless” or not is irrelevant in so far that it did serve one purpose - it got us to talk.
I’ll try to be clearer:
I’ saying that everyone has an equal ability to pray and that all prayers are answered. But, that answer can change, depending on what you’ve done for God lately. The Biblical figures you mention (Gideon, Elisha, Elijah the Prophet, Noah) were all devout people… thus they merited favor from God; their prayers were answered.
If I lead a self-centered, hedonistic life, spending none of my time doing the things God has asked me to do, why should he do the things I ask him to do?
To return to Don Vito, if I haven’t done any favors for him, he won’t do anything for me.
I don’t see how these ideas are contradictory. My point is that yes, sometimes people ask others to pray for them becuase they feel that, due to some fault of their own, they are not as close to God as they should be. Thus they ask their Priest, Rabbi, Prophet, Medicine Man to pray for them.
I don’t think that this is the same as saying “The prayers of some people is weightier than than the prayers of other people.”
Your second point is well-made. Scientific “proof” of the existence of the divine (or any other issue of faith) is, at best, a harmless waste of time and, at worst, what lies at the root of Inquisition, Holocaust and Crusade.
You can cruise around there and check it out. Note they do seem to make some money off from all the seminars they do. Also it looked like the study on Intercessory prayer was still continuing and that all the data won’t be available until 2001-2002.
Also gives lists of his published and unpublished studies etc.
