Thing is, the effect appears to have been pretty robust, and not so easy to wave off with an unforseen variance.
All the study could possible show is that God doesn’t answer the prayers of those who are being counted in a scientific study.
Trying to devise a scientific test for the existence of an omniscient,omnipotant being is absolutely pointless. If you get a statistically insignificant result, all that proves is that God intended you to get that result.
But what if the study showed a significant difference? That would prove that there is a God. But that boils down to God choosing this time to reveal himself, and if he has so chosen, then you don’t need the test. You’ll find out anyway.
So the study was pointless. It’s basically a $2 million dollar program to convince God to reveal himself.
Ah, so the objections to the study’s conclusions (like that no one can measure how much people are praying, for who, and for what) operate when you don’t like the conclusion, but if you did like the conclusion, they get ignored? Check.
The study was pointless. But if people were going to make these sorts of lame criticisms of the conclusions if they turned out how they didn’t like, why fund the study? Because the criticisms aren’t sincere. If the study had shown a positive effect for prayer, they wouldn’t have been made or acknowledged.
It’s annoying: I’ve seen some cites which said the purported detrimental effect of “known prayer” was statistically significant, and some that say that it isn’t (random sampling from Google news).
Probably should just look at the paper, but I’m not at work.
There was a suggestion that this group might have thought themselves very sick, sick enough to be prayed for. There was also a group who got prayed for and didn’t know, and this group had results similar to the one not prayed for.
The Times article says this effect needs more study.
It might also mean that not only does God not reveal himself, but he hides - even at the expense of the health of believers. Nice guy.
Two centuries ago, when science was so popular it was a fad, many churchmen were sure science would reveal god - and why not? When it didn’t - when Darwin knocked the underpinnings out from human specialness, they started saying what you just said.
And a positive result would not prove God either - it might indicate some sort of psychic healing power.
Hmmm. An “anti-placebo” affect (sometimes referred to properly as “nocebo”). Perhaps not unlike believing one has been cursed. Simple anxiety. Great, so prayer will only help you if you already think you need it?
I’m kind of on the fence, but I’m leaning toward the crowd that says these studies are a waste of time and money. But it’s Templeton’s money to blow, I suppose.
You know, if the negative results hold up, doesn’t that at least demonstrate that telling people that you are praying for them is mean of you?
Again, to a true believer, all a null result in this study proves is, “God will not allow himself to be tested.”
Anyone would believes in God has already had to come to grips with the fundamental question, “Why does God allow bad things to happen to good people?” There are plenty of historical examples of devout communities that have been mistreated badly by fate. If you can explain those away, you aren’t going to be moved by a statistical study.
Well, I’m in perfect form once again: Anti-placebo effect. With a frackin’ E.
Sure. Just like in politics you don’t bother with the hard-core opponent but there are plenty of fence sitters to be swayed.
I’ve just skimmed the paper.
The extent to which the authors normalized all factors under their control, as well as the sociological breakdown of the subjects, is almost obsessive in its approximation of perfection. I must say it’s rare in my reading experience to see a study clinical where such attention to detail is so clearly evident. The authors were scrupulous in detailing the constraints placed on the nature of the prayer used in the study, and describing their rationale. I tend to agree with their rationale, and think their study design is far superior to prior efforts, where subjects might even have limited contact with their spiritual intercessors. Given how carefully they controlled the demographics of the subjects, I see even less justification in the OP’s cited objection than before, and can think of no rational reason why, given the size of each group, one should expect a significantly different amount of prayer contamination to occur in one group vs. another. It’s an absurdly nitpicky objection in this circumstance, I think, given the generally poor quality of other studies. I mean, I wish somebody would fund more trials like this on diet, for crying out loud.
Anyway, the null hypothesis of 50% complication rate is very clearly matched with a high degree of confidence by groups 1 (uncertain, not prayed for) and 2 (uncertain, prayed for). The confidence intervals are tight with all the groups, and the p value btw. 1&2 is humongous. The quality of the results is, quite simply, excellent. Prayer under these very reasonable constraints does precisely squat in the most rigorous terms one can put it.
If only they’d kept it to these two groups.
The 8% increase in “any complication” rate for group 3 vs. 1 has a p value of 0.025, which is downright remarkable given the tightness of the result, the fact there is absolutely no proposed mechanism for the action of prayer whatsoever, and hence precisely zero naive cause to see a difference. If you narrow the analysis to “major event” criterion, the result lacks significance, though, with a p value of 0.065, you know damn well it’s close enough to significant that religionists would crow about the “trend” if it skewed in the other direction. Differences in mortality were not even close to significant (p=0.58). So “significance” depends, and neither the cites claiming the difference was nor was not significant are wholly accurate. I’m satisfied with the general statement that knowing you are being prayed for by unseen strangers can cause significant, if relatively minor, harm. Which is bizarre. The authors say it may be a “chance finding”, but I actually think their data looks so good I’d accuse them of being mealy-mouthed about it. If I were a drug exec. and this were my therapy, you’d bet I’d be worried. Sure, nobody died (in numbers you wouldn’t expect), but you can bet it’d still be an expensive problem in litigation, and I’d expect to lose.
But damned if I can explain it at all. They supply no information about the state of mind of the patients, so, while I agree anxiety is a resonable hypothesis, there’s zero reason based upon the data supplied to evoke emotional state or any other naturalistic cause. I’m highly confident it could have been found if they’d been vigilant about psychology, but it will probably remain completely mysterious.
Count me in among the annoyed. This is fine clinical science, and hence not only a complete waste of time, but a tragically complete waste of time given the money and care they must have thrown at it. The detractors here are 100% correct: This study won’t change a single mind, extends our understanding of the purported salubrious effects of prayer not at all, leaves us justifiably perplexed as to how it might actually be harmful, and argues against its own quality with political correctness in the discussion. Absurd. Fatuous. Somebody start a letter campaign to get the Templeton Foundation spend that dough on something that will actually benefit somebody.
If God wasn’t interested in participating in this study, then we are left with the affect that telling someone that you are praying for them apparently isn’t all that great for them (though the effect, if it exists, is pretty minor, so we’re just sort of bandying minor points here).
And anyone who believes in hell is already such a monster that concern about evil is going to be no bar to belief.
Isn’t it true that if you detect such an extranerous result in a statistical experiment you can’t really claim it as a freebie? Don’t you merely note it and if you think it worthwhile run another experiment specifically designed to test for that factor?
Which they did not do. I’m not talking about claiming it as a “freebie”, I’m talking about not shrugging it off as an inoccuous mistake. Again, if this were a study about the potential of a new cardiac drug with an unforseen side-effect of this magnitude and significance, and clearly no efficacy, it would kill it dead in its tracks unless a few other studies couldn’t replicate it. If it were already on the shelves and I were testing it for a new cardiac indication, I’d be very worried no matter how efficacious it was for its approved indication. They treat the study design with the utmost care, but they’re positively flippant about the result. Do they take this seriously or not? Everything but the briefest mention in the discussion indicates they did, which makes the matter all the more strange, in my mind.
Perhaps they don’t consider it worth pursuing, as I doubt anyone else is going to want to fund a repeat study. I certainly can’t imagine the Templeton Foundation being interested in pouring money into possibly replicating what must have been quite an unsatisfactory outcome for them.
Why not? Maybe as long as they aren’t part of a study, prayer works great. Or maybe it works great all the time, but God subtly twisted with the minds of the researchers to make sure their selections would even out the study. Or maybe he knew who they’d pick as the ‘controls’, and healed them too to hide his helping.
See where I’m going with this? You cannot use science to test for the existence of a supreme being. Either he doesn’t want his presence known, in which case he can control the experiment and the people like mice, or he decides that he does want his presence known, in which case it hardly matters that the study even exists.
Such things are only useful in a James Randi sense - if someone claims that a supernatural event is testable and knowable, then you can test for it and show that it ISN’T testible. That’s about it.
Huh? How does believing in hell make you a monster?
If you think that eternal physical torture can ever be called “just” or reconciled with a compassionate God, you either having some thinking to do or you have some issues with empathy and fairness.
But they weren’t testing for the existence of a supreme being - they were testing a specific claim - that prayer improves the medical outcome. No result from this study would either prove or disprove god (though you could be sure a positive result would have people claiming that god was proven.)
Many western religions claim that God has an impact on the real world. We can test for traces of this impact. Sure, God can do anything - but would you agree with the following argument:
Geological, historical and physical evidence the flood didn’t happen is worthless, because God could have cleaned everything up
It’s not that different from yours.
God seems to like to go to extremes, like flooding the earth,destroying cities etc,even killing a lot of innocents to punish a few.
People have many different Gods,they all claim their prayers are answered. If one prayed to a rock, a carrot, a mule, or a person he could say(if he got what he asked for) he could say What he prayed to heard his prayer, if he didn’t get it he could say,What ever said no!
I have noticed as medical Science has improved, more prayers for health have grown in number. Not too many years ago one could pray one’s head off for a cure for polio, now it is rare same with many other deceases.
Monavis
I’ve done it before and I’ll do it again:
Like I told Twin before, I invite your supposed God to smite me now if he’s not impotent and imaginary. Since I’m about to hit submit reply, we can see he’s still not there. Likewise, there isn’t any Satan waiting to cart my soul off to hell when I die. He’s just as welcome to take me now and save us all the time if he’d like. Otherwise he can kiss my ass, too, because I bow before no gods nor demons.