Below is a draft for a study on remote healing - "prayer", if you will.
Two questions for you all:
1. Are there any methodological flaws? Any ways to make it better and/or more airtight?
2. Would this qualify for the challenge? It isn't about any *personal* supernatural powers, but is about them in general, and run *by* me. It is, of course, pretty obvious as to methods and what constitutes a positive result.
Comment?
-------------------------------
A new study on remote healing - DRAFT
Sai Emrys, 8/13/05
Summary
There have been studies done before on the efficacy of prayer. They have, however, suffered from some important flaws that render them nearly useless for answering the two main initial questions on the topic: does it work, and if so, how can it be made to work better? (The question of how it works is obviously a rather more difficult one.)
Previous studies have made mistakes:
• being too vulnerable to a purely “placebo effect†explanation;
• having far too small a sample size to be worth anything statistically;
• having significant breaches of double-blind;
• not tracking potentially important variables that can then be pointed to as confounds;
• not being controlled, or being purely retrospective;
• admitting numerous biases, e.g. selection bias for the measurements;
• being exclusive to one religion, or otherwise being manipulated to make a point of ideology by the study’s organizers;
• having unmeasurable results.
The number of studies that manage not to have one (or many) of these flaws is simply too few. So, I want to run a study that will address this.
First, I want to be clear on what this study is designed to examine: remote prayer. “Remote healing†is a more accurate but less intuitive description. Simply put, it will measure whether – and if yes, how much – people with serious illnesses are affected by people praying for them, in a remote location, having no communication between the two sets of subjects.
The recipients will be a group of people drawn from various hospitals, who all have similar, serious, terminal conditions. They will be asked to answer a short survey (demographics, views on religion, etc. – see below), give informed consent to participating in the study, and choose how they want their information to be used. In no event will they know whether they were selected to be prayed for or not, or by whom, unless they abandon the study or the study comes to an end; nor will their doctors.
Potential disease candidates include: late-stage AIDS; cancer; coma; etc. Ideally, the condition chosen will be something that has some chance of cure or spontaneous remission; few acute (vs. ongoing) medical treatments; low life expectancy; and easily rated progress. Having a moderate amount of various trackable characteristics – e.g. pain, typical days spent in hospital, typical quality-of-life ratings, etc. – will make observing any change as a result of the study be easier.
The healers (as a generic and semantically unambiguous form of “pray-ersâ€) will be drawn from various religious groups, preferably spread across the world and from a diverse pool of religious beliefs and practices. Each will be assigned to pray for one recipient at a time (and each recipient will have one or zero people assigned to pray for them), once a week, for six weeks. They will be asked to keep a log – to verify that they did in fact carry out their duties – and of course to note any particular unusual events or experiences they wish to record.
Each recipient will be randomly placed into one of five groups: control (50%), informed & directed (12.5%), informed & undirected (12.5%), uninformed & directed (12.5%), and uninformed & undirected (12.5%). These latter groups do not affect the central question of whether prayer works at all; all of them will receive an equal amount of prayer, just in different ways.
Those in the “informed†group will have personal (but unidentifiable) information given to their assigned healer. Namely: demographics; first name; general location (e.g. state); detailed description of their diagnosis; and if possible, photo and detailed updates on the recipient’s status. This will not be given to those in the “uninformed†group. Both groups will be given the patient’s ID number (randomly assigned) and a basic description of their diagnosis at the beginning of the study.
Those in the “directed†group will have their healer instructed to pray for specific benefits. E.g., for the cure of their disease, reduction in pain, prolongation of life, and general happiness etc. Those in the “undirected†group will have their healer instructed to pray in a purely general way: e.g. along the lines of “may God’s (Universe / Mother’s / etc) will be doneâ€. This will stay the same for any particular recipient, but will change – 50-50 – for each healer.
All patients will be tracked as to the course of their disease, their symptoms, etc. (See below.)
At the end of the study, the groups will be compared to see if there are statistically significant differences in symptom score change, length of hospital stay, money spent in treatment, length of survival since beginning the study, etc. – as well as in relevant variables that are expected to be randomized into equality, such as demographics, doctor skill, initial diagnosis, etc.
That’s it, really. If recipients and healers mutually wish to have their contact info released to each other, they will be introduced; if not, not. Everyone will get a copy of the overall results, as well as a copy of the results of their own trials.
Info gathered on recipient:
• General:
o Name
o Random ID number
o Random confirmation number (disclosed only to recipient)
o Demographics
 Gender
 Age / date of birth
 Religion
• Type
• Fervency / activity
• Length of time practicing
o This religion
o Anything seriously
 Socioeconomics
• Ethnicity
• Income
• Parents’ income
 Location
o Picture
o Belief in the efficacy of prayer
o Recipient of prayer otherwise
 Self-prayer
• Frequency
• Style
• Length
 Known recipient (e.g. church, family)
• Ditto
o Personality (intro/extroversion etc)
• Disease
o Prognosis at start (e.g. expected survival rate, life expectancy, etc)
o Dated progress notes
o Numeric measures
 Amount of meds used by type (e.g. anesthetics)
 # days in hospital
 # “incidents†(positive or negative)
 Self-reported pain / quality-of-life scores
 $ spent in treatment
 Doctor skill (e.g. # years practicing medicine)
 Length of survival
Info gathered on healer:
• Same demographics etc
• Usual praying style
o Directed / undirected
o Ritual / group / appeal to ___ / …
o Duration of one “prayerâ€
Variables:
• Prayed for or not
• Personal information about recipient given to healer (e.g. name, gender, age, photo, detailed description of current problem / past history, status updates, general location, vs. minimal)
• Directed vs. undirected prayer
Two questions for you all:
1. Are there any methodological flaws? Any ways to make it better and/or more airtight?
2. Would this qualify for the challenge? It isn't about any *personal* supernatural powers, but is about them in general, and run *by* me. It is, of course, pretty obvious as to methods and what constitutes a positive result.
Comment?
-------------------------------
A new study on remote healing - DRAFT
Sai Emrys, 8/13/05
Summary
There have been studies done before on the efficacy of prayer. They have, however, suffered from some important flaws that render them nearly useless for answering the two main initial questions on the topic: does it work, and if so, how can it be made to work better? (The question of how it works is obviously a rather more difficult one.)
Previous studies have made mistakes:
• being too vulnerable to a purely “placebo effect†explanation;
• having far too small a sample size to be worth anything statistically;
• having significant breaches of double-blind;
• not tracking potentially important variables that can then be pointed to as confounds;
• not being controlled, or being purely retrospective;
• admitting numerous biases, e.g. selection bias for the measurements;
• being exclusive to one religion, or otherwise being manipulated to make a point of ideology by the study’s organizers;
• having unmeasurable results.
The number of studies that manage not to have one (or many) of these flaws is simply too few. So, I want to run a study that will address this.
First, I want to be clear on what this study is designed to examine: remote prayer. “Remote healing†is a more accurate but less intuitive description. Simply put, it will measure whether – and if yes, how much – people with serious illnesses are affected by people praying for them, in a remote location, having no communication between the two sets of subjects.
The recipients will be a group of people drawn from various hospitals, who all have similar, serious, terminal conditions. They will be asked to answer a short survey (demographics, views on religion, etc. – see below), give informed consent to participating in the study, and choose how they want their information to be used. In no event will they know whether they were selected to be prayed for or not, or by whom, unless they abandon the study or the study comes to an end; nor will their doctors.
Potential disease candidates include: late-stage AIDS; cancer; coma; etc. Ideally, the condition chosen will be something that has some chance of cure or spontaneous remission; few acute (vs. ongoing) medical treatments; low life expectancy; and easily rated progress. Having a moderate amount of various trackable characteristics – e.g. pain, typical days spent in hospital, typical quality-of-life ratings, etc. – will make observing any change as a result of the study be easier.
The healers (as a generic and semantically unambiguous form of “pray-ersâ€) will be drawn from various religious groups, preferably spread across the world and from a diverse pool of religious beliefs and practices. Each will be assigned to pray for one recipient at a time (and each recipient will have one or zero people assigned to pray for them), once a week, for six weeks. They will be asked to keep a log – to verify that they did in fact carry out their duties – and of course to note any particular unusual events or experiences they wish to record.
Each recipient will be randomly placed into one of five groups: control (50%), informed & directed (12.5%), informed & undirected (12.5%), uninformed & directed (12.5%), and uninformed & undirected (12.5%). These latter groups do not affect the central question of whether prayer works at all; all of them will receive an equal amount of prayer, just in different ways.
Those in the “informed†group will have personal (but unidentifiable) information given to their assigned healer. Namely: demographics; first name; general location (e.g. state); detailed description of their diagnosis; and if possible, photo and detailed updates on the recipient’s status. This will not be given to those in the “uninformed†group. Both groups will be given the patient’s ID number (randomly assigned) and a basic description of their diagnosis at the beginning of the study.
Those in the “directed†group will have their healer instructed to pray for specific benefits. E.g., for the cure of their disease, reduction in pain, prolongation of life, and general happiness etc. Those in the “undirected†group will have their healer instructed to pray in a purely general way: e.g. along the lines of “may God’s (Universe / Mother’s / etc) will be doneâ€. This will stay the same for any particular recipient, but will change – 50-50 – for each healer.
All patients will be tracked as to the course of their disease, their symptoms, etc. (See below.)
At the end of the study, the groups will be compared to see if there are statistically significant differences in symptom score change, length of hospital stay, money spent in treatment, length of survival since beginning the study, etc. – as well as in relevant variables that are expected to be randomized into equality, such as demographics, doctor skill, initial diagnosis, etc.
That’s it, really. If recipients and healers mutually wish to have their contact info released to each other, they will be introduced; if not, not. Everyone will get a copy of the overall results, as well as a copy of the results of their own trials.
Info gathered on recipient:
• General:
o Name
o Random ID number
o Random confirmation number (disclosed only to recipient)
o Demographics
 Gender
 Age / date of birth
 Religion
• Type
• Fervency / activity
• Length of time practicing
o This religion
o Anything seriously
 Socioeconomics
• Ethnicity
• Income
• Parents’ income
 Location
o Picture
o Belief in the efficacy of prayer
o Recipient of prayer otherwise
 Self-prayer
• Frequency
• Style
• Length
 Known recipient (e.g. church, family)
• Ditto
o Personality (intro/extroversion etc)
• Disease
o Prognosis at start (e.g. expected survival rate, life expectancy, etc)
o Dated progress notes
o Numeric measures
 Amount of meds used by type (e.g. anesthetics)
 # days in hospital
 # “incidents†(positive or negative)
 Self-reported pain / quality-of-life scores
 $ spent in treatment
 Doctor skill (e.g. # years practicing medicine)
 Length of survival
Info gathered on healer:
• Same demographics etc
• Usual praying style
o Directed / undirected
o Ritual / group / appeal to ___ / …
o Duration of one “prayerâ€
Variables:
• Prayed for or not
• Personal information about recipient given to healer (e.g. name, gender, age, photo, detailed description of current problem / past history, status updates, general location, vs. minimal)
• Directed vs. undirected prayer
