TV Station Makes Prayer Study Claim

[Ladewig]

I think another important question is how many measurements did they take about the patient's condition? Far be it from me to suggest that they chose a subset of the measurements of condition post hoc to support their hypothesis and ignored the others.

Oh wait, I just did

Exactly. I can't imagine that the people reciting the prayers said, "please make these people require significantly fewer antibiotics and significantly fewer tube insertions to assist in breathing."

The whole concept is a bit goofy - how does one know that no one in the control group isn't being prayed for by friends, relatives, and cow-orkers?

 

[Kochanski]

Someone told me yesterday that "prayer always changes things". I asked how so? "You'll find out when you get to heaven", she said.

OooooooK! Glad you filled me in on the prayer thing!

Makes me want to shove a pencil in my ear really far.

Hhmmm, my question to that person would be "then why do people always pray for something they need NOW?" "What good is an answer to pain and suffering in a time when, for what we are told, will be a time when we don't endure pain or suffering?"

But then I am with Lister, I would tell an android there is no Silcone Heaven just to watch their logic chip explode

And if they can make your head hurt, you should remember to return the favor

 

[bpesta22]

I remember the studies being seriously flawed, most likely Type II errors (the fishing expedition Ed referred too).

However, I submit that this is a testable hypothesis, and science can indeed answer the question of whether or not prayer works.

Were a well designed, internally valid study conducted showing that prayer worked-- and that study could be replicated-- I would abandon my atheism.

Prayer studies with null results don't prove atheism, but intercessionary prayer that works, with no confounds, and can be replicated, would to me be strong evidence of something supernatural who answers prayers p < .05.

 

[Zep]

The confounders to this type of study are such that it would actually be impossible to perform a reliable test.

 

[Ed]

I think that you could probably design a study that would be adequite but that begs another question.

It is unethical to withhold treatment that you know is beneficial from a group of control subjects. There have been a couple (cancer stuff but I don't recall the details) somewhat recently where the positive effect of the treatment was so obvious that the researchers were forced to stop the experiment so that all of the parients could be treated.

Now, if a "researcher" honestly believes that Prayer is "good" he is, ipso facto, commiting an ethical violation by doing research like this. If he does not know then he is showing a lack of faith and blaspheming by testing "the lord thy God". I wonder how they address these issues?

 

[Luke T.]

Funny thing is, the CNN report directly contradicts what WJAC-TV reported. WJAC-TV makes a report on a report and manages to report the exact opposite of what their source reported. In favor of the power of prayer, of course!

The WJAC report used results from two studies mentioned in the CNN report to create their report.

Here, from the CNN report, are the two relevant paragraphs:

Harris concluded that the group receiving prayers fared 11 percent better than the group that didn't, a number considered statistically significant.

Harris originally embarked on his study to see if he could replicate a similar 1988 study of intercessory prayer conducted at San Francisco General Hospital. That study -- one of the only published studies of its kind -- also found that prayer benefited patients, but by a different measure: The patients were able to go home from the hospital sooner.