Prayer Does Not Help Heart Patients 1156
mu22le writes "A recent study conducted by the Duke University Medical Center on 700 patients, found that having people pray for heart bypass surgery patients had no effect on their recovery. Researchers emphasized their work does not address whether God exists or answers prayers made on another's behalf.
This result seems to contradict a previous study by the same authors that reported "cardiac patients who received intercessory prayer in addition to coronary stenting appeared to have better clinical outcomes than those treated with standard stenting therapy alone"."
No point to this study (Score:4, Insightful)
And the people who scientifically minded already think that this fact is just plain obvious.
So while a study like this may be a amuzing anecdote, in the end its completely pointless.
Queue Religion Flamewar (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:No point to this study (Score:5, Insightful)
And Cellphones do/dont cause cancer.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Giving people a reason to think good thoughts about others is what we should be doing, not shooting down another avenue for people to feel good.
Re:Queue Religion Flamewar (Score:5, Insightful)
I am unreligious...but what harm is praying? (Score:4, Insightful)
btw, I dare ANY body who's watched a loved one suffer to deny that they said a few words to God 'Just in case'. It certainly can't hurt. I'm not religious, but I've been there.
Hmm.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Think of it as a psycology experiment (Score:3, Insightful)
They're praying for me? Oh, crap, I must be a goner.
Sure enough, those who were told they were being prayed for had more complications than those who weren't told.
On a more serious note, I think it's important to do this as a counter to the other "experiments" that showed that prayer helped people. Science is about reproducing results. If a scientist claims something is true, it's the obligation of others to prove them wrong or back up the findings.
Re:No point to this study (Score:2, Insightful)
Correct, since this might not change any one who actually believes in praying for a relative.
But suppose the result was positive, that the study proved (under rigorous scietific scrutiny) that the prayers had effect?
In that case, quite a bit of people (who doesnt pray now for the ill) would have changed. Not that all atheists will start beleiveing in God or anything, but at least some will start praying for the relatives etc
So, I guess you cant say that this study has *no* point at all.
Optimism and Placebo (Score:5, Insightful)
The prayer portion of the randomization was double-blinded, meaning that patients and their care team did not know which patients were receiving intercessory prayer. Per Institutional Review Board policies governing clinical research, all patients were aware that they might be prayed for by people they did not know, from a variety of faiths.
While double-blind tests are generally a good idea, perhaps another study should be carried out in which the patients themselves know whether people are praying for them (perhaps including people they know, as well as people of the faith they request). The increased optimism and placebo effect may produce something desireable (not saying it will, but it might be worth a study by the same people who expended their resources on this one).
Prayer and medicine (Score:5, Insightful)
Well of course not.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I am unreligious...but what harm is praying? (Score:5, Insightful)
Thought experiment: Replace 'God' with 'The King of the Potato People'. We'd call someone sending messages to the King of the Potato People to help their loved ones 'delusional', and put them on medication, and possibly in a padded cell.
Are you sure prayer is indicative of a healthy mental state? If so, explain how 'God' is different to 'The King of the Potato People', and why belief in one is delusional and psychiatrically treatable while the other is not.
Prayer may not be for the patient (Score:5, Insightful)
We instead decided to take our prayers to the Wester Wall (HaKotell), as jews have done for thousands of years. It's one incedent, and no basis for a conclusive "Prayer Works" post. But it did at least let us do something, other than sit and worry.
What is the alternative of a loved one to prayer? Nothing, nadda, zilch. Prayer may help, it may not. But if it's a choice between possibly useless prayer and definetly useless worrying, prayer makes more sense. (Pascals wager) If nothing else it makes you feel better.
I would be curriuos to know if there is a difference in stress related illnesses between people who pray (in one form or another) and those who dont. I know for me the worst source of stress is to have a problem and no pragmatic way to affect it.
Expectations (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Well of course not.... (Score:4, Insightful)
So prayer is just a placebo that only works when one is praying for one's self?
the "scientific" idiocy strikes again (Score:3, Insightful)
1 - Devoutly Religious and Also Scientific
Where's the big surprise here? Take a look at the Jesuits. In other surveys, the level of activity a Mormon has in his or her religion is actually positively correlated to the level of education. There are tons of religious doctors, lawyers, physicists, etc. I'm a statistician moving into systems engineering - and I have no trouble at all distinguishing between religious beliefs and scientific beliefs. This point is so obvious I shouldn't even have to bother restating it.
2 - The "Scientific" Bigots
It's pretty simple. You can be religious and you can be bigot (or not). You can be a scientist and you can be a bigot (or not). Anyone that thinks that being a scientist somehow frees people from their biases and prejudices needs to do a little research into things like eugenice. Hell, even setting aside nasty racism and such there's the simple fact that scientists, mathematicians, etc. are people. They have egos. They like to be right. And a lot of the time they don't care whether they're stating their opinion based on research or based on personal bias. They should - but they don't.
Anyone that believes in "blind faith" - the type of faith that essentially amounts to wishful thinking - is a religious nut in my opinion. There's no logical basis for this type of theology, but it is nonetheless extremely prevalent in American society. But there are also those who believe that faith should be reasonable or who at least make an interesting case for blind faith. Existentalist philosophy, for example, was started by Christian theologians like Kierkegaard.
In short, I'm sick of this tired old bullshit: Those people can trust science to make more fuel efficient SUVs, better bombs for Iraq and cure diseases. But when it proves that the earth is round, that the universe is 13-15 billion years old and that prayer doesn't really do anything, they think its hogwash. Those nutjobs are a SUBSET of religious people. A proper subset, if you want to get technical.
Meanwhile: And the people who scientifically minded already think that this fact is just plain obvious. is just plain wrong. Plenty of scientifically minded people believe in the efficacy (under certain conditions) of prayer. The types of people who think it's "obvious" that prayer does nothing are (again) a proper subset of scientifically-minded people. And if they think it's obvious, I'm inclined to say they're not really any different, in terms of their fanatic dogmaticism, than the religious nuts they criticize.
It comes to this: I don't care if you're religious or an atheist. All I want to see is that you're not a knee-jerk adherent of whatever worldview you subscribe too. It's the reason that people believe - more than the object they believe in - that really matters. As long as you believe rationally and honestly - you're always in a position to be proved wrong, admit mistakes, and develop improvements to your own worldview. But if you are dogmatic in your belief system then you are doomed to perpetual, slavish obedicance to concepts you never question or challenge. I don't care of those concepts are Newtonian physics, Einsteinian physics, quantum physics, or the 10 Commandments. It's the slavish obediance itself that I find most reprehensible and dangerous.
-storrmin
Re:And Cellphones do/dont cause cancer.. (Score:1, Insightful)
Yes! Down with pesky facts! Let us cleave to things we know must be true and ignore contrary data!
Realistically, there are all *kinds* of ways that prayer could hurt people. For example, if they patients know that they're being prayed for, it might convince them that they're in really bad shape. Or it could make them more willing to let go, thinking that they've got somewhere better to go.
But you already have the Truth, so what do you care?
Re:No point to this study (Score:3, Insightful)
There *is* a point, you just miss it (Score:5, Insightful)
The belief that prayer has beneficial medical effects is a widlely-held hypothesis that can be tested.
The results of such a test could improve treatment and life in general. Therefore, it's a worthwhile pursuit.
That *you* think it's silly doesn't change anything. Much sillier theories have been put to the test -- and gotten unexpected results.
Re:No point to this study (Score:5, Insightful)
It's worse than that. The bible has built-in defences against this kind of thing: Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God (Matthew 4:7, according to bible-kjv). You're sunk either way - if God doesn't exist then prayer has no effect (except maybe the placebo effect). If he does exist he'll hide his hand so that you can't make him do stuff...
Also, you can't control for how-many-million Christians in the world praying for "all the sick and infirm of this world", some of them adding "particularly John Smith, member of our church". If you don't control for it, you're implicitly assuming it has no effect.
Note: I'm an atheist. I'm also a scientist. This experiment doesn't convince me...
I
Re: No point to this study (Score:5, Insightful)
From the article:So how did they control for unauthorized prayers? Did they have little badges like radiation detectors, to ensure that the control group wasn't getting some unauthorized prayers?
Does not help? (Score:2, Insightful)
"The researchers found no significant differences among the treatment groups in the primary composite endpoint. However, six-month mortality was lower in patients assigned bedside MIT, with the lowest absolute death rates observed in patients treated with both prayer and bedside MIT."
How is a decreased 6-month death rate not helpful?
Re:No point to this study (Score:5, Insightful)
If it actually takes a funded scientific study to finally convince people,
Article said:
This result seems to contradict a previous study by the same authors
So, question to the original poster. Did the original study "convince" you that prayer was effective? If not, why would this study hold any more water than the previous (other than the obvious point that its outcome matched your particular views)?
Re:No point to this study (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No point to this study (Score:5, Insightful)
all this study does is confirm that either (1) there is no God or (2) God isn't amused by pseudoscientific studies. so the results support both the Atheist and orthodox Christian worldviews, and are only troubling to wishy-washy new agey-types that believe thinking happy thoughts should magically help other people. wee.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Big surprise (Score:1, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No point to this study (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No point to this study (Score:2, Insightful)
The only way to really test this study would be to have everyone (including close family and friends) withhold prayer (or not) and measure the difference. But, as this study said, that would raise a whole mess of moral and ethical complications.
Re:There *is* a point, you just miss it (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, there have been silly experiments where people's health improved after taking sugar pills.
Its called Placebo effect [wikipedia.org].
Re:I am unreligious...but what harm is praying? (Score:3, Insightful)
We may only have low level control of our body systems by using spooky things like prayer. No religion need be involved but the only access is via non-rational, non-logical modes of thought and conciousness.
A lot of eastern knowledge is wrapped in many layers of mysticism. It may be that you can only understand that knowledge if you think about it mystically. The problem is that people start to think the mystical thinking -is- the knowledge and a high percentage of that mysticism is really just useless hokem.
More prayer for control group? (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't understand the mechanism by which prayer could help. I cannot conceive how G-d could care more about a person prayed about than a person not prayed about. So I can't easily come up with any method, either scientifically or "religiously," where prayer would improve outcomes, (Disclaimer: I'm just a confused citizen of the world, not a theologin) but I pray anyways. If I hear somebody I care about is terribly ill, there's no usually no logical action I can take. Prayer makes me feel a little better about the situation.
I can come up with a way their control group could've been badly polluted. Some, perhaps many, "prayers" may have felt that it would be unethical or uncaring to not pray for the control group. So if every person in the study gets a prayer or two, but the anonymous control is getting the combined prayers of many, well, the control group would get more prayer. "Anonymous" means nothing to an omnipotent, omnipresent G-d.
No love from God. (Score:4, Insightful)
This study does at least show that, if whatever pertinent deity exists, it cares more about its ego than the needs of people who may die as the result of an illness. (Which, because the fact of existence remains hidden, ensures that more people will suffer eternal damnation.) In otherwords, “God” cares les about human life and than about being worshipped by those with superstition. (Which is ironic because if we were created, we were created with logical, thinking minds which drive us to discover cause and effect rather than pursue blind faith.) So whether or not such a supernatural entity exists, we must find ways to advance and rely upon our science rather begging for help from invisible men in the sky.
Re:No point to this study (Score:3, Insightful)
Why should I care if they don't seek medical treatment?
Yes, I know, "think of the children"... but we have to be careful here. Sure, some parents won't let their children go to the doctor because they think only prayer is an appropriate response to illness or injury. IMO, that's messed up, but...
What about people who think antiretroviral drugs don't extend the lifespan of HIV positive people? What about people who think nutrition and detoxification is a better treatment for cancer than chemo and radiation? (Note that both of those categories include accomplished scientists in those fields, not just granola nutjobs.) I'm uncomfortable mandating treatment they don't want, even for "the children".
When you think of how often medical science is wrong, in fact, I have trouble justifying *ever* forcing any treatment on a patient that that patient doesn't want. Especially since medical science is so mired down in seeking single pathogens for single diseases to the detriment of examining environmental and nutritional factors.
If the price of my being able at some time in the future to refuse a treatment that I think is pseudoscience -- despite its having a lot of funding from pharmaceutical companies and being backed by the NIH -- is that I have to sit by and watch parents make decisions about their children's care that I don't agree with... well, sorry for the kids but that freedom is worth more than a life.
As for the particulars of this study, I seem to recall a theory not too long ago that if someone knew they were being prayed for (particularly if they were religious), that would have a positive effect on their recovery. ie, the purpose may have been to see if the belief itself had any effect, not whether the belief itself was true. This study suggests the opposite, which is good to know.
Re:No point to this study (Score:3, Insightful)
Except the difference between a prayer and a spell is that you actually have to BELIEVE in prayer. I don't know of any recognised religion where you can just say a prayer and it's supposed to be answered or considered. You actually have to BELIEVE in what you are praying about/for. They just measured that people said a prayer.
There's no scientific measure for true belief.
Re:No love from God. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No point to this study (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure there is. We call it "gullibility." And there are psychological tests that measure it.
Re:I am unreligious...but what harm is praying? (Score:2, Insightful)
Worshipping "God" alongside millions of other people, at the result of your social conditioning *is* normal -- you're a freak if you don't, and no one wants to be a freak. Being convinced that, at no one else's prompting, the Potato King is master of your destiny means you've recinded control of your life and emmersed yourself in a fantasy world of your creation, making yourself an outcast. That's deviant.
Similiarly, being a totally normal, happy person after a severe tragedy is considered *abnormal*. Being depressed, irritable, psychotic or agoraphobic when you haven't suffered tragedy is *abnormal*.
One last problem with your analogy: Try telling people Jesus of Nazareth came to you this morning and made you breakfast, and told you everything would be OK. That would get you medicated. Telling people you put on your lucky blue socks, or had your lucky breakfast, or sent psychic messages to Arnold J. Rimmer, Alexander the Great's chief eunich, would just make people think you're hopelessly hopeful and grasping at straws.
Re:No point to this study (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No point to this study (Score:2, Insightful)
For instance... where the #$@#$ did platypuses come from? We have found "precursors" to modern man... but I see people like that every day at Walmart. It's called genetic defects. Anyways... back to the platypuses... has anyone ever found a single fossil record of any precursor?
Another good one is... why is the gene that determines eye color in humans the exact same in frogs... yet does absolutely nothing in them. I mean... the RNA in a virus has 90% of what it takes genetically to make a human. Sure sounds like some kind of pre-design to me. I mean... when is the last time you saw a programmer take typing tutorial program and turn it into a photoshop killer?
Now... that said... evolution at least on a small scale does happen. Look at the round-up resistant plants... or the anti-biotic resistant bacteria.
Anyways... science can't disprove God... and religion types can't prove God... everyone just needs to quit this pissing match and live their lives the best way they can.
What is the point of Prayer? (Score:2, Insightful)
If I truly need something, God most likley already knows about it, and it's up to Him if he does anything about it.
If I truly am thankful, God will know.
Moreover, saying Grace always seemed like a cruel joke: Thanks God for making me dependent upon a scarce resource. Sure, food isn't scarce in the U.S. (for unto us was given Agribiz, and it was deemed good by the markets...) but it is scarce elsewhere.
The biggest failure is the prayer for peace. Every Sunday Charlantan says "Pray for Peace," but it never comes. And, based upon the ministerial world view, the Peace they want is completely different than the peace a different faith wants.
Prayer as a meditation? Now, that sounds a good thing. Reflect on the days events. Question if I'm really doing the right thing. Probably not a bad thing. But asking the Holy Game Show Host for stuff? Well, seems like a waste of everyone's time.
Re:But to whom? (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't forget Cthulhu!!
Re:No point to this study (Score:3, Insightful)
Genes are just instructions, whether they get turned on or not (expressed) is a different matter. Our genes are full of what appears to be junk, it could be unexpressed genes, or viral debris, historical baggage, who knows so far. Birds retain the genes for teeth, they are just not expressed. Some scientists actually turned them on and created toothed chickens. A shadow from their dinosaur past?
The common genes you talk about are most likely for basic things like making the fats for cell membranes and metabolism. The last 10% is for the body shape, though even body shape such as two arms, 5 digits, two legs, head, etc are common throughout the vertebrates. I wouldn't be surprised if that gene for eye color turns out to be used in creating light sensitive pigments in their eyes, or maybe it is just turned off.
"I mean... when is the last time you saw a programmer take typing tutorial program and turn it into a photoshop killer?"
No, but I've worked with LOTS of code that has old junk in the libraries and historical baggage that has built up over time. Some of it gets turned off but isn't removed from the code base, sound familiar? If you didn't have the option of cleaning things up but were told that you had to turn that typing tutorial program into a crude word processor fast or die I'm sure you'd find yourself reusing code in interesting ways.
You agree on evolution on time scales we can observe but not on longer ones? I guess you'll never see a 5 million year long lab experiement (at least not NSF funded).
Re:No point to this study (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with the study, and Science is general, is that it takes one negative result to mean that the procedure is ineffective, when instead we should be looking at the anomaly of why there was a few cases of success in the first place! It's like trying to prove a negative by lack of success. You don't prove something is impossible by failing to demonstrate it!
i.e.
Just because one person fails to fly, doesn't mean flight is impossible.
~
Until you have been clinically dead, you have _no clue_ of what Life even is.
Re:No point to this study (Score:1, Insightful)
Yes, see sibling post.
Another good one is... why is the gene that determines eye color in humans the exact same in frogs... yet does absolutely nothing in them.
If what you said about the frog is true (based on your terrific platypus research, I doubt it somewhat), it's not suprising. Why do humans still have appendixes and wisdom teeth if they do nothing? It's the same thing; the frogs have DNA sitting around that may have been used by a ancestor but now is essentially useless. Our ancestors however utilized that DNA and so we do today. What is so odd about that?
I mean... the RNA in a virus has 90% of what it takes genetically to make a human. Sure sounds like some kind of pre-design to me. I mean... when is the last time you saw a programmer take typing tutorial program and turn it into a photoshop killer?
I call BS. Viruses don't have that much room for genetic code. That's not to say that they only have what's necessary. Retro viruses are thought to transmit genes between organisms by accidently picking up more code than they need, and then inserting it later on into germ cells of another organism (accounts for 8% of our genome according to the Wikipedia). But what does that have to do with pre-design or photoshop?
Re:No point to this study (Score:4, Insightful)
If he does exist he'll hide his hand so that you can't make him do stuff...
Except for the fact that you CAN make him "do stuff"-- you can make him "hide his hand." Do some statistical analyses on things that happen to Christians vs non-christians, or religious vs non-religious, and find out that every time God "miraculously" does something for a Christian (cures a disease, etc.), he must also do the same for a random heathen, otherwise statisticcal evidence would reveal his influence...
In the words of Robert Ingersoll... (Score:5, Insightful)
"The hands that help are better than the lips that pray."
A sentiment that remains unaffected by the outcome of such a study, IMO...
Sladhot's Headline Is Wrong (Score:1, Insightful)
2001 Study:
"Differences in clinical outcomes between treatment groups were not statistically significant. However, those receiving noetic treatments 'had lower absolute complication rates and a lower absolute incidence of post-procedural ischemia during hospitalization,' said Crater."
2005 Study:
"The researchers found no significant differences among the treatment groups in the primary composite endpoint. However, six-month mortality was lower in patients assigned bedside MIT, with the lowest absolute death rates observed in patients treated with both prayer and bedside MIT. Patients treated with bedside MIT also showed changes in self-rated emotional distress prior to catheterization and stenting."
The new study did not find that prayer has no effect, it reinforces the previous finding that prayer improves recovery. What prayer has no effect on is the actually outcome of surgery, which is exactly the same thing that the orginal study found. Before people go off an debate the meaning of these studies they should at least bother to read them.
Re:No point to this study (Score:5, Insightful)
Nobody is making any attempts whatsoever to use the law against believers in any way.
to force gay marrige on a community,
This isn't happenning in any way. It turns out that the constitution doesn't allow this kind of discrimination and so a bunch of asshats jumped up to pass a bunch of discriminatory laws and are even attempting to amend the constitution because they are too cowardly to live in a free country.
to help assisted suicide?
A person's life is there own. It's again, as always, the other side trying to shove their morality on others. If I want to kill myself and want to get help doing it how could that possibly be any of your business? It isn't. Not in any way.
The only difference is which side you agree with.
Not at all. This is a blatantly false statement. The difference is that one side is consistently trying to limit other people's freedom because they are too cowardly to live in a free country.
If it's "your side" then it's good to force your ideas and beliefs on the community, if it's the "other side" then it's a bad thing.
There is a deep fundamental difference between choosing to live your life according to your own beliefs and forcing your beliefs on others. Every single example the OP gave was of cowards trying to shove their beliefs down other people's throats. Every nonsense counter example you made up is not happening in any way.
Nice try though.
If you want to believe some hokey retarded old nonsense, knock yourself out.
If you don't want to marry somebody of the same sex, don't.
If you want to uselessly suffer through a terminal illness draining your savings into the medical industry instead of leaving it to your family, that's your choice and nobody is saying otherwise.
Nobody is trying to force you into anything. They're only trying to prevent you from sticking your nose into their business. That's the only issue.
The way that prayer works (Score:2, Insightful)
Prayer operates on the following principles:
a) we have to do everything in our power to make the desired result happen first
b) the desired result has to be God's will
When the leader of a nation at war did not send enough troops to the army, the frustrated general wrote to the leader and said:
"11 Behold, could ye suppose that ye could sit upon your thrones, and because of the exceeding goodness of God ye could do nothing and he would deliver you? Behold, if ye have supposed this ye have supposed in vain."
"21 Or do ye suppose that the Lord will still deliver us, while we sit upon our thrones and do not make use of the means which the Lord has provided for us?"
(http://scriptures.lds.org/alma/60 [lds.org])
That's why the 'religious' person in New Orleans who says "I know a huge flood is coming, but I'm going to just stay here and pray, because I know God will protect me," isn't going to be protected, because they are not doing all they can do to protect themselves first.
Similarly, if I get sick and say "I'm not going to a doctor; I am just going to pray to be healed!" then I am very likely not going to receive any help from God, because I am not making use of the means that He has provided for me (a doctor, medical help, etc).
I definitely know that prayer can and does work. The key is that we have to do all we can do first.
Re:There *is* a point, you just miss it (Score:3, Insightful)
The belief that prayer has beneficial medical effects is a widlely-held hypothesis that can be tested.
The results of such a test could improve treatment and life in general. Therefore, it's a worthwhile pursuit.
That *you* think it's silly doesn't change anything. Much sillier theories have been put to the test -- and gotten unexpected results.
I agree that there is, scientifically, nothing wrong with testing silly hypotheses. And as you say, occasionally, you get unexpected results.
However, we live in a world with very finite resources. I am disappointed that institutions such as Columbia University chooses to put their money on this kind of thing (it was a big study, and probably expensive). Don't they have more relevant research projects to fund? And the fact that the belief is widely held doesn't really change anything in my mind, that argument could be used to start research projects on astrology and TV psychics as well.
Tor
Re:No love from God. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:No love from God. (Score:5, Insightful)
I think his point was that God appears to care more about his own ego than the needs of suffering people. You're just picking at his wording of it.
Also, the point you make raises one of the problems I have with mainstream religion; it's that it often devalues humanity and life (this life). All that is good and virtuous and extricated from humanity and placed in the symbol of "God," leaving humanity a base creature whose only salvation is in groveling at the feet of this perfect and vastly superior being. People glorify the afterlife and in return devalue the life they are living now, which is also earthly and "impermanent," as you say.
So why persue science and medicine at all? why make discoveries? why create art? why listen to music? why start a family? Why not just spend our entire lives cloistered and worshipping this divine being who gives our life its only true meaning?
Re:No point to this study (Score:2, Insightful)
Christian: Please God, save little Timmy and cure his lukemia..." God: Nope, sorry, according to my schedule, I planned on him becoming worm food next week.
"His plan" is a Christian's way of saying "Don't question it" when a critic asks something that wasn't thought of by the talented fiction writers.
Re:No love from God. (Score:2, Insightful)
So then why did God make doctors?
Re:No point to this study (Score:4, Insightful)
I just don't know how to proceed with someone who has an almost cartoon understanding of biology. The platypus is not an unexplainable animal. That such an animal, with both reptilian and mammalian features exists is only surprising in that such an order found a niche that it could survive for tens of millions of years while more successful placentals managed to overtake their older cousins.
The platypus does not have a duck's bill. The eggs it lays are not at all like a bird's. It's tail is only superficially like a beaver's. You really do need to actually read, as opposed to repeating goofy nonsense that is either cribbed from some Creationist site, or from a six year old's reader.
Re:No point to this study (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem with the study, and Science is general, is that it takes one negative result to mean that the procedure is ineffective
That's simply not true in general, or in this case. If you had read the article this certainly isn't the first study on the effects of prayer. It's also not true at all that science relies on ONE negative result to make conclusions. Scientists are constantly testing theories in new ways. To say that science relies on one single experiment for anything is simply blind.
Just because one person fails to fly, doesn't mean flight is impossible.
This is true. And just because every person that's walked off a cliff has fallen doesn't mean that everyone always will. Maybe when the stars align is juuust the right way, and the moon is in the right position in the sky someone standing on the right cliff won't fall off it. I'm not going to try it, but if you want to perform the experiment just to be sure, be my guest.
The point is that at a certain point you've proven something "good enough" for most people to accept it as true. What's the standard? Testing the "walking off a cliff" theory is insane at this point because it happens every time. How many times do you have to do the "pray for person X" before you accept that it doesn't work?
As for "anomaly of it working in a few cases", how did you know it worked? People prayed for someone that wasn't supposed to survive, and the person got better? In that case you really have no evidence whatsoever that the praying had any effect. The explanation is simply that doctors don't always know everything. Why do you need some supernatural explanation when our simple lack of knowledge will suffice?
Re:No love from God. (Score:1, Insightful)
basically the "I know you are but what am I" from the schoolyard.
Re:No point to this study (Score:5, Insightful)
So, because the person did a study that fails to demonstrate any efficacy from prayer, then he must have intended to bash God and religion?
First, what does that say about the faithful, if nobody with faith would be willing to conduct such a study?
Second, how does this notion of his anti-religious bigotry square with the fact (mentioned in the friggin' *summary*) that the same researcher did an earlier study that actually found a small statistical effect from prayer? Did God shoot his dog in the interim?
You don't like the message, so you're shooting the messenger.
To answer your "rhetorical" question: Because once the participants in the study know the people they're praying for, it becomes impossible to distinguish between effects stemming from the actual prayers, and the effects stemming from other involvements. For example, if you're praying daily for your neighbor Bob, you might also be more likely to visit him, take him a casserole, send flowers, or whatever. There's no anti-religious bias here; only anti-screwing-up bias.
Re:No love from God. (Score:4, Insightful)
Why not, indeed. It appears that neither God (if He/She exists) nor Ma Nature (aka the evolutionary process) really cares much what you do. Both refuse to hand you any information about themselves, saying in effect that you're on your own and free to live your life as you wish.
There is a widespread belief that God will punish you if you don't properly worship Him (or Her). But we have many conflicting claims on just how this worship is to be performed, and most of those claims include punishment if you pick the wrong style of worship. So the sensible approach might be to not worship at all, under what might be called a "reverse Pascal's Wager": It's better to suffer the mild punishment of being a noncommitted believer than to deal with the much greater punishment of having picked the wrong worship style.
And, of course, if Ma Nature (aka
Re:No point to this study (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No love from God. (Score:3, Insightful)
Whilst it is fair to point out that not all religious people "devalue" life, it is ridiculous to lump a large group of diverse people under the label of "liberal atheist crowd", and suggest that they devalue life based on these absurd arguments.
* People who are pro-choice (not pro abortion) often believe that before we are born is before what the OP would class as "this life". Yes, I know that you don't believe that, but the point is that that's what they believe, so there is no inconsistency in their beliefs.
* Presumably valuing humanity also means valuing one's freedom to end one's life. There is more to quality and value of life than simply how long it is. So yes, allowing euthanasia is entirely consistent with valuing humanity and life.
* "Cosmic accident" - have fun with your strawman.
* I don't see how valuing life is equivalent to teaching them things that we have no idea are true just to comfort them - do you advocate teaching other fairy tales too? Also, I'm not sure that "You will burn in hell for eternity if you aren't a Christian" is comforting - I'd say that sort of stuff's quite disturbing for a child.
* If you go back more than 100 years, most people were religious; one might equally ask why slavery occured in the first place, if the religious people valued a good life for slaves too? Obviously it wasn't due to atheists being in power!
* Well, maybe you are just a slightly evolved ape, but the rest of us didn't evolve from apes, and no one says that the evolution is "slight" either (whilst the number of genetic differences may be small when looked at as a percentage of total genes, clearly the resultant differences are quite significant). Oh, and "nothing more" is strawman again. What do you claim - that we're "nothing more" than blobs made by God - how do we differ from the way animals were made? And you say women are nothing more than bits from men's ribs?
Re:No point to this study (Score:2, Insightful)
A Christian can pray. If they get what they prayed for, they count that as a win. If they don't, they say that "God didn't want it". Regardless of the outcome, the act of prayer serves to justify and confirm belief.
Re:No point to this study (Score:3, Insightful)
One interpretation could be that they wouldn't perform such a study because to the faithful, it is a literal and self-evident truth that prayer helps their physical and spiritual state, therefore there would be no point in such a study.
They're "faithful", y'know, they have "faith" - that is, belief without proof.
FWIW, I'm a non-faithful "death and taxes" kind of cynic...
T&K.
Re:No point to this study (Score:3, Insightful)
If I thought the point was to persuade, I would immediately dismiss this as being from a biased source, and ignore it.
Re:No point to this study (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:No point to this study (Score:3, Insightful)