Sci_Fidelity

I was chatting with a christian friend and the subject of faith healing came up. He claims a number of studies have been done showing those prayed for recovered faster than those who were not (I'm only aware of one study, and the results were inconclusive.)

So, I pointed out the obvious (to me) flaw- that only people with diseases or illnesses which can and do recover on their own are included in the studies. I asked why not have a study with two sets of amputees and see if the prayer group gets any new limbs. He thought this was ridiculous, but couldn't tell me why. I mean, if god can heal cancer or lupus, why can't he regenerate an arm or leg? Or for that matter, heal ilnesses that have basically a 100% fatality rate and no known spontaneous remission? Is there some rule against this?

Any christians or other theists care to shed some light? What do you think the results of such a study would be? Funny how we already know the answer isn't it?

Celsus

Hi Sci_Fidelity,

You don't even need to set the bar that high. Good epidemiology doesn't need to know why something happened, but it must be able to eliminate external factors as far as possible. So if you can arrange an epidemiological study such that both groups are as identical as possible, with the only difference being whether one group was prayed for or not (and the researchers not knowing which group (or individuals) were being prayed for), we could get some experimental data on the efficacy of prayer. Of course, my naturalistic biases tell me this would all be a waste of money, but I'm sure some Christians would be willing to try this out and open their methodology to public scrutiny. Or perhaps "faith" is one of those things that doesn't perform well when put up for observation...

Joel

Sci_Fidelity

Yes, but I was trying to pick something that would be immune to interpretation. It wouldn't have to be limb regeneration- there are numerous diseases (ALS comes to mind) that would suffice.

My real point (and question) is why would this not be a valid study? I would like to know if theists, esp. xians, would consider this a valid test of the healing power of prayer, and if not, why not.

Ojuice5001

If we're talking about my theology, your test certainly could not disprove the power of prayer. As you say, it's funny how we already know, before trying, that the gods won't cause limbs to regenerate. But I don't draw the conclusion that the gods don't exist. Rather, I think that they can influence only some events, rather than being able to cause miracles at will. And which events can they affect? The ones that are naturally indeterminate. I see natural determinism as having many holes in it, and supernatural causation as being the mortar that fills those holes.

So it's clear that there may be random factors involved in cancer, but there are much fewer in a kidney stone. Thus, it makes perfect sense that the gods can help you with cancer more than with a kidney stone.

The explanation a Christan would give might differ from mine. But there would probably be certain similarities.

Sci_Fidelity

That may be an explanation for non- omnipotent deities, but not for omnipotent ones.

Philosoft

It wouldn't because none of the studies are valid. In every case, researchers lack the ability to control the application of the independent variable - prayer. They have no idea who is praying for whom outside the confines of the experiment.

Tercel

Celsus,
Numerous prayer studies have already been done along the lines you suggest.
Metacrock has several pages of his website outlining them here. According to one source he quotes, 57% of such studies have found prayer to have statistically significant positive effects.

Also, especially for Philosoft, one source Meta quotes:
'Clearly, distant healing researchers are honing in on addressing the concerns voiced by critics... [there are many] scientific studies that researchers have conducted with yeast, molds, sprouts, and other life forms... these studies are free from many of the ethical and "extraneous prayer" problems commonly found in human prayer experiments'

Goliath

Here's a major problem with prayer studies that I've never seen any xian address:

Let's say you're trying to write up a prayer study on...oh, say, the supposed effects of prayer on cancer patients. Since you are positing a supernatural cause for the remission of the cancer (ie that the prayer caused a god to remove the cancer), you must also control for every other supernatural explanation (both conceivable and inconceivable). For example, you have to control against the following:

1. The hypothesis that Ra, the sun god cured the cancer.

2. The hypothesis that The Great Buggerdby danced into the room, and--using his magical powers--vigorously slapped his belly and simultaneously belched, causing magic to remove the cancer.

and many, many, many more (you probably get the idea).

Sincerely,

Goliath

Celsus

Did you read his "Methodology defense"? He doesn't even know what methodology is (or at least makes no attempts at understanding good epidemiology)! All he does is cite a bunch of papers (admittedly a few from Pub Med), and thoroughly spoils his case by mixing in the crackpots with the potentially good ones. His cite of JAMA had nothing to do with prayer--all it delineates is a lifestyle choice--it gives no reason to infer the supernatural (And of course, there's still the famously pseudoscientific article that somehow made its way into JAMA "On the Physical Death of Jesus Christ" or somesuch). And why didn't he cite PubMed articles like this one: Townsend M., Kladder V., Ayele H., & Mulligan T., Systematic review of clinical trials examining the effects of religion on health, South Med J 2002 Dec;95(12):1429-34 which states:

• Randomized controlled trials showed that intercessory prayer may improvehealth outcomes in patients admitted to a coronary care unit but showed no effect on alcohol abuse. Islamic-based psychotherapy speeds recovery from anxiety and depression in Muslims. Non-RCTs indicate that religious activities appear to benefit blood pressure, immune function, depression, and mortality.

As Goliath rightly points out, delineating the supernatural is an impossible feat. Perhaps God and Allah are both competing to heal their flock? Or perhaps we just haven't eliminated all external factors properly? Since I don't have access to the actual Pub Med articles, do a search on "intercessory prayer" and see the flurry of letters in response.

Epidemiological studies can be done well, but they can also be done badly. Anyone remember when the National Academy of Sciences released the results of the health risks of exposure to electromagnetic fields (EMF)? It took several years to unravel the flawed methodology. And with Metacrock not actually explaining the methodology, verifying the studies through letters on the Internet[!] and other assorted quote mines, I have every reason to smell a rat. Otherwise, I believe the Pope (or Byrd) is due a Nobel Prize.

Joel

Tercel

Celsus,

I did not say Metacrock's articles were perfect, or even good. They are merely the single most extensive (insofar as they cover the largest number of studies) articles on the subject I am aware of. You indicated your interest in such studies, so I thought I would point you in the direction of the largest collection I was aware of. It is up to you to further investigate and judge the individual merits of each study if you so wish.

Personally, I have theological issues with the subject of prayer, and therefore am inclined to deny that such prayer can work. I think God already knows what is good and best and does it without us having to convince, whine and remind him. Hence, to me if intercessary prayer does have an effect (which I am far from convinced of) it must be because God is somehow able to "channel" his power through us because of our willingness to cooperate rather than because we've convinced him to do some good he otherwise was too stupid to do.

God is Allah insofar as they are two different names for the same thing (the uncreated supreme being).