GunnerJ

Anyone remember that double blind test where heart patients who were prayed for without their knowledge and recovered faster? What was the final verdict on that?

Philosoft

I don't know what the official word was, but I recall mention of one obvious methodological flaw: there was no control over what others did with respect to the patients. That is, for instance, family members not directly involved in the "experiment" may have prayed to Jebus, Allah, Satan, Krishna or the IPU for all the researchers knew.

HeatherD

I did a quick Google.com search and this one summarizes it pretty well:

The Straight Dope

Azathoth

Here's a Mayo clinic study on it.The verdict in that study,was that it wasn't effective.

http://www.mayo.edu/proceedings/2001/dec/7612a1.pdf

And an entry in the skeptic's dictionary.

http://skepdic.com/prayer.html

Shake

I've heard of many a case where the patients' attitude seemed to play an inexplicable role in their recovery. Perhaps people who feel that family and friends would be praying for them (which they accepted as a good thing), would be in a better overall mindset and would be more receptive to the healing process and thus come out better. I mean, I can't imagine being in the hospital and not having relatives and friends know about it. Even though I don't think prayer would have an affect on my health, I know that there are people who would be praying for me, were I to be in the hospital for some major procedure.

Viti

Don't try to provide this evidence against the "Studies that prove prayer is effective" on Christian Forums...I about beat the brains outta my damn head and didn't make a dent

GunnerJ

Thanks everyone. I just wanted to know out of curiousity.