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Goodbye Jesus

Intercessory Prayer. (Something For End3)


bornagainathiest

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Hello End.

 

Our previous walk down this road...

 

http://www.ex-christian.net/topic/63786-schizophrenia-and-genetics/page-25#.VC6W_vldUuk

 

...came to a rather unsatisfactory end, but I've dug deeper and uncovered a rich lode of material on the topic, which I just knew you'd be interested to see.

 

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Here's a 2006 listing. (7 pages, 21 separate studies and 10 reviews of intercessory prayer studies)

 

http://www.acperesearch.net/intercessory_prayer_studies.pdf

 

As far as I can tell, everything listed here falls into the category of DIP. (Distant Intercessory Prayer) ,

This is where those prayed for and the those doing the praying are widely physically separated.

 

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Below is currently the only example (dating from 2010) I've found of PIP. (Proximal Intercessory Prayer) 

Here those prayed for are either touched by the prayer givers or are in close physical proximity to them.

 

A report on the study from the Indiana University Bloomington

 

http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/14990.html  

 

The original article, as published by the Southern Medical Journal.

 

http://www.docvadis.es/jorge-cordero/document/jorge-cordero/estudio_de_los_efectos_terap_uticos_de_la_oraci_n_de_intercesi_n_proximal_en_discapacidades_auditiva_y_visual_en_la_zona_rural_de_mozambique/fr/metadata/files/0/file/Study_of_the_Therapeutic_Effects_of_Proximal.5.pdf

 

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Ok End, the above looks just dandy, doesn't it?

But before we can even think of looking at their results and their conclusions, the very first thing we need to ask is this.

 

 "Was the methodology used to conduct a given study up to the required scientific standard?"

 

If it was, then that study can be considered as bona fide science.

We can then move on and begin to examine the study itself, it's results and the conclusions drawn from them.  

 

If it wasn't, then the study in question and it's claims should be viewed as suspect.

 

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So how do we do judge what is suspect and what is not?

 

This article shows the way.  http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html

 

Helpfully the author... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Norvig ...has done a lot of the work for us. 

He reviews 16 intercessory prayer studies, rating them as positive (P), negative (N) or flawed (F).  

So those that rate an F are the ones we should treat as suspect.

 

A handy table of these results can be found in the 'Conclusions' section of Norvig's following article.

 

http://norvig.com/prayer.html

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Thanks,

 

BAA

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Goodbye Jesus

BAA he's just going to say God chose not to answer because they were praying wrong.

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  • Super Moderator

^

 

Or he'll answer your question with a question.

 

Or he'll make another off-the-wall/off-subject comment.

 

Or he'll just ignore you altogether.

 

GONZ9729CustomImage1539775.gif

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C'mon, you guys.  

 

Give the guy a break.

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Now, End's on record as saying that he believes science can test for God.

If that's a religious belief of his, then yes, no amount of hard evidence will dissuade him from that position.  But if he's willing to put his religious beliefs aside and look at the evidence from a non-religious and purely scientific p.o.v., then the evidence should persuade him - one way or the other.  If he isn't willing, then it's Nye vs Ham, all over again.

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But we should, at least, give him the chance, right?

Otherwise we're prejudging him and condemning him before the fact.  

 

Thanks,

 

BAA.

 

 

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I know the question is for End3, but here are some of my thoughts. (NOTE: I haven't read the links except for the table you mentioned at the end.)

 

The problem IMO with these studies is that the designers assume that prayer is simply Christian magic. They assume that the intercessor uses his/her skill and willpower to cause the desired outcome.

 

What if prayer is simply an exercise to increase empathy in the intercessor, and it doesn't affect the outcome at all? IMO this would be much more consistent with Christianity. God will do the best thing regardless of what the intercessor prays. The intercessor practices loving others to make himself/herself more in-sync with God's love.

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I've asked End a couple of times why he doesn't just pray to fix things (like war, famine, etc.).  It hasn't been answered.

 

I posit that NO christian actually believes prayer does anything, or they ALL sell themselves short and only believe their god helps people get an A on a test (or help their football team win, unless they don't win).

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I know the question is for End3, but here are some of my thoughts. (NOTE: I haven't read the links except for the table you mentioned at the end.)

 

The problem IMO with these studies is that the designers assume that prayer is simply Christian magic. They assume that the intercessor uses his/her skill and willpower to cause the desired outcome.

 

What if prayer is simply an exercise to increase empathy in the intercessor, and it doesn't affect the outcome at all? IMO this would be much more consistent with Christianity. God will do the best thing regardless of what the intercessor prays. The intercessor practices loving others to make himself/herself more in-sync with God's love.

Then why pray at all, D? And doesn't this view contradict the Bible, which says "ask and it shall be given"?

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I know the question is for End3, but here are some of my thoughts. (NOTE: I haven't read the links except for the table you mentioned at the end.)

 

The problem IMO with these studies is that the designers assume that prayer is simply Christian magic. They assume that the intercessor uses his/her skill and willpower to cause the desired outcome.

 

What if prayer is simply an exercise to increase empathy in the intercessor, and it doesn't affect the outcome at all? IMO this would be much more consistent with Christianity. God will do the best thing regardless of what the intercessor prays. The intercessor practices loving others to make himself/herself more in-sync with God's love.

Then why pray at all, D? And doesn't this view contradict the Bible, which says "ask and it shall be given"?

 

That is a hard question to answer. smile.png

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I know the question is for End3, but here are some of my thoughts. (NOTE: I haven't read the links except for the table you mentioned at the end.)

 

The problem IMO with these studies is that the designers assume that prayer is simply Christian magic. They assume that the intercessor uses his/her skill and willpower to cause the desired outcome.

 

What if prayer is simply an exercise to increase empathy in the intercessor, and it doesn't affect the outcome at all? IMO this would be much more consistent with Christianity. God will do the best thing regardless of what the intercessor prays. The intercessor practices loving others to make himself/herself more in-sync with God's love.

While I certainly agree that that is what prayer actually does, emotionally helps the one praying, the claim is that praying for others can have a tangible, healing effect on others. This is a testable claim, hense the studdies. To highlight a side point that BAA is perhaps getting at, even if prayer were to be shown to have a possitive healing effect on the ones prayed for, we would still not be justified in concluding that a god is the causitive agent of that effect. The religious would, of course, assume it as evidence of their god, and such results COULD potentially turn out to be evidence for god. But Many many more aspects of the phenomenon would have to be explored before we could even begin considering god as a conclusion. If there were some possitive measurable effect correlated with prayer, all that would mean is (for the time being), is that (somehow) the act of praying has some effect for some unknown reason.

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I know the question is for End3, but here are some of my thoughts. (NOTE: I haven't read the links except for the table you mentioned at the end.)

 

The problem IMO with these studies is that the designers assume that prayer is simply Christian magic. They assume that the intercessor uses his/her skill and willpower to cause the desired outcome.

 

What if prayer is simply an exercise to increase empathy in the intercessor, and it doesn't affect the outcome at all? IMO this would be much more consistent with Christianity. God will do the best thing regardless of what the intercessor prays. The intercessor practices loving others to make himself/herself more in-sync with God's love.

Then why pray at all, D? And doesn't this view contradict the Bible, which says "ask and it shall be given"?
That is a hard question to answer. smile.png
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Dido. If a Christian were to agree that god's will is done whether or not prayers are offered, and that prayer only serves to help the one praying, then many bible verses on prayer are falsified.

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I know the question is for End3, but here are some of my thoughts. (NOTE: I haven't read the links except for the table you mentioned at the end.)

 

The problem IMO with these studies is that the designers assume that prayer is simply Christian magic. They assume that the intercessor uses his/her skill and willpower to cause the desired outcome.

 

What if prayer is simply an exercise to increase empathy in the intercessor, and it doesn't affect the outcome at all? IMO this would be much more consistent with Christianity. God will do the best thing regardless of what the intercessor prays. The intercessor practices loving others to make himself/herself more in-sync with God's love.

While I certainly agree that that is what prayer actually does, emotionally helps the one praying, the claim is that praying for others can have a tangible, healing effect on others. This is a testable claim, hense the studdies. To highlight a side point that BAA is perhaps getting at, even if prayer were to be shown to have a possitive healing effect on the ones prayed for, we would still not be justified in concluding that a god is the causitive agent of that effect. The religious would, of course, assume it as evidence of their god, and such results COULD potentially turn out to be evidence for god. But Many many more aspects of the phenomenon would have to be explored before we could even begin considering god as a conclusion. If there were some possitive measurable effect correlated with prayer, all that would mean is (for the time being), is that (somehow) the act of praying has some effect for some unknown reason.

 

 

That's right, Neverlandrut.

 

Even if a positive healing effect was unambiguously detected in one experiment, that on it's own wouldn't be clear evidence that the causal agent was the Christian God of the Bible.  The effect would have to be replicated by other, independent experiments using the same methodology.  If it couldn't be replicated, then it would remain as a single, stand-alone result that would tell us nothing.  

 

As it stands, none of the Intercessory Prayer experiments I know of have shown a positive healing effect.

Nine (9) of the experiments listed here... http://norvig.com/prayer.html ...are rejected as Flawed (F).  Five (5) are unequivocally Negative (N) and the Byrd and Harris experiments rate (P,N).  As a layman, I don't really know what this dual notation means.  But I speculate that there's a degree of statistical ambiguity involved - preventing either of those experiments being rated as a clear and unequivocal Positive (P).

 

So, to my knowledge there's not one unambiguous detection of a positive healing effect for any experiment involving intercessory prayer... period.

 

However, being the meticulous and thorough person I am, I'll keep on looking.

 

Thanks,

 

BAA.

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http://www.godandscience.org/

 

 

The above site features three pages on the efficacy of intercessory prayer.

 

http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/religionhealth.html

http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/prayer.html

http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/coronary.html

 

I am investigating further.

 

Thanks,

 

BAA.

 

 

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Thanks for the link, this is fantastic! I learned a lot from both the general expt design article and the one on prayer.

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I've asked End a couple of times why he doesn't just pray to fix things (like war, famine, etc.).  It hasn't been answered.

 

I posit that NO christian actually believes prayer does anything, or they ALL sell themselves short and only believe their god helps people get an A on a test (or help their football team win, unless they don't win).

 

When I was a xian I believed that prayer worked, including for the more important requests in life.  Granted, it never occurred to me that world hunger wasn't changing, but I did pray for sick people, believing some improvement, even in their subjective experience, was a sign that prayer worked.

 

It's so good to be living in reality now.

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Progress Report

 

http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/coronary.html

 

The above page cites the following paper... http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=485161

using the words... Positive Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer in a Coronary Care Unit Population.  This is the Harris study entitled, "A Randomized Controlled Trial of the Effects of Remote, Intercessory Prayer on Outcomes in Patients Admitted to the Coronary Care Unit" and published in the Southern Medical Journal (vol 81, pages 826 - 829) in 1988.

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The very same study is evaluated here... http://norvig.com/prayer.html  (See # 3)

However, Norvig draws attention to two experimental design flaws.  These are, the Lack of a Specific Hypothesis / Overzealous Data Mining and Lack of Repeatability and Reproducibility

 

Also, neither the Harris study itself nor Norvig ever use the words, 'Positive Therapeutic Effects' to describe the results of the study. 

The Harris study was an attempt to reproduce the results of the Byrd study (see # 2) and Norvig has this to say about both.  "Taken individually, Byrd and Harris are both professionally-done studies with mixed results : they suggest that prayer may have an effect on some variables but not on the seemingly most important ones such as death rates.  Taken together, they show that we don't yet have a single for which intercessory prayers works reproducibly." In his conclusions, Norvig writes...

Byrd.  (Rated P / N) A mostly well-done study that is negative on most variables ; on all variables when you combine with Harris.

Harris. (Rated P /N)  A well-done study that is negative on most variables ; on all variables when you combine with Byrd.

 

Additionally, in 2000 a correction to the original paper was published.

http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=485357

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My investigation into the claim (of the Positive Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer) made about the Harris study on the godandscience.org site has flagged up the following points of concern.

 

1.

There is no use of the word, 'positive', in the study itself regarding it's results.

Even though the results are cited as 'measurable', Harris et al are careful to use the words 'possible' and 'suggestive' when drawing their conclusions.  If the result was unambiguously positive, then there would be no need for them to qualify their conclusions in this way. 

 

2.

Norvig's evaluation of the Harris study does not reveal an unambiguously positive therapeutic effect either.

 

3.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studies_on_intercessory_prayer

Nor is there any indication of an unambiguously positive therapeutic effect mentioned here.

 

4.

Both Norvig and Wikipedia draw attention to the experimental design flaws in the Harris study.

Yet, the godandscience site makes no mention of these critically important factors.

 

5.

The 2000 correction to the Harris study isn't mentioned on the godandscience site.

 

6.

There appears to be no way for any reader of the godandscience site to make a fair and balanced assessment of the Harris study, just from the material and links presented.  For that to be possible, links to Norvig's pages, the Wiki page and the correction should be given.

 

Conclusion

 

If anyone limits themselves only to the information about the Harris study presented at godandscience.org they run the risk of concluding that the Harris study found a positive therapeutic effect for intercessory prayer (it did not) and that the study met all of the scientific criteria (it had design flaws and was later corrected).

 

What is particularly worrying is that Rich Deem, the webmaster of the godandscience site, is ideally professionally qualified to recognize and appreciate these problems and to have provided the relevant links, so that his readers are in possession of the full facts about the Harris study.

 

Please go to http://www.godandscience.org , About and click on, 'Rich Deem's background.

 

Please draw your own conclusions.

 

Thanks,

 

BAA.

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PROGRESS REPORT 2

 

http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/prayer.html

This Godandscience website presents an in-depth look at three studies on the effects of Intercessory prayer.

 

A Report on the Papers:
  1. "Positive Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer in a Coronary Care Unit Population"2
  2. "A Randomized, Controlled Trial of the Effects of Remote, Intercessory Prayer on Outcomes in Patients Admitted to the Coronary Care Unit"3
  3. Effects of remote, retroactive intercessory prayer on outcomes in patients with bloodstream infection: randomized controlled trial.4

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The first is the 1988 Byrd study, that comes in for criticism from Norvig.  According to him it suffers from the following experimental design flaws.

 

Warning Sign D7,  Overzealous data mining, picking out 6 of the 30 variables after the fact.

 

Warning Sign D6   Treating variables as independent when they are not.

For example, congestive heart failure automatically leads to a need for diuretics; Byrd counts these as two separate significant results. That's like saying you had a positive result on both "temperature (Fahrenheit)" and "temperature (Centigrade)."

 

 Warning Sign D7  

Byrd made up the scoring method AFTER the data was in. He should have made it part of the hypothesis BEFORE the data was gathered.

 

Warning Sign D2, Lack of a double-blind study.

Although the patients and Byrd were blinded, Byrd was not blinded when he made up this scoring method, and his assistant, Janet Greene, was not blinded throughout, even though she interacted with the patients and did data entry.

 

Warning Sign D3, Too few subjects. 

Although 393 subjects sounds like a lot, far fewer had serious problems. For example, 7 patients in the control group had cardiopulmonary arrest, compared to 2 in the prayer group. The difference is significant, but the numbers are very small.

 

Norvig rates the Byrd study as....

"A mostly well-done study that is negative on most variables ; on all variables, when you combine with Harris."

 

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The second is the 1988 Harris study, which I have examined at length in my previous post.

 

This Wikipedia page... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studies_on_intercessory_prayer ...has the following comments to make about it.

 

A 1999 follow-up by William S Harris et al. attempted to replicate Byrd's findings under stricter experimental conditions, noting that the original research was not completely blinded and was limited to only "prayer-receptive" individuals (57 of the 450 patients invited to participate in the study refused to give consent "for personal reasons or religious convictions").[9] Using a different, continuous weighted scoring system – which admittedly was, like Byrd's scoring, "an unvalidated measure of CCU outcomes" – Harris et al. concluded that "supplementary, remote, blinded, intercessory prayer produced a measurable improvement in the medical outcomes of critically ill patients", and suggested that "prayer be an effective adjunct to standard medical care."[10] However, when they applied Byrd’s scores to their data, they could not document an effect of prayer using his scoring method. Critics have suggested that both Byrd's and Harris's results can be explained by chance.[11] Dr. Richard P. Sloan, PhD, compared the Byrd and Harris studies with the sharpshooter fallacy, "searching through the data until a significant effect is found, then drawing the bull's-eye."[12]

 

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Lastly, the 2001 Leibovici study cited by godandscience is treated seriously, as a bona fide scientific study into the effects of retroactive intercessory prayers.

 

The catch is, this study is a... spoof.

 

It was never intended to be taken seriously, as the Wiki page tells us here... 

"After many scientists and scholars criticized this retroactive study,[24] Leibovici later stated that it was "intended lightheartedly to illustrate the importance of asking research questions that fit with scientific models."[25]

 

And as Norvig writes, here...

"Note that the article was published in the Christmas issue of the British Medical Journal, which traditionally includes articles of a light-hearted or humorous nature (such as the Smith and Pell December 2003 paper on the efficacy of parachutes). Clearly, Leibovici and the editors meant it as a kind of joke, to challenge our understanding of statistical results. (This subtlety was lost on many commenters.)"

 

And here...

"Intended to be taken as a joke and is best interpreted that way."

 

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Since the Byrd and Harris studies are flawed and ambiguous and the Leibovici study is a spoof, why does Rich Deem, the webmaster of godandscience, write the following?

 

1.

He titles the page in question, "Scientific Evidence for Answered Prayer and the Existence of God".

 

2.

Under the heading, "Implications of the Studies" Deem writes...

"Obviously, science has demonstrated in three separate studies the efficacy of Christian prayer in medical studies. There is no "scientific" (non-spiritual) explanation for the cause of the medical effects demonstrated in these studies. The only logical, but not testable, explanation is that God exists and answers the prayers of Christians. No other religion has succeeded in scientifically demonstrating that prayer to their God has any efficacy in healing. In fact, studies that have used intercessors from multiple religious backgrounds have failed to prove the efficacy of prayer.6 The Bible declares that Jesus Christ has power over life and death and sickness and is able to heal us, both physically7 and spiritually.8 He gave this power to His disciples and those who follow Him.9"

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As I have demonstrated, there is no scientific evidence for answered prayer to be found in the Byrd, Harris or Leibovici studies.  The first two are flawed and yielded ambiguous (not clearly positive) results.  The last is meant to be taken as a joke.

 

Deem's claim, "science has demonstrated in three separate studies the efficacy of Christian prayer in medical studies" is therefore unjustified and not based upon the documented evidence.  No such demonstration has occurred.  

 

There are no "medical effects demonstrated in these studies"  That is a falsehood.

 

God is not required to be "the only logical, but not testable, explanation" because nothing of scientific or statistical value was discovered or demonstrated in any of these three studies.  

 

Also, Deem's claim that, "No other religion has succeeded in scientifically demonstrating that prayer to their God has any efficacy in healing" stands upon the alleged 'successes' demonstrated in these three studies.  There are no such successes.  This claim can therefore be summarily dismissed.

 

Thanks,

 

BAA.

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I have one more contribution to make in this thread about the claims made on this site... http://www.godandscience.org/  

That will be when I have the available time.  Once that's complete I will make a further search for any further material about intercessory prayer.  If nothing new is forthcoming, then I'll close up this thread with a summary of my findings.

 

If anyone has any new and relevant material to contribute, I'd appreciate the input.

 

Thanks,

 

BAA.

 

 

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So RE: post 5, this is how I spent the last few years of my Christianity. That view was seen as worldly, and they would acuse, rightly in my case, that I wasn't really praying much. Well, once I was on to the situation by my mid 20s there's no going back. You figure it out, it's been figured out. I can't, for instance, unlearn what I know of how electricity and radio waves work. But most Christians don't believe this, or they wouldn't be asking God for things, or asking others on their Facebook to ask God for things. I admit I never used to ask God for the little stuff you always hear about: had I done so, I could have just blown off the lack of response. I generally "appealed to the Man" when it counted, if I was putting in a request for myself and my family. Perhaps those that do so for a lot more things, including the small ones, can deal with the statistical hit and call that God. The problem with prayer as I see it, they require that you hope for the event, and many consider it sinful that you will prepare for the inevitable, which I always did, and was often called prideful for. The statistically inevitable happened more often than not, and then I felt glad I'd prepared for it, and guilty for having prepared for it, and also, usually, glad that I didn't tell anyone I'd prepared for it. What a waste of time, energy and resources. While we're at it, why don't we just bleed off the lines from the power plant right into the ground?

Now as to those intercessory types. I have known a few. They are quite empathetic but disturbing, I think. They can't seem to keep their emotions under control very well and cry a lot about a lot of things. The psychics and some of the Christians might call them empaths, I guess. But empathy only works if there are results. Maybe that's my bias. my empathy for people in situations gets played out in being involved in solutions for people or doing things in the community. It seems a hell of a bad way to live to be draining off all that energy praying when nothing is statistically likely to happen. To be fair, these aren't the types who do much with statistics or problem solving, so they may not notice and remain blissfully ignorant. But surely, they must find out somehow, when things don't work out. Talking yourself in circles to justify things can only go so far, I think, but maybe for some it goes a lot further than the rest of us. Anyway, when you meet some of these, they have just not ever appeared to me to be very stable.

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This is the first half of my last report about the site, Godandscience.org, detailing the content of this page...

 

"Scientific Studies that Show a Positive Effect of Religion on Health"

 

Twenty-nine (29) studies are listed, seven (7) of which cannot be independently checked and verified because no links are provided, the links are broken or are unable to be accessed for other technical reasons.  Therefore, the claims quoted  by Rich Deem (in italics) about these studies cannot be tested.  

 

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Krucoff, M. W., S. W. Crater, C. L. Green, A. C. Maas, J. E. Seskevich, J. D. Lane, K. A. Loeffler, K. Morris, T. M. Bashore, and H. G. Koenig. 2001. Integrative noetic therapies as adjuncts to percutaneous intervention during unstable coronary syndromes: Monitoring and Actualization of Noetic Training (MANTRA) feasibility pilot. Am. Heart J. 142: 760-767.

A pilot study
8
 (limited to 150 patients) examining the efficacy of noetic (non-pharmacological) therapies (stress relaxation, imagery, touch therapy, and prayer) found that "Of all noetic therapies, off-site intercessory prayer had the lowest short- and long-term absolute complication rates." The results did not reach statistical significance due to the small sample size, but a full study is planned.

(Broken link.)

 

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Hughes M. Helma, Judith C. Haysb, Elizabeth P. Flintb, Harold G. Koeniga and Dan G. Blazera. 2000. Does Private Religious Activity Prolong Survival? A Six-Year Follow-up Study of 3,851 Older Adults. The Journals of Gerontology Series A: Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences 55: M400-M405.

A six year study of 3,851 elderly persons revealed that those who reported having rarely to never participating in private religious activity had an increased relative hazard of dying over those who participated more frequently in religious activity. Whereas most previous studies showed a positive effect for organized religious activities, this study showed that personal religious activity was also effective at reducing mortality.

(Subscription required to access the content of this study.)

 

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Koenig HG, Hays JC, Larson DB, et al. 1999. Does religious attendance prolong survival? A six-year follow-up study of 3,968 older adults. J Gerontol Med Sci. 54A: M370-M377.

(Faulty link)

 

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Bliss, J.R., McSherry, E., and Fassett, J. 1995. NIH Conference on Spirituality and Health Care Outcomes

Chaplain Intervention Reduces Costs in Major DRGs. Patients in the intervention group had an average 2 day shorter post-op hospitalization, resulting in an overall cost savings of $4,200 per patient. Randomized 331 open-heart surgery patients to either a chaplain intervention ("Modern Chaplain Care") or usual care.

(No link given.)

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McSherry, E., Ciulla, M., Salisbury, S., and Tsuang, D. 1987. Social Compass 35: 515-537.

Heart surgery patients with higher than average personal religiousness scores on admission and post-op had lengths of stay 20% less than those with lower than average scores.

(No link given.)

 

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Chu, C.C., & Klein, H.E. 1985. Psychosocial and environmental variables in outcome of black schizophrenics. Journal of the National Medical Association. 77:793-796.

Studying 128 Black schizophrenics and their families, investigators reported that Black urban patients were less likely to be re-hospitalized if their families encouraged them to continue religious worship while they were in the hospital (p<.001).

(No link given)

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Florell, J.L. 1973. Bulletin of the American Protestant Hospital Association 37(2):29-36.

Crisis-intervention in orthopedic surgery: Empirical evidence of the effectiveness of a chaplain working with surgery patients. Randomized patients either to a chaplain intervention, which involved chaplain visits for 15 minutes/day per patient, or to a control group ("business as usual"). The chaplain intervention reduced length of stay by 29% (p<.001), patient-initiated call on RN time to one-third, and use of PRN pain medications to one-third.

(No link given.)

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The remaining twenty-two (22) studies show that people holding religious beliefs, attending religious ceremonies and performing religious activities (Bible reading and prayer) gain health benefits over other groups of the population.  What cannot be determined from these studies however is if these benefits are derived from an external, supernatural source or from a psychosomatic mechanism within the patients themselves.  That question remains open and is not addressed by any of these studies.
 
One study deserves special attention and this will be the subject of the second half of my report.
 
Thanks,
 
BAA.
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BAA, I suppose those studies have some way of taking into account that a correlation doesn't imply cause and effect? Like maybe the types of people drawn to religion and spirituality were more likely to have had good nutrition as children, and that good nutrition is the real cause of any benefits?

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BAA, I suppose those studies have some way of taking into account that a correlation doesn't imply cause and effect? Like maybe the types of people drawn to religion and spirituality were more likely to have had good nutrition as children, and that good nutrition is the real cause of any benefits?

 

The correlation/causation issue is still a recurring problem in studies like this, D.

My opening post has this link... http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html ...about poor experiment design.  Here's what Norvig has to say about the issue.

 

Warning Sign I7: Confusing Correlation with Causation
correlation.png

xkcd: Correlation

Statistical studies can easily show that one variable is correlatedwith another. Proving that one causes the other is more difficult. Consider this story about a study of cell phones and brain tumor risk. First, the study is a good example of hysteria: it caused a public outcry about the dangers of cell phone usage. However, if you read the article carefully, you'll see that the main finding does not actually address causation of cancer by cell phones, only correlation. The study looked at people who already had brain tumors. They found that tumors are more likely to occur on the side of the head on which the phone was most often held. But there are three possibilities that would lead to this correlation: (1) Holding the phone on one side causes a tumor, (2) Developing a tumor causes one to hold the phone on that side, and (3) another variable or set of variables causes both. Because it was a long-term study, we can largely rule out (2): the study would have covered the time before tumors developed. But the experiment doesn't distinguish between (1) and (3). For example, assume that 90% of users hold the phone in their right hand. Now we'll make an unwarranted assumption for this exercise: we'll assume that 80% of tumors develop in the right side of the brain and that tumor location and cell phone usage are completely independent of each other. With a sample of 1000 people we'd get this:

 

  tumor on R tumor on L hold on R 720 180 hold on L 80 20
 

How many get the tumor on the same side as the phone? (720+20)/1000 = 74%.  Only 26% get it on the opposite side, so if you're not careful you might claim that "cell phone usage triples the incidence of brain tumors" when actually (given the assumptions of this exercise) tumor location is completely independent of cell phone usage.

 

Now let's change the assumptions. We'll stick with 90% right-hand use, but we'll assume that 10% of tumors are caused by the cell phone and appear on the same side, and the other 90% are split evenly between the two sides. With 1000 people we get these expected results:

 

  tumor on R tumor on L hold on R 495 405 hold on L 45 55

So this time we get (495+55)/1000 = 55% of tumors on the same side, 20% less than last time, but this time there is a causation. So if we can't rely on the numbers to distinguish causation from correlation, what can we do? We need a counterfactual intervention: to prove A causes B, we need to have cases where A may or may not occur, and then observe that when we intervene to make A occur, B happens, and when we make A not occur, B does not happen. The problem with this study is that it looked at people who were known to have cancer: B has already happened and we have no way to intervene. One good way to intervene is with a randomized controlled trial. Of course it is difficult to do a randomized trial on topics like this. First, brain tumors are very rare, so you'd need a lot of subjects. Second, it would be difficult to get subjects to go along with the trial: "OK, Ann, you're not allowed to use a cell phone at all for the next twenty years. Bob, you can use one in your right hand, and Charlie, you have to hold it in your left hand. ...".

 

How do you move from correlation to causation, if you can't do a randomized controlled trial? For example, how can you show that smoking causes lung cancer? I won't go into details here, but you could look at the literature on propensity scoresdouble robustness, and selection bias. Ideally you'd like to have as many of the following as possible: 

  1. Observational studies (for example, studies of patients with and without cancer; some who smoke and some who don't) with balanced values for related variables: age, sex, history of disease, etc.
  2. A very strong correlation. For example, lung cancer is about 20 times more likely in smokers than non-smokers; the case for causation would be less convincing if it were only 2 times more likely.
  3. Reproducability of results from many studies.
  4. A dosage effect: more smoking correlates with more cancer.
  5. Non-randomized Interventions: for example, show that people who quit smoking develop fewer cancers than those who continue.
  6. Analogs: if we can't do randomized experiments on people, can we do them on animals? Or on cell tissue in a petri dish?
  7. A theory: a known mechanism (such as the carcinogens in tobacco tar) for smoking causing cancer, and the lack of a theory for cancer causing smoking.

 

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Thanks,

 

BAA.

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Allowing for the moment that prayers are answered, how does God Pick

 

Devout Christian number  one prays for sunshine for her honeymoon and devout Christian number two prayers for rain the same week for his crops.......

 

After 20 centuries, Christians still cannot show, let alone prove that God answers prayer.........other than saying NO

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Wow BAA! Impressive compilation! For those lurking, it should be noted (as in all results of all scientific studies) that the results and conclusion mean exactly and only what they say. Possitive health effects correlated with religious activity means ONLY that. It does not mean a god exists. It does not mean that religious activity necessarily causes the health benefits. It does not mean an external source is responsible. Further study must be done to even begin to come to any conclusions like that.

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I'm glad you've found this thread of interest, Neverlandrut. smile.png

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In the light of recent, truly disgusting events in another part of this forum, I'd thought about deleting the whole thing.  

But your timely input has made me reconsider.  The information I've compiled here may well be of use to people of good conscience who really want to understand more about this subject.  

 

Therefore, the thread stays.

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Thanks,

 

BAA.

 

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  • Super Moderator

In the light of recent, truly disgusting events in another part of this forum, I'd thought about deleting the whole thing.  

 

 

Inappropriate behavior by any contributing member will be dealt with on a case by case basis. I think this is a good and helpful thread.

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