It's official: praying for sick people doesn't help

[ThomCat]

I stumbled upon this blog. Epiphenom: at the intersection of science, atheism and humanism

Today's blog post:

http://bhascience.blogspot.com/2009/04/its-official-praying-for-sick-people.html

It's official: praying for sick people doesn't help

Every few years, a group based at Hertford College at Oxford puts together a statistical analysis of all the studies conducted to date that have looked at whether praying for sick people helps them get better (or at least stay alive).

The latest has just been published, and it contains something pretty radically new in their conclusions: the evidence is now so clear cut that they think that no more studies should be done. The book is shut. Praying for sick people simply doesn't work.

[onager]

1. Nobody has posted this in R&T yet.

Wonder why not?

:rofl:

I would personally appreciate laughing my Cheney off as I waded thru 5,273 posts of unprovable personal anecdotes, irrelevant quotes from St. Augustine and Billy Graham, and the always incredibly convincing appeals to learned authorities like Oprah Winfrey.

...the evidence is now so clear cut that they think that no more studies should be done. The book is shut. Praying for sick people simply doesn't work.

(On edit, because my brain shut down for a minute. For that minute, I think I was probed by aliens...)

Your post reminds me of that eternal complaint from believers in psychic powers and related stuff--"Oh, why don't those close-minded scientists study this fascinating phenomena?"

The answer is the same, of course--science HAS studied claims of psychic powers, just as it has investigated prayer, and has concluded that none of the claims exhibit anything other than the results expected by random chance. At least up to this point. One day someone might actually be able to demonstrate repeatable results of remote viewing, dowsing, mind-reading or psychokinesis. Or healing via prayer.

Of course, that would completely re-write science as we know it. A point that always seems lost on Twue Bewievers, though I can't figure out why.

Even though I should know better, I wasted part of the day in a rip-roaring DU flame war over PsYkiK powers. A couple of people boasted about the CIA using psychics. (And I just know these are some of the same people who get their panties in a big ol' twist over CIA involvement in anything else. The enemy of my enemy is....etc.)

In 1995, the CIA was tasked with analyzing the data from the ludicrous "Operation Stargate," the TAXPAYER-FUNDED study into remote viewing and related hokum.

And guess what?

CIA concluded that there was no case in which ESP had provided data used to guide intelligence operations.

http://www.fas.org/irp/program/collect/stargate.htm

[and-justice-for-all]

2. Two hands working can do more than a million hands praying..nt