Posts
Prayer Study
Anybody want to comment on this?
NEW YORK (AP) -- In the largest study of its kind, researchers found that having people pray for heart bypass surgery patients had no effect on their recovery. In fact, patients who knew they were being prayed for had a slightly higher rate of complications.If anybody finds this worth discussing, I'll give my thoughts in the comments section.
Researchers emphasized their work does not address whether God exists or answers prayers made on another's behalf. The study can only look for an effect from prayers offered as part of the research, they said.
They also said they had no explanation for the higher complication rate in patients who knew they were being prayed for, in comparison to patients who only knew it was possible prayers were being said for them.
6 comments:
Well, considering the fact that the "prayer study" is one of those perennial favorite subjects for chain-mails and foyer gossip (and let's not even start with the oddity of enthusiastically embracing "science" that allegedly proves some religious belief while rejecting any science that questions it) I think it's very relevant to discuss a study that not only counters the claims of others but suggests that prayer can be detrimental...
So let's hear what you have to say!
I'll just insert my favorite quote in statistics: "there are lies, damn lies, and statistics". Not that I question the value and potential meaning of statistical information...just that some stats are collected and interpreted more or less scientifically...depending on motives. So let's also compare and contrast the possible motives/biases of different prayer studies while we're at it.
Prayer studies are inherently uncontrollable--researchers never really know how many people outside the designated prayer groups are praying for a particular patient. So any result is subject to challenge.
Still, I think it would be worth following up on the result that people who knew they were being prayed for had worse outcomes than those who were uncertain. One suggestion was that those folks assumed that they were being put on the prayer list because they especially needed it, thereby adding addtional stress. The mechanism, if its not an anomaly, would be worth understanding.
Let's assume the study wasn't biased, there were no personal motives, it was statistically sound, etc. Does it make the study any more valid?
My opinion on the study is that God could care less about the quantity of prayers offered in behalf of Mr. X and his heart surgery. He probably doesn't care whether he or the people praying for him are Christian, Muslim, Jew, etc. On the other hand, He probably does care whether or not the people praying are sincere.
Ed is correct that there is no bias if the unobserved prayer is randomly distributed between the test group and the control group. I do not believe, however, that the unobserved prayer can be fully taken into account when estimating the statistical power of the results. Thinking of this as a regression, the outcome is on the left-hand side and the dosage is on the right-hand side. We may oberve a dosage of 1 for the test group and 0 for the control group, but if each group is receiving an avrage of 5 unobserved dosages of prayer, the actual dosage would be 6 for the test group and 5 for control group. This has major implications for the coefficient on the dosage. Furthermore, since the actual dosage will inevitably vary within each group, due to the uncontrollable nature of the dosage, it is virtually impossible to determine the statistical significance of the results.
If any noneconomists want to understand what I just said, I have an illustration in mind, but I'm late for the afternoon session of conference, so I will wait for a request before I post it.
There's also the problem of the measurement issue. That is, how on earth could one really conduct a double blind experiment given that the key phenomena being measured is presumably so affected by knowledge.
Put simply and without all the gobbly-gook, if prayer is dependent upon an intelligent actor acting, then one could only meaningfully measure the effects of prayer if one could keep God in the dark. Not likely and he may act differently in response to prayer if there are a bunch of scientists measuring. Especially if there is (as I think Christianity demands) some sort of reason for silence: that is absence of strong public evidence for god.
Thanks, all, for the comments. I haven't been able to think about this too much, but I previously dealt with this general issue in a hypothetical scenario.
There are a lot of variables to consider, not the least of which concerns the will of God and whether he would even play our game.
It's not an intellectually satisfying answer, but if the powers of heaven cannot be handled or controlled only on the principles of righteousness, I don't know how else to address the issue.
Post a Comment