June 2nd commentary - praying for lower gas prices

[kieran]

In the first item in this weeks commentary, the graph shown in support of the statement ...

"So far, God has not heard the appeal, if we judge by the adjacent chart."

... seems to me to show that the trend did change after the "red line"/"massive appeal". It has gone slightly down in absolute terms ... and compared to the trend before the praying, it's much better than it could have been. :o

I am not saying that the praying had any effect, and that this is not just coincidence, but it seems like a very odd choice of evidence to show that the prayer did nothing ... :confused:

What say you all?

[sphenisc]

My estimate is a 5 cent drop over 27 days, 0.2 cents/gallon/day on average. Technically a pass, but could try harder. :)

My question is, could this be adapted to be suitable for the JREF challenge? Challenges generally seem to have predetermined test dates, whereas this requires a period of increasing prices before it's possible to test for a significant price reduction. Is there anything to prevent a test being conducted on such a basis?