Efficacy of Prayer

[Southwind17]

So, I'm close to finishing reading Michael J Fox's memoir "Lucky Man", in which, I have to confess, he very lucidly, openly and entertainingly describes his battle with PD (I'd highly recommend it, actually), and then I get to the end of page 297 where, seemingly out of all context with the rest of the book, he writes:

Quote:

At one time or another, during times of personal struggle or loss, we've all heard people tell us they would "pray for us." Just an expression, I'd always thought, until I felt the power of that sentiment when it is offered, and meant, by tens of thousands of people. The feeling is over-whelming; I have no doubt that being on the receiving end of so much spiritual energy has gone a long way to sustain me over the last couple of years. I no longer under-estimate the power of prayer.

... and I'm thinking "Oh no, here we go, spoiling an otherwise honest and rational account of a person's admirable adaptation towards thier affliction.", but it got worse ... far worse! Over the page he goes on to write:

Quote:

Nor, it seems, do some scientists. I recently read about an experiment in which researchers at Columbia University tested the power of prayer to help women with fertility problems to conceive. A group of strangers, members of several different religious faiths in America, were asked to pray for a group of women in a Korean fertility clinic who had no knowledge of the experiment. At the same time, a separate control group at the same clinic received no prayers. At the end of the study, fifty percent of the women who'd been prayed for got pregnant, while only twent-six percent of the control group conceived. This is exactly the opposite of what the researchers expected - their stated intention had been to disprove the efficacy of prayer.

This raises a number of questions in my mind:

• Why would MJF seek to highlight this point in this way?
• I've not read any of MJF's subsequent books, but does anybody know whether he's ever acknowledged this Skeptical Inquirer article?
• Does anybody here have any views on this Journal of Reproductive Medicine Clarification?

[Hugo]

It is a real disappointment to read that, I thought MJF was a rational person.
As to why, probably because he pulled through and wants to acknowledge someone or something and in his circle it is perhaps not done to thank and acknowledge the actual people and processes that worked (medicine, doctors, himself) and casting such a wide net of praise probably has a benefit in other ways too.
(and I don't actually think he wrote it with all that intent, he probably wrote it without thinking too much though)

[maddog]

Well, it has been shown (though I don't have a reference, so take this with a grain of "maybe Maddog goofed") that believing one's self to be prayed for has effects, something like a placebo effect. I've felt something like it -- on a long fundraiser bikeride, getting REALLY tired, and then thinking "hey, I'm doing this for [the charity] and I've got the support and backing of all those people who sponsored me", and suddenly feeling more energetic. Yes, that was all in my head, but it still lifted me.

I don't know about the study he's referencing, but I've never seen any reliable evidence for double-blind prayer working.

[Southwind17]

Originally Posted by maddog

Well, it has been shown (though I don't have a reference, so take this with a grain of "maybe Maddog goofed") that believing one's self to be prayed for has effects, something like a placebo effect. I've felt something like it -- on a long fundraiser bikeride, getting REALLY tired, and then thinking "hey, I'm doing this for [the charity] and I've got the support and backing of all those people who sponsored me", and suddenly feeling more energetic. Yes, that was all in my head, but it still lifted me.

Ah, so it wasn't prayer as such then, with god or such like as the intermediary, in your case, but simply motivation because of a desire to please, or rather not to displease. Also, you were able to voluntarily act on your motivation, by pedalling harder. There's a significant difference between your scenario and an apparently infertile woman conceiving because of a belief in the hand of god inspired by numerous well-wishers pleading with him!

[Apology]

Originally Posted by Southwind17

Ah, so it wasn't prayer as such then, with god or such like as the intermediary, in your case, but simply motivation because of a desire to please, or rather not to displease. Also, you were able to voluntarily act on your motivation, by pedalling harder. There's a significant difference between your scenario and an apparently infertile woman conceiving because of a belief in the hand of god inspired by numerous well-wishers pleading with him!

Still, in the case of the infertile women, there might be a certain degree of a desire to please involved. Since religious women believe that children are a gift from God, there's the desire to please God foremost. Also, if they know that there are people praying for them, there would be the desire to please the praying strangers as well---wouldn't want their prayers to go to waste!

Just a thought. Personally I don't think prayers do anything that isn't based in the placebo effect.

[Cavemonster]

I'd love to hear the details of the study.
If they are as presented, this would be the easiest, and cheapest test to replicate.

Just find a fertility clinic and get a number of women to sign off to have their conception information available, grab a group of strangers to pray for them and you're golden.

I don't know how long the actually praying needs to go on, but I could set this up in a day for the cost of the phone calls, probably wouldn't even need to pay the praying participants.

Since it's so easy and cheap, if there was a real effect of being prayed for (when you're unaware of it) there should be dozens of studies with thousands of participants. There are a lot of people keen to prove the power of prayer, why haven't they replicated this simple study in overwhelming numbers?

[Southwind17]

Originally Posted by Cavemonster

I'd love to hear the details of the study.
If they are as presented, this would be the easiest, and cheapest test to replicate.

Just check out the Skeptical Inquirer link in my OP then - it's all there!

Originally Posted by Cavemonster

Just find a fertility clinic and get a number of women to sign off to have their conception information available, grab a group of strangers to pray for them and you're golden.

I don't know how long the actually praying needs to go on, but I could set this up in a day for the cost of the phone calls, probably wouldn't even need to pay the praying participants.

Since it's so easy and cheap, if there was a real effect of being prayed for (when you're unaware of it) there should be dozens of studies with thousands of participants. There are a lot of people keen to prove the power of prayer, why haven't they replicated this simple study in overwhelming numbers?

Ah, if only group prayer were that simple! Follow the link to see why.

[Flesh]

Believe it or not that particular study has been done to death on this forum and has even been blasted by Randi himself.

http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/...5-2008.html#i1

Dr. Rogerio Lobo, the lead author of the study, even managed to win a Pigasus award in 2004.

http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/...ticle/186.html

More info on the study below.

http://www.improvingmedicalstatistic...e%20Study1.htm

~Flesh

[Greg_in_CO]

So on the control group, how did they know that they weren't receiving anonymous prayers as well? Were they isolated in a prayer-free environment? What if in some congregation someplace in the world a pastor tells his flock, "Join me now in prayer for all those women in the world who want to conceive a child?"

[Yahya Sulaiman]

I am getting so tired of people talking about petitionary prayer as if it's something that either "works" or "doesn't work". It's not an ability (although we have the ability to do it and that is of course not the same thing). It's a supplication to a Being whose participation, motivation, or even existence, by definition, cannot be confirmed through scientific study (supernatural + natural science = contradiction). Nothing but guesswork or mere presumption is possible. I'm no expert in theology but I have the suspicion that God's infallibility and omniscience indicates that petionary prayer is probably more for our own spiritual benefit via the act of doing it than it is for anything else.

[EeneyMinnieMoe]

It goes the other way around, too. The great film critic Roger Ebert has had a few bouts with cancer, the last of which left him in a coma and unable to walk when he recovered and permanently disfigured and unable to talk.

His wife, apparently a person of faith, asked the public to pray for him when it first happened. He is an agnostic himself and had been a lapsed Catholic for years but, according to one article, let her pray for him and read him passages from the Bible.

A reporter asked him if he felt God during his long illness and he said no. The reporter thanked him for his answer and said it was a relief to hear after all the news stories of people crediting prayer in illness and near death experiences but told him it probably would not be used.

If someone is already an agnostic or an atheist or just not very religious, they will continue thinking that way after a stroke, cancer, etc. And if they are somewhat religious or religious they will continue thinking that way.

Maybe desperate times make some people turn to religion when they usually aren't very religious and make some people do the exact reverse and reject it.

[bpesta22]

Originally Posted by Yahya Sulaiman

I am getting so tired of people talking about petitionary prayer as if it's something that either "works" or "doesn't work". It's not an ability (although we have the ability to do it and that is of course not the same thing). It's a supplication to a Being whose participation, motivation, or even existence, by definition, cannot be confirmed through scientific study (supernatural + natural science = contradiction). Nothing but guesswork or mere presumption is possible. I'm no expert in theology but I have the suspicion that God's infallibility and omniscience indicates that petionary prayer is probably more for our own spiritual benefit via the act of doing it than it is for anything else.

I don't think this is really true. Showing that prayer worked (internally valid, replicated studies) would certainly prove that something supernatural is out there, and I think would shatter the skeptic's world view.

So, a positive effect would indeed be informative. The negative effect, though, wouldn't be proof that gods don't exist (I suppose it would prove that if the god prayed to exists he at least doesn't answer prayers for science).

[Yahya Sulaiman]

The post I made which you quoted, bpesta, showed why the very notion of prayer "working" or "not working" is flawed in the first place. Read it more carefully.

[Akhenaten]

Originally Posted by Yahya Sulaiman

The post I made which you quoted, bpesta, showed why the very notion of prayer "working" or "not working" is flawed in the first place. Read it more carefully.

It didn't show me anything like that, and I read it while wearing safety goggles and a reflective vest.

Maybe it's not the readers who should be more careful.

[MattusMaximus]

The Daily Show said it best...

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/th...-votive-or-die

[Skeptic Ginger]

Originally Posted by Greg_in_CO

So on the control group, how did they know that they weren't receiving anonymous prayers as well? Were they isolated in a prayer-free environment? What if in some congregation someplace in the world a pastor tells his flock, "Join me now in prayer for all those women in the world who want to conceive a child?"

That's the point of having a control group. If you look at a large enough sample you should see all the same variables averaging out between subjects and controls. Then the study group you add the intervention to should show the difference just from the intervention which is the one thing different between the 2 groups.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Originally Posted by Yahya Sulaiman

I am getting so tired of people talking about petitionary prayer as if it's something that either "works" or "doesn't work". It's not an ability (although we have the ability to do it and that is of course not the same thing). It's a supplication to a Being whose participation, motivation, or even existence, by definition, cannot be confirmed through scientific study (supernatural + natural science = contradiction). Nothing but guesswork or mere presumption is possible. I'm no expert in theology but I have the suspicion that God's infallibility and omniscience indicates that petionary prayer is probably more for our own spiritual benefit via the act of doing it than it is for anything else.

So all those people claiming God answers prayers are full of it then? I would have to agree.

Or is it God likes to hide the fact he exists. If you dare actually look for evidence God exists, then he will hide from you. I would ask you to show me where in the Christian Bible does God say you must believe in spite of the fact I am going to cover up all evidence of my existence?

[Skeptic Ginger]

Originally Posted by Yahya Sulaiman

The post I made which you quoted, bpesta, showed why the very notion of prayer "working" or "not working" is flawed in the first place. Read it more carefully.

Maybe you think you've explained why testing prayer is flawed, but in reality you have not.

I suggest you consider a different option. You are rationalizing why, when you look for evidence God exists, you don't find any.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Originally Posted by MattusMaximus

The Daily Show said it best...

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/th...-votive-or-die

[foxholeatheist]

Any test for prayer, you know as well as I, would devolve into a "Special Pleading!" contest.

I used to have two decks, one on the front of my trailer and one on the back. I challenged by sister to pray that the rear deck gets sanded and painted while I actually sand and paint the front deck and see who gets the job done first.The back deck was even smaller so I tilted the odd in God's favor. Well, needless to say I won. I still don't know why this failed to convince her. Oh, so God can cure cancer or favor one side over another in War but can't sand and paint a deck? Pshh... Some Almighty God...

[Safe-Keeper]

There's also the project, carried out by Christians to prove prayer, that found that patients who were to undergo surgery and knew they were being prayed for did worse than the ones who either did not receive prayers, or didn't know it.

[Professor Yaffle]

The Cochrane review on intercessory prayer:

http://mrw.interscience.wiley.com/co...368/frame.html

[King of the Americas]

http://www.dukehealth.org/HealthLibrary/News/5056

OR

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3193902.stm

?

---

Placebos WORK half the time. 'Belief' is indeed a powerful thing.

[Yahya Sulaiman]

What is difficult to understand about this? You can't perform reliable experiments with something when the following conditions are inevitably involved:

1. It is not about an ability that works or doesn't work but an instance of asking a Being to do something. If I say I can read minds then experiments could show I'm either doing it at the time of the experiments or not doing it, but if I ask someone to do something then whether they don't do it doesn't automatically indicate by any measure whether or not they exist or whether or not my asking has really influenced their behavior if they do.
2. This and #3 go along the same lines. If the thing prayed for happens, there is no scientifically verifiable way of knowing whether it has happened because the Being accepted the supplication.
3. If the thing doesn't happen, there is no scientifically verifiable way of knowing whether it has happened because the Being did not accept the supplication.
4. The very existence of the Being in question has not and cannot be verified by science in the first place since the Being is supernatural and science is the study of nature, not supernature.
5. Only a miniscule slice of the total number of petitionary prayers that have been answered or not answered throughout history could be viewed anyway. Not that this particularly matters in light of 1-4, but I suppose it at least bears mention.

Of course this does not mean that God "runs and hides" when the matter of evidence comes up, but only that scientific evidence isn't the kind that could be theoretically possible when the issue of something supernatural comes up. This is why "creationist science" is an oxymoron. If you recognize that, you should recognize this. It seems to me (I can only speculate; I can't read her mind) that skeptigirl might be operating out of that same old mindset of the ludicrous circular reasoning: "I refuse to believe in the existence of this thing which by definition could not yield the scientific type of evidence for its existence even if it does exist because there is no scientific evidence for its existence." Or at least that's what her accusation seems to suggest to me. I've seen it sooooo many times, so perhaps I'm perceiving it where it isn't.

[Southwind17]

Originally Posted by Yahya Sulaiman

1. ... If I say I can read minds then experiments could show I'm either doing it at the time of the experiments or not doing it ...
2. This and #3 go along the same lines.
3. ...

Well, I don't know whether you can read minds (although I'd hazard a guess!), but it sure seems you can read the future!

[Akhenaten]

Originally Posted by Yahya Sulaiman

What is difficult to understand about this?

Not much, apparently. Most posters seem to understand perfectly.

Quote:

You can't perform reliable experiments with something when the following conditions are inevitably involved:

First we will need to ensure, reliably, that these conditions are actually inevitable. I suspect they are not.

Quote:

1. It is not about an ability that works or doesn't work but an instance of asking a Being to do something.

OK then, it's about an ability to communicate an intercessory request to a being. Wanna play semantics?

Quote:

If I say I can read minds then experiments could show I'm either doing it at the time of the experiments or not doing it, but if I ask someone to do something then whether they don't do it doesn't automatically indicate by any measure whether or not they exist or whether or not my asking has really influenced their behavior if they do.

If you say that, I'll have to buy you a beer, because I don't believe anyone could keep track of a sentence like that while they were speaking it.

Quote:

2. This and #3 go along the same lines. If the thing prayed for happens, there is no scientifically verifiable way of knowing whether it has happened because the Being accepted the supplication.

We could use analysis of statistics to establish the average occurrence of things, and then test to see if prayer can alter these statistics. Correlations between praying tasks and variations in the Mean Occurrence of Stuff™ could be measured and tested.

The variations need only be small, but consistent, to provide a quantifiable result.

Quote:

3. If the thing doesn't happen, there is no scientifically verifiable way of knowing whether it has happened because the Being did not accept
the supplication.

As for #2, slight variations in the Mean Occurrence of Stuff™ could be measured.

BTW, it's conventional to refer internally to items back up the list from your reference point, not further down it. It's more chronological or something.

Quote:

4. The very existence of the Being in question has not and cannot be verified by science in the first place since the Being is supernatural and science is the study of nature, not supernature.

The test is to see if prayer works. If it fails because of puppies, QM, or the simple lack of a being to hear is all irrelevant detail.

Either it works or it doesn't, and questions about why it doesn't are up to the prayer-believers to pursue, as the major stakeholders.

Quote:

5. Only a miniscule slice of the total number of petitionary prayers that have been answered or not answered throughout history could be viewed anyway. Not that this particularly matters in light of 1-4, but I suppose it at least bears mention.

It's really easy to generate new prayers. You can even get wheels that do it automatically. I know a Barkhang Monastary where I can find five of them, if Marco Bartolli's henchmen don't get me first.

Quote:

<snipped an occurence of stuff>


I've seen it sooooo many times, so perhaps I'm perceiving it where it isn't.

That occurred to me too.

[Akhenaten]

Originally Posted by Southwind17

Well, I don't know whether you can read minds (although I'd hazard a guess!), but it sure seems you can read the future!

I must learn to type faster.

[Yahya Sulaiman]

Originally Posted by Akhenaten

Not much, apparently. Most posters seem to understand perfectly.

If they do then your own remarks in the very post I'm responding to indicate that you're not among them.

Quote:

First we will need to ensure, reliably, that these conditions are actually inevitable. I suspect they are not.

It is a matter of common sense, for the very reason I stated: "If I ask someone to do something then whether they don't do it doesn't automatically indicate by any measure whether or not they exist or whether or not my asking has really influenced their behavior if they do."

Quote:

OK then, it's about an ability to communicate an intercessory request to a being. Wanna play semantics?

No, but apparently you do. Our ability to communicate the request has never been in question from the beginning. The issue is whether or not the occurence or non-occurence of the event afterwards can possibly prove anything one way or another (which, once again, cannot, for the reason stated above).

Quote:

If you say that, I'll have to buy you a beer, because I don't believe anyone could keep track of a sentence like that while they were speaking it.

If you genuinely don't understand something, speak up, but don't just sit there and mock my writing instead of addressing its point. It's classic ad hominem-based evasion.

Quote:

We could use analysis of statistics to establish the average occurrence of things, and then test to see if prayer can alter these statistics. Correlations between praying tasks and variations in the Mean Occurrence of Stuff™ could be measured and tested. The variations need only be small, but consistent, to provide a quantifiable result. As for #2, slight variations in the Mean Occurrence of Stuff™ could be measured.

The fatal logical flaw in all such statistics write large: that A happens and then B happens or doesn't happen does not mean that A was the cause of B. This is literally the very definition of the Fallacy of Questionable Cause (although the fallacy goes by several other names as well). If the cause indeed is not definite as you seem to be saying, it completely destroys your position of prayer either "working" or "not working" since the results, whatever they are, might have had nothing to do with the prayer at all.

Quote:

BTW, it's conventional to refer internally to items back up the list from your reference point, not further down it. It's more chronological or something.

As usual, I don't give a hoot about convention, and if a mere pointing out that something from one item on a list will be carried over or connected to something immediately upcoming on the list strikes you as confusing or counter-intuitive then I suppose it casts your accusation above of incoherency in or difficulty in saying that very coherent and natural sentence in even more of a light of an apparent lack of reading comprehension on your part.

Quote:

The test is to see if prayer works. If it fails because of puppies, QM, or the simple lack of a being to hear is all irrelevant detail. Either it works or it doesn't, and questions about why it doesn't are up to the prayer-believers to pursue, as the major stakeholders.

I've already shown above that it doesn't either work or not work, and exactly why. All of this is just things I've already refuted.

Quote:

It's really easy to generate new prayers [etc. etc., more childish mockery]

So what of it?

[paximperium]

Originally Posted by Yahya Sulaiman

It is a matter of common sense, for the very reason I stated: "If I ask someone to do something then whether they don't do it doesn't automatically indicate by any measure whether or not they exist or whether or not my asking has really influenced their behavior if they do."

If you ask someone which you have no verifiable evidence of existence, works via unknown mechanism(ie. magic) and who never seems to answers any of these requests; tell me what's your conclusion?

Quote:

The issue is whether or not the occurence or non-occurence of the event afterwards can possibly prove anything one way or another (which, once again, cannot, for the reason stated above).

Hey I agree here. This piece of evidence just shows that intercessory prayer does nothing in this situation...and in that other experient...and that other one...and that other one etc etc etc.

Sorry but people get bored of neverfinding something when it is expected. When should we falsify this hypothesis?

Quote:

The fatal logical flaw in all such statistics write large: that A happens and then B happens or doesn't happen does not mean that A was the cause of B. This is literally the very definition of the Fallacy of Questionable Cause (although the fallacy goes by several other names as well). If the cause indeed is not definite as you seem to be saying, it completely destroys your position of prayer either "working" or "not working" since the results, whatever they are, might have had nothing to do with the prayer at all.

So do you think praying does have ANY measurable effect at all?

Quote:

As usual, I don't give a hoot about convention...

I suggest you do. If you have ANY interest in communicating your ideas at all you will actually to a framework so that others will understand you.

If you truly "don't give a hoot", I suggest you should just keep in your room and talk to the wall.

[Yahya Sulaiman]

Originally Posted by paximperium

If you ask someone which you have no verifiable evidence of existence, works via unknown mechanism(ie. magic) and who never seems to answers any of these requests; tell me what's your conclusion?

Unload the question and I'll answer it. If scientific evidence is the only verifiable evidence to you then the circular reasoning I absolutely established above for requiring it is key. Also, I never said anything one way or another about God "never seeming to answer any of these requests", only about it not being something that can be established via things like studies if it is true.

Quote:

Hey I agree here. This piece of evidence just shows that intercessory prayer does nothing in this situation...and in that other experient...and that other one...and that other one etc etc etc. Sorry but people get bored of neverfinding something when it is expected. When should we falsify this hypothesis?

Boy are you contradicting yourself. If you agree with me then you can't say that such a thing is evidence showing that intercessory prayer does nothing or that the hypothesis can possibly be falsified or verified (at least by such means, if by any at all).

Quote:

So do you think praying does have ANY measurable effect at all?

Do I think that petitionary prayer has any measurable and definite effect in terms of whether the thing being prayed for happening or not happening is because of the prayer being answered or not answered? That's exactly what I've been saying and proving over and over and over again. I'm getting awfully tired of having to repeat myself and gratuitously refer again and again to what I've already said. If I have to keep it up much longer then I just won't bother anymore.

Quote:

I suggest you do. If you have ANY interest in communicating your ideas at all you will actually to a framework so that others will understand you.

If you don't understand something I've said, ask me about it specifically. Vague criticisms about general style--especially ones which could not apparently be made by anyone who is reading with even an even marginally intermediate level of reading comprehension--are absolutely worthless.

Quote:

If you truly "don't give a hoot", I suggest you should just keep in your room and talk to the wall.

This message, of course, is not addressed only to you, but also to Akhenaten, skeptigirl, and countless others: if you don't want to feed stereotypes about skeptics and nontheists all being morally wretched, cut down on the vastly immature mockery.

[jont37]

Why don't people ever pray for someone's severed limb to regenerate? You never hear the preacher reading this week's prayer requests mention it, or Pat Robertson mentalizing, "someone watching today has lost a limb, we pray jesus that you'll grow little Timmy's leg back."

[Skeptic Ginger]

Originally Posted by Yahya Sulaiman

...
Of course this does not mean that God "runs and hides" when the matter of evidence comes up, but only that scientific evidence isn't the kind that could be theoretically possible when the issue of something supernatural comes up. ...

(emphasis mine)

There is evidence which supports a conclusion and there is the possibility no evidence supports a conclusion. There is no such thing as supernatural evidence or some other kind of evidence besides scientific evidence. The reason it is called scientific merely indicates there are certain rules of logic and verification involved.

You hear this often from woo believers, "there is evidence but it isn't scientific evidence", as if there is some other kind.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Originally Posted by Yahya Sulaiman

...

It is a matter of common sense, for the very reason I stated: "If I ask someone to do something then whether they don't do it doesn't automatically indicate by any measure whether or not they exist or whether or not my asking has really influenced their behavior if they do."

The studies involved are testing the effect of prayer, not whether gods exist.

Originally Posted by Yahya Sulaiman

...The fatal logical flaw in all such statistics write large: that A happens and then B happens or doesn't happen does not mean that A was the cause of B. This is literally the very definition of the Fallacy of Questionable Cause (although the fallacy goes by several other names as well). If the cause indeed is not definite as you seem to be saying, it completely destroys your position of prayer either "working" or "not working" since the results, whatever they are, might have had nothing to do with the prayer at all.

The cumulative result of all the studies to date supports the conclusion prayer has no effect unless the person being prayed for knows they are being prayed for. There's no need to determine if the association is causative, the association doesn't exist.



Many people believe there is a god or gods that answers prayers. But there is no evidence supporting this conclusion. You are welcome to move the goal post and say, well it demonstrates gods are not answering prayers but it doesn't demonstrate there is no god. Feel free to make another claim about gods and let's look at that one.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Originally Posted by Yahya Sulaiman

Unload the question and I'll answer it. If scientific evidence is the only verifiable evidence to you then the circular reasoning I absolutely established above for requiring it is key. Also, I never said anything one way or another about God "never seeming to answer any of these requests", only about it not being something that can be established via things like studies if it is true.

Again you refer to this 'other method' of determining if prayers have any effect. Care to describe that non-scientific method?

Originally Posted by Yahya Sulaiman

Do I think that petitionary prayer has any measurable and definite effect in terms of whether the thing being prayed for happening or not happening is because of the prayer being answered or not answered? That's exactly what I've been saying and proving over and over and over again. I'm getting awfully tired of having to repeat myself and gratuitously refer again and again to what I've already said. If I have to keep it up much longer then I just won't bother anymore.

If you don't understand something I've said, ask me about it specifically....

So you are saying then, that "petitionary prayer has [a] measurable and definite effect"? Because your sentence is very confusing as you've worded it.

Or are you saying prayer has an effect but it is not measurable or definite? What would be an effect that was not measurable? What method would one use that was unscientific to observe this effect?

Originally Posted by Yahya Sulaiman

This message, of course, is not addressed only to you, but also to Akhenaten, skeptigirl, and countless others: if you don't want to feed stereotypes about skeptics and nontheists all being morally wretched, cut down on the vastly immature mockery.

I'm pretty sure I haven't mocked you and I most certainly am not "morally wretched" though I can only guess what you mean by that.

You are in a tough position. It appears you believe there is a god who answers prayers. Yet the evidence appears to contradict that belief. It is difficult to have one's beliefs challenged. But it is the evidence you should consider, not the people discussing the evidence.

[Tapio]

Originally Posted by Yahya Sulaiman

What is difficult to understand about this? You can't perform reliable experiments with something when the following conditions are inevitably involved:

1. It is not about an ability that works or doesn't work but an instance of asking a Being to do something. If I say I can read minds then experiments could show I'm either doing it at the time of the experiments or not doing it, but if I ask someone to do something then whether they don't do it doesn't automatically indicate by any measure whether or not they exist or whether or not my asking has really influenced their behavior if they do.

You might want to actually click on the link Yaffle provided earlier.

Originally Posted by Professor Yaffle

The Cochrane review on intercessory prayer:

http://mrw.interscience.wiley.com/co...368/frame.html

Quote:

Cochrane Library:

The question of whether this may contribute towards proving or disproving the existence of God is a philosophical question lying outside the scope of this review of the effects of prayer.

Wrt the highlited part of your post, I think no one here is seriously claiming that the aquired evidence so far (which is quite clearly against the efficacy of prayer) is necessarily connected with the existence/non-existence of the Being to which these prayers were directed to. I think this is in some ways analogous to abiogenesis relationship with evolution. We can study the latter (and get reliable data) without knowledge of the former.

[Yahya Sulaiman]

Originally Posted by skeptigirl

(emphasis mine)

There is evidence which supports a conclusion and there is the possibility no evidence supports a conclusion. There is no such thing as supernatural evidence or some other kind of evidence besides scientific evidence. The reason it is called scientific merely indicates there are certain rules of logic and verification involved.

You hear this often from woo believers, "there is evidence but it isn't scientific evidence", as if there is some other kind.

There is at least one more kind (the only kind I'll appeal to here): logical evidence. To discuss its existence or nonexistence on this matter would require a different thread.

[Yahya Sulaiman]

Originally Posted by skeptigirl

The studies involved are testing the effect of prayer, not whether gods exist.

And as for the "whether or not my asking has really influenced their behavior if they do" part?

Quote:

The cumulative result of all the studies to date supports the conclusion prayer has no effect unless the person being prayed for knows they are being prayed for. There's no need to determine if the association is causative, the association doesn't exist.

I told you why that kind of study is based on a flawed notion. Just more stuff I've already refuted above.

Quote:

Many people believe there is a god or gods that answers prayers. But there is no evidence supporting this conclusion. You are welcome to move the goal post and say, well it demonstrates gods are not answering prayers but it doesn't demonstrate there is no god. Feel free to make another claim about gods and let's look at that one.

My only claim here is that petitionary prayer cannot be tested or quantified for the reasons that I stated above and apparently will have to keep referring to indefinitely.

[Yahya Sulaiman]

Originally Posted by skeptigirl

Again you refer to this 'other method' of determining if prayers have any effect. Care to describe that non-scientific method?

I referred to no such thing. Stop putting words in my mouth.

Quote:

So you are saying then, that "petitionary prayer has [a] measurable and definite effect"? Because your sentence is very confusing as you've worded it. Or are you saying prayer has an effect but it is not measurable or definite? What would be an effect that was not measurable? What method would one use that was unscientific to observe this effect?

The whole thing isn't measurable. How's that for a clarifying summary?

Quote:

I'm pretty sure I haven't mocked you and I most certainly am not "morally wretched" though I can only guess what you mean by that.

I did not call you that. I said that such mockery feeds a common stereotype of people of your sort being morally wretched and you have quoted me out of context. As for mockery, you said:

Quote:

So all those people claiming God answers prayers are full of it then? I would have to agree.

Sounds like mockery to me. Although you weren't the worst of the bunch. Regardless.

Quote:

You are in a tough position. It appears you believe there is a god who answers prayers. Yet the evidence appears to contradict that belief. It is difficult to have one's beliefs challenged. But it is the evidence you should consider, not the people discussing the evidence.

I am concerned with the flaw in the notion of the evidence being possible.

[subvicepresident]

Originally Posted by Yahya Sulaiman

There is at least one more kind (the only kind I'll appeal to here): logical evidence. To discuss its existence or nonexistence on this matter would require a different thread.

Creating sound arguments by using logic is crucial part of scientific process. Logical evidence, as you put it, is not something distinct from scientific evidence. Logical evidence is scientific evidence if the premises are true and the argument sound.

[subvicepresident]

Originally Posted by Yahya Sulaiman

<snip>

I am concerned with the flaw in the notion of the evidence being possible.

So why do you believe something for which no evidence can be produced?