Utterly Meaningless

How would one even set up controls on a study like this? Okay, this group of heart patients are in the prayer group. You guys over there, you have to have your surgery and it is against the study rules to have anyone pray for you. Or do they have some kind of “prayer detector” to determine who got prayed for and who didn’t? Did they control for all the different kinds of prayers? How did they determine who did the praying? Sincerity of the prayer might affect the outcome.

Data, what data? Sounds like a $2.4 Million scam to me.

I’m actually in the midst of what might prove to be a miracle.
My stepfather was given a year to live on Thursday and on Sunday, he was told he was cancer-free after a year and half of having colon and then liver cancer. Another CAT scan could confirm this to doubters (it is hard to believe), but insurance won’t pay for a third one in less than three weeks right now. The doctor is saying another CAT scan would show the same result that the cancer is gone. He stands by the accuracy of the CAT scans.
Prayer would the factor if this proves to be a miracle.

“The researchers who tested the power of prayer emphasized that their $2.4 million study could not address whether God exists or answers prayers made on another’s behalf.”

This statement is too stupid to waste a brain cell on.

Annette,
I’m trully glad if your stepfather is healthy. I don’t buy the miracle designation, though. It could just as easily be medical malpractice. In my mind, a miracle would be a violation of the physical laws of the universe (walking on water, being raised from the dead, the Cubs winning the World Series).

I read a more detailed report when the study was released a month ago. The researchers acknowledged that they couldn’t control all the variables (like outsiders praying for the patients). But within the study participants, there was no advantage for the patients to have the group praying for them. Part of the study was NOT double blind. The folks that KNEW that others were praying for them actually had more complications than the folks who knew that others WERE’NT.

Thanks, Daryl. Obviously, I have to leave out significant details here in this comment section. There have been numerous CAT scans and MRI’s. The tumor and lesions were there in the liver, and according to the last scan less than two weeks after the last scan, it’s not there anymore. The chemo was only suppose to extend his life with the liver cancer. It wasn’t shrinking at all. Wouldn’t it be a violation of physical laws for a tumor and lesions in the liver to disappear in two weeks after having been there for a significant time already?
I’m not saying it is a miracle–yet. I’m saying that Thursday morning he got the bad news which was the time frame of a year (not that he was terminal; he knew that already for some time). Thursday night, my mother prayed all night, Friday passed, and Saturday, he was in severe pain and thought this was it. Saturday, he was admitted finally after being sent home once. Sunday, the CAT scan and the doctor perplexed as to why the cancer wasn’t showing up. The particular problem that brought my stepfather to the hospital cleared itself up without intervention–except for treatment of the pain. Monday the doctor accepted the CAT was accurate. Today, he was discharged and is doing better than well for the first time in a long time. I think he is still shocked though.
In my mind, if this proves to be a miracle, it is a raising from the dead. He has or had metastatic liver cancer. It was biopsyed. The tumor couldn’t successfully be removed by surgery. The doctor wouldn’t remove part of his liver because the tumor was in the middle of the liver, and then there were the lesions too. He had yellow coloring in his face for some time and up to this past weekend. The yellow color is now gone. He is not yet 50 (I have a young mother.) Look up liver cancer. To have liver cancer disappear in this type of case would have to be a miracle. Liver cancer is most always a death sentence unless they can cut the tumor out or transplant the liver.
I’ll get back to you after the next CAT scan in about three months–you could be right that there is an error. Too bad the insurance won’t pay for one now.

I’m not a huge television-watcher, and I don’t base my life theories on what I see on tv, but I did watch House last night and it dealt with a similar topic. There was a teenager who was supposedly a faith-healer and the intern doctors were stumped when he supposedly “healed” a terminal cancer patient. Later they found out the kid had some type of herpes virus that he passed on to her that attacked her cancer tumor and shrunk it.

Back to reality: I think that is the stupidest waste of time and $2.4 million. First they have to have proven the existence of God, which I’m pretty sure they haven’t done yet or we would have heard about it. Without that, all other subsequent assumptions are faulty.

And the most important point: Does the existence of the recent pennant-winning Boston Red Sox indicate the possibility of miracles in baseball, thus giving a small glimmer of hope to us Cubby fans? I think so; after all, we all have to have faith in something.

By definition, a miracle has extremely long odds of occuring, so a sample population of 1800 is probably on the short side. Would one realistically expect a “miracle” to produce a statistically significant result in so small a population? Wouldn’t be a miracle then, would it?

Second, the prayer groups were two Roman Catholic groups and a Unitarian group. There is a wide range of Christian denominations not included, some of whom would question the legitimacy of the groups chosen. (Not to mention the non-Christian religions and practices.) This is certainly not exhaustive of all types of intercessory prayer. I would certainly not expect 15 people sitting around mumbling a few words including a first name and last initial to be very effective. What then is the definition of “prayer?” Can it be defined sufficiently to be able to conduct this experiment?

Third, there was no attempt to measure the “faith” of the subjects (if one can even measure such things). Assuming that the subconscious mind can control aspects of imune system which can affect complications and recovery rates, this could be relevant. The “miracle” cancer remissions, etc., like Annette’s stepfather could be explained by this effect.

Fourth, heart surgery is a human intervention. The patient has placed his “faith” in the surgeon. This study didn’t look at recovery or complication rates for folks who did not receive allopathic or heteropathic interventions. The severity of the condition, the skill of the surgeon, and a host of other variables could play into the results. Annette’s step father fits into the latter category. Is the complication rate the right measure? Or should we look at types of complications or how well the subject weathered the complication.

Fifth, the prayer groups aparently had no connection directly with the subjects. Is an emotional or spiritual connection between them a requirement? Something more than knowing the first name and initial?

Sixth, did the very presence of the study effect its own outcome? Assuming that there is some kind of “prayer flux” similar to magnetic flux that flows between the person doing the praying and the subject that would produce whatever effect would occur, could a being with a different polarity or whatever property redirect, dampen, or otherwise alter the effect?

Daryl, I don’t think miracles are violations of physical laws necessarily, but if they do occur I think it likely they are due to some physical law we haven’t discovered yet. Gravity worked long before Newton described it mathematically. Electromagnetism worked before Franklin flew his kite. This study just didn’t cover all the bases.

And does the anecdote address any of these? My point was not that the study was wonderful and proved that intercessory prayer is meaningless. Only that for folks who desperately want to believe, it wouldn’t matter how much data was gathered nor how many studies performed.

Cindy,

The Red Sox World Series flag was not a miracle. It was good pitching, timely hitting, and good decision making by the front office. (See Nomar, trade of).

The Cubs could start by dumping their so called manager…

And folks who desperately want to not believe, or rather to belive the negative, will not be convinced no matter how much data is gathered or studies performed. The quality of the data in this study is little better than the anecdote. The “data” in this study only proved that Catholic and Unitaritian prayer groups without a connection to the subject population had no measureable effect on the blind study population in the presence of the investigators. There isn’t any basis in such a narrow focus to alter anyone’s belief.

I could just as easily contrive an experiment that attempts to combine Hydrogen and Oxygen that fails to take the necessity of adding energy to the equasion, and then say that you can’t combine the two elemements and get water. The results would be inconclusive … and they’d be wrong, but a study could be done, and the data would appear to support the conclusion. The correct conclusion would be that water is not be the result of the method used in the experiment.

Both the anecdote and Annette’s stepfather’s experience fall outside of the study’s range.

Tad,
And the opposite about the mind being a possible influence would also be true. A couple of towns over from me, during April vacation a school teacher found out that she had cancer. One day she wasn’t feeling well, then diagnosed with cancer involving the kidneys, and she passed away in three days from when she first found out she had cancer. She was even on life support on the third day.

It seems to me that some small percentage of cancers (or whatever) spontaneously healing is just a simple function of the odds. It’s gonna happen, rarely, and once in a while, it’ll happen 24 hours after somebody prayed to their God.

If the occurence and disappearence of cancer is a random phenomenon, then Chris would be correct. Which would make cancer research useless. On the other hand, if there is a particular pattern to what makes it happen and what makes it go away from time to time, and we just don’t know what that pattern is, then research can help us unlock that secret. I doubt that it is random at all. And I think there is a psychological component to it.

There have been studies in which subjects’ immune systems were altered during hypnosis. Other studies in which subjects displayed all the symptoms of sunburn, etc. So there is a probably connection between body functions and some part of the mind we are only just beginning to understand.

Prayer — and other religious practices — may be mechanisms that focus some mental or emotional energy that can either harm or heal. It may be similar to hypnosis, or the mental disciplines of Aikido, or whatever. I’ve noticed many similarities between hypnosis, meditation and prayer. I’ve also seem some pretty interesting synergistic occurences involving “mental alignment” (for lack of a better term) within a group of people, most of which defy explanation. And I’ve been in large religious meetings and noticed that this “alignment” was not present.

Well, they studied intercessory prayer. There were three possibilities: 1) Some form of “healing energy” (whatever that might be) is passed from the prayer to the prayee. 2) God answers the prayer and heals. 3) Nothing. From a scientific point of view, there would be no difference between #1 and #2.

For the folks studied, it was #3.

Daryl,
I am not going to get too deep into this except to say this. My mom and I have a theory that babies born in Chicago area hospitals are subjected to some sort of brainwashing before they are sent home. Probably a recording of Harry Carey singing you know what. Anyway, we are just Cubbie fans and we just believe that there is a day coming, against all odds, defying all laws of nature and going against all logic. We believe that someday the Cubs will rise up. It does not matter where we live, or if we even like baseball. We just love the Cubs.

Except some Chicago are people like that other team, but we don’t like to talk about those sorts.

So laugh if you must, I still stand by the Cubs.

TYPO ABOVE!!!!

“Except some Chicago AREA people….” NOT “Chicago are people”

ggrrr, butter fingers.

Yes, in this case it was answer number 3. (Or was it? the group that knew they were being prayed for did worse — what caused that?) Annette’s step father and the letter’s author may have benefited from the luck of the draw, too. The data is inconclusive.

The point is we still do not have enough “data” to say that even this type of intercessory prayer has no effect. We have the study and we have the anecdotes; what is different between them? Not all bars of iron are magnets. Today we know (or at least have a theory) about what makes a magnet work, but a few hundred years ago it was pure magic. Not all intercessory prayers reduce complications in heart surgery patients, but the anecdotal evidence indicates that some might. It is science’s job to isolate the variables and control them to discover which variations produce the greatest effect, if any. If it can figure out how to isolate and control all of the variables, that is. So far we’ve only tested one hypothesis, and the design of the experiment is wide open to criticism.

In an earlier post, I suggested that there are similarities between prayer and hypnosis. We could build a hypothesis from that observation that some form of subliminal suggestion works within the psychological mechanisms of the subject that can affect complication rates and healing rates. An inappropriate suggestion could have a negative effect. The right suggestion could have dramatic, even “miraculous” positive effect, in a person with the right initial mindset/pyschology/physiology/etc. A person’s susceptibility to a suggestion could be subject to several external variables such as the degree he or she is connected to the person doing the praying, and the quality of that connection, the amount of time spent by the prayer in offering the prayer, the distance between them, and so on. The effectiveness of the process could be affected by counter suggestion from other sources. (In hypno-birthing courses, expecting moms are told to avoid hearing negative birth stories for just this reason.) This hypothesis covers the negative impact on the subject group that had increases in complication rates (BTW, this hypothesis would also have account for the susceptibility of the doctors performing the operations to suggestion!), the letter’s writer’s experience with her family and the church group she is connected with (and her belief in the process) and Annette’s stepfather.

It would also be interesting to see if there is any correlation between the degree of “faith” experienced by each of the 1800 study subjects and their complication rates. Were the devout as likely to experience complications as the brights? If so were the results uniform across all three study groups? Do the results vary by denomination of the subject? Were there variations in the type or severity of complication? Were the doctors blind to the study or did they know what the subjects knew? There are many variables to consider.

All of my arguments so far have presumed that if there is some effect of prayer, it can be understood in terms of natural phenomena, not supernatural intervention. If we are dealing with a supernatural intelligence, we have to consider that He/She/It decided not to answer the prayers that were part of the study. The FSM does have a sense of humour, and Judeo-Christian scripture warns against seeking after signs or tempting God.