A Spin of the Prayer Wheel

[steepholm]

Seeing the continual debates between some Christians and the so-called sceptical movement, I wonder - has anyone ever tried to prove the power of prayer empirically? Unlike imponderables such as the existence or otherwise of God, the efficacy of prayer seems the kind of thing that ought in principle at least to be susceptible to double-blind randomised trials. Do patients whose speedy recovery from, say, 'flu is being prayed for get well any quicker than others? (Obviously the patients themselves wouldn't be told whether they were one of the prayed-for group.)

Okay, it would probably would trigger the "Don't ask for signs and wonders" clause (John 4.48), and for this reason I'm sure some Christians would refuse to take part in the experiment. (Genuine Christians would be needed, because of course the prayers would have to be sincere to count.) On the other hand, while it's meant to be very vulgar to ask for signs as a way of inducing belief, the Evangelists did in fact record the details of many signs and wonders in the Gospels, presumably with the intention of persuading their readers of Jesus's bona fides, and many evangelical preachers in particular use public prayers in faith-healing for the same purpose in their churches every week of the year, so I don't think the objection can be a very strong one. (I know too that many Christians believe that prayer is more about reconciliation with the will of God than about asking him to do something he wouldn't otherwise have done; obviously my experiment would involve the other kind.)

My brother and I once got our father (a convinced dowser) to try to tell the difference between Coke and Pepsi by means of his trusty pendulum alone. It was not a great success, partly because our dubiety played havoc with the subtle energy fields needed for the task. Experimental design is obviously important in this kind of exercise, and for this reason I suggest that everyone involved ought to be a Christian, or at least an agnostic, so as to insulate the process against scepticism. Probably other faith groups should be excluded on the same basis, on the understanding that their prayers (where applicable) can be tested separately at a later date.

Comments

[fjm]

More than once.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12082681/ns/health-heart_health/t/power-prayer-flunks-unusual-test/http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12082681/ns/health-heart_health/t/power-prayer-flunks-unusual-test/

[steepholm]

Thanks!

By the way, I'm no scientist but that seems a very badly designed experiment, since they don't appear to have used a) a group who were being prayed for without being told it was a possibility; or b) a group who were not being prayed for, again without being told that it was a possibility. As it is, the possibility of the placebo effect would seem to compromise their findings from top to bottom.

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

Here is a popularizing article on the subject by the chairman of the neurology department at Yale medical School:

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/the-power-of-faith-and-prayer/

It has lots of links to the relevant scientific literature.

The short answer is, prayer is indistinguishable from placebo when proper blinding and statistical analyses are used (though there are plenty of pseudo-scientific studies with different results).

I'm guessing your last paragraph is satirical; it certainly tests Poe's law.

The problem with the subtle forces of dowsing, or the interference of the subtle forces of doubt with the same, is that if such forces existed, their interactions with known forces would be detectable, and they aren't. Here is an outstanding lecture from a Physicist at Cal Tech on the subject:

http://youtu.be/X5Fel1VKEN8

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link to the article - exactly what I was looking for.

The last paragraph wasn't exactly satirical, although I might have been clearer that the explanation for the non-success of the dowsing was that offered by my father, not by me. But in fairness and filiality I don't want to impugn his faith in the invisible forces of dowsing any more than anyone else's faith in other invisible forces.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

As I began watching that video, I began praying that the guy with the guitar would not turn out to be the speaker. And my prayer was answered positively!

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

Yes. I'd forgotten about him, sorry. That was traumatic.

[mevennen.livejournal.com]

You could try it with a whole bunch of people of different religions. It would be hysterical if Odin turned out to be more efficient than God.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I did consider working up to a televised "Elijah vs the Priests of Baal"-style Saturday night special - but baby steps, baby steps...

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

Whilst I am a convinced enough Quaker to believe that the boss saw me through to the other side of what I had to deal with personally, I did a deal of praying as a hurting child and, well...............

And as to working with terminally ill children for all the years I did, that was a test of anyone's faith.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I did a deal of praying as a hurting child and, well....

To play devil's advocate - I mean, God's, sorry - one might argue that you got what you were praying for, eventually!

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

And didn't have to wait as long as some, so yeah! :o)

[adaese.livejournal.com]

I have never understood how you can control against someone reading about this kind of experiment, and immediately praying for "all those involved in this experiment who aren't being prayed for". Wouldn't that upset the results?

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Yes, it would, unfortunately. One can keep the experiment as secret as possible so as to guard against prayer-trolls, as we might term them, but it's impossible to prevent the phenomenon entirely. And, of course, relatives or others might be praying for the people in the "unprayed-for" category anyway, and there's nothing to be done about that. We'd just have to hope that with a large enough sample, such "noise" would be reduced to a statistically insignificant level.

[karinmollberg.livejournal.com]

I think, prayer-trolls is my new fav. word in my very restricted vocabulary. It has, just by being outspoken here in intraspace, already changed my day into a better one. Also, the sun is shining where I live but I´m not blaming you for that, it would include dubious noise pollution superpowers on your side, not accounted for simply by being human, how ever hard you try.