The Power of Prayer
One of the health-related headlines last week was about how some study showed that prayer doesn't really help with healing.
Link to article
Basically, they did a study on 1800 patients who underwent heart bypass surgery. They were separated into three groups: (1) those who were told that they may or may not be prayed for, and were prayed for; (2) those who were told that they may or may not be prayed for, and were NOT prayed for; and (3) those who were told that they were prayed for, and were prayed for. The prayers were performed by three Christian groups. Afterwards, the patients from groups (1) and (2) had about 51-52% rate for post-surgical complications, while group (3) had 59% rate of complications.
I couldn't help but think that maybe they were praying to the wrong god? ;) Harhar... gotta flex my comedic muscles from time to time.
Anyway, this experiment is obviously flawed. They need to add the following cases as well:
- those who were told that they were not prayed for, and were not prayed for
- those who were told that they were not prayed for, and were prayed for
- those who were told that they were prayed for, and were not prayed for
- those who were not told that they were prayed for, but were prayed for
And, with these 7 cases, they need to test against the other major religions.
The authors of this study didn't think about this problem that critically. I think I shall pray for them tonight.
Link to article
Basically, they did a study on 1800 patients who underwent heart bypass surgery. They were separated into three groups: (1) those who were told that they may or may not be prayed for, and were prayed for; (2) those who were told that they may or may not be prayed for, and were NOT prayed for; and (3) those who were told that they were prayed for, and were prayed for. The prayers were performed by three Christian groups. Afterwards, the patients from groups (1) and (2) had about 51-52% rate for post-surgical complications, while group (3) had 59% rate of complications.
I couldn't help but think that maybe they were praying to the wrong god? ;) Harhar... gotta flex my comedic muscles from time to time.
Anyway, this experiment is obviously flawed. They need to add the following cases as well:
- those who were told that they were not prayed for, and were not prayed for
- those who were told that they were not prayed for, and were prayed for
- those who were told that they were prayed for, and were not prayed for
- those who were not told that they were prayed for, but were prayed for
And, with these 7 cases, they need to test against the other major religions.
The authors of this study didn't think about this problem that critically. I think I shall pray for them tonight.
posted by robchang at
9:39:00 PM
3 Comments:
They did two pairwise comparisons (this is from a write-up describing the study at at rhosgobel.blogspot.com):
- comparing those who were informed they might be prayed for; this tested whether prayer had any effect (one group was prayed for, the other not)
- comparing the groups who were prayed for; this tested whether patient knowledge of prayer had any effect
they didn't do a fully crossed comparison, and they couldn't account for family/friend prayers. they determined it would be both impractical and unethical to try telling family and friends (and the patient, i imagine) that they were not to pray.
while not an exhaustive comparison, it does achieve sufficiency for determining what they set out to measure. and it does so without running afoul of human subjects ethics review committees.
By
Anonymous, at 4/05/2006 6:12 PM
I think think they should be more thorough and maybe get non-religious subjects as well.
By
robchang, at 4/06/2006 7:05 PM
how, though? you'd have to make sure that not only was the patient religious but also that nobody in the patient's family was, either. and that's impractical, and unlikely to yield a sufficient sample size, especially while respecting everyone's right to privacy.
human subjects review boards have a pretty strong veto power over anything that goes on. they can be extremely critical, to the point of seeming unreasonable -- and that's for things deemed minimal risk, for which this almost certainly would not qualify.
By
Anonymous, at 4/07/2006 12:08 AM
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