Science confirms validity of intercessory prayer

[Subduction Zone]

And how are you supposed to test it. So far the results are inconclusive.

CONCLUSIONS:
There is no scientifically discernable effect for IP as assessed in controlled studies. Given that the IP literature lacks a theoretical or theological base and has failed to produce significant findings in controlled trials, we recommend that further resources not be allocated to this line of research.

Right, the claims of the OP have been refuted. Are we done here?

 

[The Reverend Bob]

Nice moving of the goalposts.

No, that's theology, not a goalpost.

There are Christians that will disagree with you and claim that intercessory prayer has a positive effect in this world.

Well, they believe it can. That is on them and their business.

The sort of prayer that you are talking about may only make the person saying the prayers feel better.

Not exactly, it is used by the community as a community building exercise when they intercede on each others behalf

 

[The Reverend Bob]

Yes, I'm aware of that. However, many Christians (though not just them) also believe that intercessory prayer has very much observable real world effects (in particular, healing of sickness).

What they are doing is hoping that it does, you have any objections to them having hope in intercessory prayer?

 

[The Reverend Bob]

Right, the claims of the OP have been refuted. Are we done here?

And your claim that intercessory prayer causes harm as been refuted also. I will give the last word and you may close the thread.

 

[Left Coast]

And how are you supposed to test it. So far the results are inconclusive.

CONCLUSIONS:
There is no scientifically discernable effect for IP as assessed in controlled studies. Given that the IP literature lacks a theoretical or theological base and has failed to produce significant findings in controlled trials, we recommend that further resources not be allocated to this line of research.

Results being inconclusive is not an indication that the subject is untestable. Imagine if scientists tested a new drug and found contradictory results that were ultimately inconclusive. Would you conclude the drug is "untestable?" Of course not. You would conclude what the researchers did in the study here - conclude that there is not enough evidence to recommend use of the drug.

PSA for the rest of the thread: finding one study that shows x had an effect on y does not allow us to conclude that x in fact caused y. This is because we know in science that there is a degree of randomness and chance involved. So we never hang our hat on one study. The name of the game is replication. If a study's results can't be replicated, there is good reason to believe the original study's results were a fluke. Once an effect starts being replicated in multiple studies, then we can start drawing some more confident conclusions.

 

[Revoltingest]

And how are you supposed to test it. So far the results are inconclusive.

CONCLUSIONS:
There is no scientifically discernable effect for IP as assessed in controlled studies. Given that the IP literature lacks a theoretical or theological base and has failed to produce significant findings in controlled trials, we recommend that further resources not be allocated to this line of research.

I caution against ruling out the efficacy of some treatment
just because there's no theoretical basis for it. Unexpected
results often arise, even when not initially understood.

Btw, a theoretical basis for benefits of prayer would be the
relationship between a patient's state of mind & immune
system strength.

 

[The Reverend Bob]

One more thing people:

https://studysites.sagepub.com/vaughnstudy/articles/intervention/Hodge.pdf

Are there demonstrable effects of distant intercessory prayer? A meta-analytic review. - PubMed - NCBI

Like I said, scientific studies of intercessory prayer have been proven to be a waste of time and resources.

 

[Left Coast]

What they are doing is hoping that it does, you have any objections to them having hope in intercessory prayer?

No, I have an objection to them claiming that something has an effect that it actually doesn't. Same as my objection to any other woo.

 

[The Reverend Bob]

Would you conclude the drug is "untestable?"

You would conclude that the drug is junk and go work on something more useful

 

[The Reverend Bob]

No, I have an objection to them claiming that something has an effect that it actually doesn't. Same as my objection to any other woo.

Hope isn't woo

 

[Subduction Zone]

No, that's theology, not a goalpost.

Well, they believe it can. That is on them and their business.

Not exactly, it is used by the community as a community building exercise when they intercede on each others behalf

Nope, you changed the goal of prayer from that of the OP. That is moving the goal posts. If you want to discuss a different goal to prayer then you should start your own thread.

 

[Subduction Zone]

And your claim that intercessory prayer causes harm as been refuted also. I will give the last word and you may close the thread.

I said that it can cause harm in specific cases. That was not "refuted" it was merely not well supported. There is a difference.

 

[The Reverend Bob]

it was merely not well supported.

Then the OP's claim that IP does help isn't refuted but merely not well supported.

 

[Milton Platt]

From the book, "The Case for Miracles," by Lee Strobel.

Dr. Candy Gunther Brown, who earned her doctorate degree at Harvard University, is a professor of religious studies at Indiana University. She has a neutral outlook on religion, having said, “I do not assume the existence or nonexistence of a deity or other suprahuman forces.”

Brown cites two scientific, peer-reviewed studies that confirmed the efficacy of prayer on patients. She noted, “One of the first publicized studies was by Dr. Randolph Byrd, published in 1988, in the peer-reviewed Southern Medical Journal. It was a prospective, randomized, double-blinded, controlled study of four hundred subjects.” The results: “Patients in the prayer group had less congestive heart failure, fewer cardiac arrests, fewer episodes of pneumonia, were less often intubated and ventilated, and needed less diuretic and antibiotic therapy.” The editor of the Journal noted that the study had been peer-reviewed and was judged to be a properly designed and executed scientific investigation.

THEN, a decade or so later, a REPLICATION STUDY by Dr. William S. Harris and colleagues was published in the “Archives of Internal medicine.” Dr. Brown noted of this study, “This was a ‘gold standard’ study of the effects of intercessory prayer on almost a thousand consecutively admitted coronary patients. Half received prayer, the other half didn’t. And again, the group that received prayer had better outcomes than the control group. These studies affirmed that the recipients of prayer had better outcomes than those who didn’t receive prayer.” - "The Case for Miracles," by Lee Strobel, pages 123-128

Discussion -

Why do you only list the studies that confirm what you want to believe and not list those which refute your claim?

 

[Left Coast]

You would conclude that the drug is junk and go work on something more useful

Exactly.

Hope isn't woo

Listen, if people place their faith in woo, I'm not going to storm into their hospital room and demand they change their minds. Placebo is a powerful effect. But I would prefer for people to have hope in things that are realistic. Wouldn't you?

 

[The Reverend Bob]

Nope, you changed the goal of prayer from that of the OP. That is moving the goal posts. If you want to discuss a different goal to prayer then you should start your own thread.

I am not changing the goalpost I am telling you what intercessory prayer is. Ask any Christian for an example of intercessory prayer in the Bible and they will all give the same answer because there is a model of it given in the Bible

 

[The Reverend Bob]

Exactly.


Listen, if people place their faith in woo, I'm not going to storm into their hospital room and demand they change their minds. Placebo is a powerful effect. But I would prefer for people to have hope in things that are realistic. Wouldn't you?

I hope for world peace but that doesn't seem realistic because I don't see a peaceful world anywhere on the horizon, the basis of faith is to hope for those things that seem unrealistic and are not seen such world peace, the cure for cancer and the end of hunger. I hope for a lot of unrealistic things because I am human.

 

[The Reverend Bob]

Why do you only list the studies that confirm what you want to believe and not list those which refute your claim?

Everyone does that.

 

[Milton Platt]

From the book, "The Case for Miracles," by Lee Strobel.

Dr. Candy Gunther Brown, who earned her doctorate degree at Harvard University, is a professor of religious studies at Indiana University. She has a neutral outlook on religion, having said, “I do not assume the existence or nonexistence of a deity or other suprahuman forces.”

Brown cites two scientific, peer-reviewed studies that confirmed the efficacy of prayer on patients. She noted, “One of the first publicized studies was by Dr. Randolph Byrd, published in 1988, in the peer-reviewed Southern Medical Journal. It was a prospective, randomized, double-blinded, controlled study of four hundred subjects.” The results: “Patients in the prayer group had less congestive heart failure, fewer cardiac arrests, fewer episodes of pneumonia, were less often intubated and ventilated, and needed less diuretic and antibiotic therapy.” The editor of the Journal noted that the study had been peer-reviewed and was judged to be a properly designed and executed scientific investigation.

THEN, a decade or so later, a REPLICATION STUDY by Dr. William S. Harris and colleagues was published in the “Archives of Internal medicine.” Dr. Brown noted of this study, “This was a ‘gold standard’ study of the effects of intercessory prayer on almost a thousand consecutively admitted coronary patients. Half received prayer, the other half didn’t. And again, the group that received prayer had better outcomes than the control group. These studies affirmed that the recipients of prayer had better outcomes than those who didn’t receive prayer.” - "The Case for Miracles," by Lee Strobel, pages 123-128

Discussion -

Here are your prayer studies.......not noteworthy at all. Also, other studies have shown no effect. Anyway, I would hardly call the fact that some of the patients had fewer complications an indication that a god was involved. If they had gotten up and walked out of the hospital the next day healed, that would be something.

A 1988 study by Randolph C. Byrd used 393 patients at the San Francisco General Hospital coronary care unit (CCU). Measuring 29 health outcomes using three-level (good, intermediate, or bad) scoring, the prayer group suffered fewer newly diagnosed ailments on only six of them. Byrd concluded that "Based on these data there seemed to be an effect, and that effect was presumed to be beneficial", and that "intercessory prayer to the Judeo-Christian God has a beneficial therapeutic effect in patients admitted to a CCU."[6] The reaction from the scientific community concerning this study was mixed. Several reviewers considered Byrd’s study to be well-designed and well-executed,[7] while others remained skeptical. A criticism of Byrd's study, which also applies to most other studies, is the fact that he did not limit prayers by the friends and family of patients, hence it is unclear which prayers, if any, may have been measured.[8]

The Byrd study had an inconsistent pattern of only six positive outcomes amongst 26 specific problem conditions. A systematic review suggested this indicates possible Type I errors.[2]

A 1999 follow-up by William S. Harris et al. attempted to replicate Byrd's findings under stricter experimental conditions, noting that the original research was not completely blinded and was limited to only "prayer-receptive" individuals (57 of the 450 patients invited to participate in the study refused to give consent "for personal reasons or religious convictions").[9] Using a different, continuous weighted scoring system – which admittedly was, like Byrd's scoring, "an unvalidated measure of CCU outcomes" – Harris et al. concluded that "supplementary, remote, blinded, intercessory prayer produced a measurable improvement in the medical outcomes of critically ill patients", and suggested that "prayer be an effective adjunct to standard medical care."[10] However, when they applied Byrd’s scores to their data, they could not document an effect of prayer using his scoring method. Critics have suggested that both Byrd's and Harris's results can be explained by chance.[11] Richard P. Sloan compared the Byrd and Harris studies with the sharpshooter fallacy, "searching through the data until a significant effect is found, then drawing the bull's-eye."[12]

 

[Milton Platt]

Everyone does that.

FAir enough. Did you even read the detail of the studies, or just take them on faith from Stroebel's book? See my other post........