Talk:Efficacy of prayer/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Format Clean up and Content

This page seems to be largely a fork of prayer, and actually contains a large swathe of text directly lifted from that article. I think cleanup is necessary, especially with all those inline URL cites. JFW | T@lk 22:06, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I did discuss this page on the talk page for prayer for a week and received feedback on it. A good deal of material came from the prayer page and the talk page and various people made various (often highly emotional) suggestions on both sides of the table. But there is better page structure and more material here as well. The portion of the material that came from the prayer page was mostly burried within the prayer page among other issues and another user also agreed that it would be better as a separate page. So the separate page was set up, because this way it can "invite more content". The issue of the efficacy of prayer is indeed a topic in its own right, and needs to stand on its own rather then be mixed with the many unrelated topics that the general term prayer covers. In fact, if you would like to reformat the links, etc. and add more content, please feel free to do so. Much more material can be added here now that it is a page on its own. Thanks History2007 (talk) 00:16, 9 December 2007 (UTC).

Including a definition

In the opening paragraph I would like to define what is meant by "Efficacy of prayer". I think it boils down to the question "are prayers answered, or are they not?" (as it suggests at http://www.abelard.org/galton/galton.htm). We should then state the methods by which that question may be answered. One method is statistical studies using many samples and another is using isolated instances. There is also the argument of whether the question is beyond testing. After we have defined the topic and stated the methods of answering it, we can then talk about them in detail in the rest of the article. -- Barrylb (talk) 02:06, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

I fully agree with your intention. In fact, I was uncomfortable with the fact that some studies measured "hard" items such as blood pressure and some "soft" items such as anxiety, etc. and they ar eall lumped together. If you would like to add that section, I will work with you on it. But let us refer to the issues in Karl Popper's work, since that will eventually come in anyway. But I must say that I have been uncomfortable even with the medical studies that have nothing to do with prayer, e.g. on cholesterol and diet, for many are so sloppy, but that is another issue. History2007 (talk) 04:38, 9 December 2007 (UTC) .

I included this paragraph and have not merged it with the efficacy of prayer section because, even though the overlap between those two pages is quite obvious, the study in this case pertained exclusively to Christain prayer, making it perfectly appropriate for this article. Furthermore, it is of the utmost import that anyone wishing to learn about Christian magic rituals such as prayer also have at least a brief summary of solid study on the subject, rather than us leaving it to chance that someone doing research on the subject would scroll down as far as the references. The rest of the article takes it for granted that Christian magic rituals work, and so I think that it is entirely appropriate that this paragraph be included in the main article. A reference to efficacy of prayer will be included in my revision, but I will not move the entire paragraph. ChrisRay6000 (talk) 04:45, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

The study you seem to be mentioning has been referenced in the artcle twice already. Here is the text of one reference: "In another similar study published in the American Heart Journal in 2006, Christian intercessory prayer when reading a scripted prayer was found to have no effect on the recovery of heart surgery patients; however, the study found patients who had knowledge of receiving prayer had slightly higher instances of complications than those who did not know if they were being prayed for or those who did not receive prayer." As is the article does not seem to include studies on non-Christian prayers, except for yoga mantras. This is probably because such studies have not been funded in the orient. If you can find any such scientific studies on Jewish, Buddhist prayers etc., that will be REALLY interesting. However, just changing the wording on a study that is already in this article to make iit sound more prominent, or adding new twists to the word "prayer" will do little for the article, and will probably get deleted on NPOV grounds anyway. As to who funded that study, that has less importance, although when food manufacturers fund studies, usually they expect a certain outcome - I have noticed that elsewhere in studies. But the real contribution you could make here would be to find new studies that have not been mentioned. History2007 (talk) 15:10, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

2001 study

A study whose results were published in 2001, associated with Columbia University, apparently got a lot of publicity both before and after questions about the results, and the authors of the study, arose. I think it should be mentioned in the Wikipedia article, but would appreciate opinions by others. See:

Bruce Flamm, "The Columbia University 'Miracle' Study: Flawed and Fraud", Skeptical Inquirer, September/October 2004.

And a response by Kwang Y. Cha, one of the study's authors, in the November 2004 issue.

Specifically, the article says "Media attention immediately focused on the miraculous study, and articles touting its spectacular results quickly appeared in newspapers around the world." -- John Broughton (♫♫) 22:05, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the interesting link. I added it to that section. It was not as bad as Hwang Woo-Suk's fake claims on stem cells but it ranks up there! History2007 (talk) 23:22, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

"... a small number of studies have been accused of being seriously flawed or fraudulent. For instance ...". Are there more than one?

One of the authors responded to the accusations here: [1]. Should that be commented on in the WP article? Is this research study considered as fraudulent by any other authority, except Skeptical Inquirer? Mange01 (talk) 23:28, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

The link to the author's response was provided within the article. It maybe best to soften the accusation (and I did that in the article), if you like, although the authors "response" seemed to me to be more of an apology than anything else. I don't really care either way, but I have a very unhappy feeling about that specific piece of medical research, although I do believe that prayer can work under the right circumstances. If you have other references please provide them. Thanks History2007 (talk) 23:45, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

I asked simply because I translated this well-written article to Swedish, and I just wanted to check up the new information that was added to the article before I translated it. (Personally I call myself christian agnostic, since my experience is that all "scientific" proofs for the existence of God always fails after a while of further examination, but I have some kind of hope that at least parts of the religion is true. But our faith or lack of faith should not influence our WP authoring.) Mange01 (talk) 18:40, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, the article may be ok, but the overall research and science is at best 2nd rate, if not 3rd rate. Most of the studies that were done had huge holes in them, in that they usually failed to include some key confounding variables and their overall "level of rigor" was quite low. The key reason may be that there is not enough funding for this type of research so it is usually 2nd rate research at best. And I do not see any organization out there that has $20 million to fund a serious study. After all these studies could not be used to promote a new "$10 pill" that would push up the share price of some pharmaceutical, so they will get done on the cheap once in a while. In the meantime research money is going towards diabetese and cholesterol pills, not these studies. History2007 (talk) 18:59, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Is it possible to include this critisism in the article? Mange01 (talk) 13:55, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

No. It is my opinion, and will be POV issue if it gets included in the article. I happen to be an expert in data analysis, but I have not formally published my analyses on this topic, so I should keep it to this talk page. You could type the same on the Swedish talk page. History2007 (talk) 14:41, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Limits of studies

Should some note be made that all the studies mentioned in this article involve praying for non-miraculous things? Sam Harris wrote how interesting it is that people who claim prayer works in these cases always limit their prayers to fairly unspectacular purposes. For example, he suggests putting the subject to rest by having a billion people pray for an amputee's missing limb to grow back as this is most certainly within the alleged power of God (it happens to lizards everyday).Jewpiterjones (talk) 07:18, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

As in Regeneration (biology) humans can regenerate limbs only when they are very young - as far as we know. Although the liver tissue does regenerate. As for the prayer for miracles, if you have a reference it can be added, but without a published reference it will be considered just a discussion and can not be included. History2007 (talk) 18:36, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Had some trouble finding the reference through Newsweek, but it was saved on RichardDawkinsNet. I also rearranged the medical response/skepticism section to flow a little better. I didn't change or remove any other contributions, just their order.Jewpiterjones (talk) 20:49, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Content Quality

It is very difficult to make an entry on the efficacy of prayer. This entry seems way too concerned with being "balanced" at the cost of informing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.36.52.188 (talk) 06:49, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Arguments against

I know it might sound like trolling, but how come any amputees did not ever benefit from prayer? Did anyone ever measure such "efficacy"? Agameofchess (talk) 00:34, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

No need for an apology for asking a question in a scientifiic context. You might be interested to look at the page on Regeneration (biology) anyway. And that was actually an intersting question, and I think no one will fund such a study at the moment. At the moment, if controlled studies of prayer can achieve 20% of what pharmaceuticals do with pills that will be headline news. There are many stories of miracles, but none in a controlled study. Two issues need to be remembered:

1. The Dean of the Harvard Medical School could also be asked the same question: Can they achieve regeneration at their hospital? I have not heard of a case yet.

2. If prayer can achieve regeneration, then what is next? Will immortality through prayer not be the next logical point on the horizon? How about perpetual motion to solve the pendng energy crisis for the resulting "ever living population", and the other problems that may follow?

My guess is that prayer will probably always have some general limits just as medical science (and all science) will. But we are a long way from that yet. But if you are interested in those issues, you may want to also look at Aubrey de Grey's ideas on "rejuvenation research", however controversial they may be. History2007 (talk) 04:11, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Why should prayer have any limits? Does that imply that God has limits? Are you suggesting that prayer and it's effects are part of the material world? God, prayer and other supernatural causes are suppose to unlimited. God supposedly stopped the sun in the sky for a day? Why the limitation on growing limbs or immortality? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.105.95.187 (talk) 21:36, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

I think this is a good point. Ask and you shall receive seems pretty strait forward to me. Not much fine print there. But... at the same time I don't pretend to have a NPOV on the subject. Timothyjwood (talk) 17:24, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

List of studies

Is it worth creating a list of the studies on the efficacy of prayer with the parameters, robustness and results of the studies? Probably need to be done on a new page. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 04:56, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

I would prefer not merely to duplicate a PubMed search, and these sorts of annotated bibliographies tend to be breeding grounds for synthesis and undue weight violations. If available, it would be preferable to find a reliable source discussing the quality of the evidence base and constructing funnel plots and whatnot. If you want to create a draft for discussion at Talk:Efficacy of prayer/studies it might prove worthwhile. - Eldereft ~(s)talk~ 05:45, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Personally, I have found the rigor in most of the studies to be substandard. They usually miss several confounding variables and make some basic mistakes even before they start. And most do not even bother to include the simplest issues such as time, location, proximity, age distributions, history, season, etc..... History2007 (talk) 16:02, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

According to Jehovah's Witnesses...

In an article "Does Praying Do Any Good?" an official Jehovah's Witnesses publication says:

• "certain requirements must be met if prayers are to be heard"
• "some prayers do not please God"
• "We cannot expect Jehovah to listen to prayers that do not express our true feelings."
• "if we want to know whether prayers do any good, we must understand their purpose."

So on the efficacy of prayer, Jehovah's Witnesses say that some prayers are not "heard". I'm thinking it would be useful to include a section including religious claims about the efficacy of prayer. -- Barrylb (talk) 15:11, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Hi Barry. I agree and interestingly enough, 20 minutes or so ago I added the following quote:

To pray for particular favors is to dictate to Divine Wisdom, and savors of presumption; and to intercede for other individuals or for nations, is to presume that their happiness depends upon our choice, and that the prosperity of communities hangs upon our interest.

It almost says the same thing, but a little more research may show even more. I have been thinking of a whole new article on what you mentioned, and there is probably enough material for it out there. Cheers. History2007 (talk) 15:35, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Dawkins/Russel Quotes

These seem slightly out of context, especially the Dawkins quote. Dawkins was saying that the efficacy of prayer is within the realm of science in as much as the scientific method can be used to disprove it. I don't think anyone has any illusions as to Dawkins' view on the subject. The Russell quote is also along the same lines.Jewpiterjones (talk) 07:18, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree, and will go one step further: I think that the use of the Russell quote is intentionally misleading. The entry says "A young Bertrand Russell, on the other hand, reasoned that events that are inherently 'contrary to nature' can not be subject to prayer, for they would run against the laws of nature as set forth by God. Russell's views on religion changed significantly throughout his life, but before he was 16, assuming the existence of God and writing in the context of what he called 'the law' as set forth by God, Russell wrote..." It is patently absurd to quote Bertrand Russell at age 15 as an authority on anything, especially since Russell spent the remaining 80-odd years of his life as a committed atheist! Unless someone can justify this quote within a week or so, I'm going to delete it. Bricology (talk) 17:51, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia rules require you to modify the quote exactly as you did here, namely say that Russell changed his mind after he grew up. It is a valid reference and can only be ammended, not deleted. Cheers. History2007 (talk) 18:07, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Valid reference does not mean that the reference is being quoted verbatim. It means that it has relevance to the topic. It is a misleading quote and of little relevance and to have to mention in the text why it is misleading (i.e.,that it comes from a 15 year old whose life's work was in opposition to the quote) speaks to the fact that it is a quote that does not belong. Clearly the quote was originally chosen to trade on Russell's name. There is no requirement in wikipedia to leave a quote just because it is quoted verbatim. It should add to the quality of the article. By extension, there are thousands of quotes that we might add and they could all be quoted correctly. That does not mean that the article would be useful to anyone. Editing is about adding and subtracting to achieve a readable article. It strains credulity to believe that the writings of *any* 15 year old have any relevance to this discussion. BobKawanaka 18:27, 16 October 2009 (UTC). —Preceding unsigned comment added by BobKawanaka (talk • contribs)

How do we spell age discrimination? A statement should be judged on its value, not the age of the speaker. Lots of middle aged people have said lots of boring things, and I find the Russell reasoning pretty interesting, regardless of age. And the page said that he was 15 when he stated that and that his views changed afterwards. History2007 (talk) 20:04, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, you tried the age discrimination argument before and I suspect that you know it's a false argument. The quote was clearly only included originally simply because Bertrand Russell, the most famous of atheists (pre-Dawkins) said something about god, the quote in itself is clearly not noteworthy. Finally, if the entirety of his journal entry is read (as is now possible to those of us who don't have a physical copy of the book), it shows that the 15 year Russell is actually suggesting that prayer is pointless because god wouldn't do things simply because we asked him to ... in his journal entry he is writing of *all things* that might be asked in prayer not to the testability of prayer. It's a silly quote to begin with ... we might as well ask Miley Cyrus her opinion on prayer too ... but the nail in the coffin is that the quote does not say what it is written to say in article and should clearly be removed for so many reasons. The other editors can weigh in on the topic. (The journal entry can be gotten to by entering in the quoted phrase in books.google.com wherein the relevant journal page will be shown). BobKawanaka (talk) 22:15, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

"Age discrimination", History2007?! Thanks for the good laugh. So apparently, you'd have no problem with me inserting quotes about god or prayer (for or against) from any 15 year-old that I'd care to find, right? Or would quoting a 14 year-old show less age discrimination? -a 6 year-old? Should the WP entry about human sexual relations quote the 10 year-old Bertrand Russell's views about girls? He probably didn't think much of them at the time, even though he later developed quite an appetite for them. I can see it now: "Bertrand Russell believed that females were icky and had cooties (before he was 12)." The only reason that anyone would quote Bertrand Russell in a Wiki (other than in his own bio) would be if he was considered authoritative or his views were otherwise significant. The 15 year-old B.R. neither is nor was considered authoritative or significant about anything. He did not publish until he was 24 years old, and that was about German sociopolitics! No, the only reason that anyone would quote the 15 year-old B.R. is because they wanted to use the immature views of an otherwise life-long atheist to help prop up their theistic agenda. Like I said, unless someone can justify this quote's relevance (which you've in no way done), I'm going to delete it. If you revert it, I'll apply for protection. And I think that you'll find that most Wiki mods will be no more likely to see things your way than do BobKawanaka or I. Justify the relevance or leave it out; that's the first rule of WP. Bricology (talk) 01:30, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Russell quote? Which Russell quote? You wanted old, you got old quotes and perhaps more than you bargained for. Be careful what you pray for, you may get just it. But I do think that the 15 year old Berty was MUCH smarter than many of the people who have had titles of prime minister, president etc. in recent years. Anyway, this discussion did have two amusing results:

• As I was driving today, I realized that Russell forgot to do one more version of Russell's paradox: "What if a lot of people prayed that prayers have no effect". Would that prayer be answered? I should trademark that paradox now...

• This discussion lead me to a few old works that had a new angle on prayer. I think I will write another article based on those.

So thanks guys, you were of great help. Cheers. History2007 (talk) 13:07, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Your sarcasm aside, the quotes you've given are clearly better than what was there before and the section is clearly better so I will, without sarcasm, say thanks. I think the quotes are part of reasonable reporting on one of the points of view in the topic. I don't think the section is perfect (it's not really the place in a criticism section to rebut the criticism and the quotes are a bit long) but there are other things to fix in the article first and the section is clearly better than it was. BobKawanaka (talk) 13:08, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Sarcasm? Moi? But in fact, it is surprising how much one learns in the process of debating with others on Wikipedia. So my thanks were not only sarcastic, but had some truth in them. I actually read some of those works I referenced there, and I was amazed how much better they were than many of the modern books that one sees printed these days. And those books are mostly out of reach and ONLY accessible to most people now because of Google books... but let me stop before I get too sarcastic about Google and the shallowness of modern thought... Cheers History2007 (talk) 14:44, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Abbot quote

Why does the introduction quote Abbot's review of 22 alternative healing studies when only 5 involved intercessory prayer? Keahapana (talk) 23:41, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

I think that question is begging an answer. I have not had time to reedit your recent changes, but I guess the goal there may be to delete the Abbott statement and emphasize a tilt for the article towards the statement that prayer does not work, given the tone of the previous edits today that I will have to address later. The answer is that Abbott was a general review, and if you have another general review that can be quoted too, but Abbott is certainly relevant and quotable since it was a respected journal. History2007 (talk) 23:50, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Hi History2007. I'm sorry that my question was unclear. What I meant was, Wouldn't it be better to use a quote specifically about IP rather than generally about CAM? Perhaps something like Powell et al. 2003:47-8? The present article is already good, thanks largely to your diligent editing. What you see as tilting I see as balancing. For instance, I thought the $2.4 million STEP experiment, which set the methodological benchmark for future prayer studies, deserved more explanation than the previous sentence: "In another similar study published in the American Heart Journal in 2006 …" Please continue to reedit my contributions. I look forward to working together with you. Best wishes, Keahapana (talk) 19:57, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

No need for an apology, but I do have a different set of points to emphasize. As a start, I think the Third party studies section is becoming too detailed for an encyclopedia entry for it discusses such a level of detail as to read like a summary paper. It does seem to play favorites in my view, and it now attempts to arrive at scientific conclusions when none exist. Some issues I have with your edits are as follows:

I agree the "Third party" section (shouldn't it be Third-party?) needs to be cut down. To which "scientific conclusions" are you referring?

• In general, it is clear that almost all the few studies in this area have been subject to guesswork, criticism and have had various holes in their logic that render them useless in the eyes of many scientists, myself included. I will discuss that further below with the "product analogy".

Yes, the early prayer studies were badly designed. Do you consider the STEP experiment "useless"? Most of its criticism I've seen comes from Christian apologists rather than scientists.

• Some of the statements you introduced are "flatly" non-scientific, a good example being the Richard Dawkins speculation on performance anxiety in the Benson STEP study. As usual, Dawkins is standing on a pedestal over a thousand miles away from the actual experiment and comments on it in a way that is not subject to any falsifiability test. How is anyone at any time going to test if his anxiety hypothesis is correct after the fact? No one ever can do that, hence it fails the basic test of being science as pointed out in Conjectures and Refutations. It is simple. Yet it adds an air of certainty to the contradiction inherent in the Benson study. An equally likely, and in fact more testable hypothesis is that they ignored some confounding variables and their sampling was not done right. And the Benson study specifically "assumed" that prayers can work based on first/last name. A key assumption discussed below.

Isn't that a straw-man? I don't read Dawkins as proposing a scientific hypothesis, but as using "performance anxiety" to paraphrase Bethea. I noticed this article's final sentence quotes Dawkins out of context, which I'll add later.

• You devoted significant space to Byrd's study, in effect kicking him to the extent that he probably needs a visit to the emergency room of the hospital in which the study was conducted. At the same time, you removed the criticism against Benson, based on the argument that it was mentioned elsewhere in the article. That section now needs a tile such as "kicking Byrd in favor of Benson". In fact, both studies have been criticized (and or good reasons in both cases) but the punishment in the section was harsher on one rather than the other. The fact that those praying in the Benson experiment were uncomfortable about performing the prayers that way has been a major criticism and must be added back. And exactly who is "Sarah Glazer" of CQ Researcher, a non-refereed publication sold to politicians? She seems to be a writer with no specific mathematical or statistical training. Am I mistaken? If so, how can she be quoted that prominently on a specific technical issue? And the conclusion of her article seems to be that there is no conclusion anyway, as this Wiki-article suggests.

No, I have nothing against individual scientists, only bad science and pseudoscience. I assume you haven't read Glazer's article because it attributes the "sharpshooter effect" to Richard P. Sloan. I quoted Glazer's explanation because it was shorter than Sloan's. Do you want to replace it? Why do you consider a 38-word quote in a lengthy paragraph "prominent"?

Now, let us look at it this way, specially with respect to the Benson STEP study. As an analogy, which is actually very close to reality, let us consider prayer as a "product" marketed by various organizations such as Jewish groups, Roman Catholics and Muslims. Like many other products, the prayer product is often promoted in "free seminars" held at Synagogues, Churches and Mosques - entrance is free. Various claims about the product are made in most cases. However, specific instructions for the use of the product are also almost always provided by the manufacturer's representatives, be it a Rabbi, Priest or a Mullah. The product is expected to be used in specific methods, e.g. with calm, with reverence and purity of intention, free from distractions, etc. Although the product is claimed to have a "force" that can affect the events in this world or the next, caution is provided in many cases that the effects of the forces do not form a vector space, e.g. that 100 prayers do not necessarily have more force than a single prayer of a higher quality. And that the harmony or cognitive dissonance present within the prayer group is a key issue. There are no printed manufacturer warranties that first/last name addressing guarantees the delivery of prayers to Heaven, as Benson's study assumed.

In this scenario, the studies performed are the equivalents of tests by Consumer Reports to determine the validity of the claims made by the manufacturers - in this case only the Christian manufacturers anyway. Yet in most studies the manufacturer's guidelines for product usage are totally ignored. From a scientific view, it is not at all surprising that the studies provide null or contradictory results. And given that there is NO data if Jewish prayers work better than Muslim prayers or vice versa and only Christian manufacturers have been evaluated, the term "prayer efficacy" is a misnomer anyway. So to try to paint these few, incomplete and contradictory studies in a scientific light by hand selecting Glazer and Dawkins as key quotes is less than logical. I will try to do some editing later. Cheers. History2007 (talk) 20:22, 2 April 2010 (UTC)\

Your interesting "product" analogy reminds me of the "supply-side religion" metaphor, but neither seems relevant here. Yes, it would be fascinating for scientists to compare prayer results from different religions. The page history shows that you started and titled this "Efficacy of prayer" article. Do you now feel that it's a "misnomer"? I'll add some edits today and look forward to your reediting. Best wishes, Keahapana (talk) 23:31, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

No, the page name is the best it can be, given that efficacy of Christian prayer would look too specialized, and that there are a couple of studies from India, but it will make sense now to mention that almost all 3rd party studies are done on Christian prayers. The supply side religion arguments are totally non-scientific of course. However, the product analogy here does point out that the STEP study totally failed by assuming that first/last name addressing guarantees delivery and ignored the complaints about mechanical prayer. Moreover, studies such as STEP have ignored the prayer-receptiveness of patients, or their religion. That is in itself ignoring the user manual for the product, for although in his consecration of the entire world to the Sacred Heart of Jesus Pope Leo XIII entered new theological territory by consecrating non-Christians, it is not scientifically established if prayers by Christians affect other Christians better than Muslims or Buddhists. Could the patients with adverse effects in STEP have been of a religion whose God does not like Christian prayer? Who knows? Their prayer receptiveness was not measured. And any and all assumptions of monotheism or lack thereof, are non-scientific here. To even begin to be scientific STEP should have measured the beliefs of the patients and given photographs to half of those praying to see if the presence of a patient photograph affects prayer. Who knows? No one knows. But all of that fades in comparison with the fatal ailment that affects almost all of these studies, including Byrd's claims of success - as I stated in the article. These studies, neither Byrd nor Benson, did not limit prayers by the friends and family of the patient. Hence even if they had succeeded and claimed that prayer "has an effect" it would be unclear if the effect had been from the assigned agents or the friends and family. These studies are full of elementary holes, and can not be relied upon. Period.

And we must also accept that there is an undercurrent here in which these simple pathetic studies are used as a surrogate for a debate about the existence of God, and if the study succeeds religious people cheer and if it fails the aethists cheer. Yet this page must avoid that undercurrent. History2007 (talk) 01:38, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Instead of Abbot or the even more general Zaleski quote, I've added Powell et al., which is specifically about efficacy of prayer. It cites Sicher, Targ, and Smith 1998 "A randomized double-blind study of the effect of distant healing …". Should we add this article to "Third party studies"? Keahapana (talk) 23:15, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Inexplicable deletions

Hi History2007, Thanks for your constructive edits (like chronologically reorganizing the studies), but I'm surprised by your largely unexplained (only 7 summaries for 39 edits) removals of relevant citations. Why, for example, did you delete Dawkins quoting Bethea? Dawkins, despite your personal opinion, "standing on a pedestal over a thousand miles away from the actual experiment", is a widely-cited authority on the efficacy of prayer. I'll revise some of the problematic edits today, and suggest that we discuss future changes here first. Best wishes, Keahapana (talk) 23:16, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Quoted is one thing, nonsense is another. Dawkins' statement there is non-scientific because it can not be proven or refuted. It is a personal view with no proof. You should think of the flow of the logic in the article first, then select quotes to explain the issues. Articles written for "quote groupies" often lack logic. In any case, the intercessory section became too long after another user added sections, and I made it an article on its own. It was too long on percentages of healing and too short on logic, but in any case it is a reasonably size article on its own now and future studies can be added there. History2007 (talk) 07:25, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Another step backwards? Without allowing any discussion, you've forked the "Third-party studies" section, which contains the crucial scientific evidence about prayer's efficacy. I could be wrong, perhaps your editing is consistent with WP conventions, so I'll request a third opinion. Cheers, Keahapana (talk) 19:15, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

No problem. Not one sentence from that section was deleted, it was just too long for this article, and is fully accessible to whoever wants to read it. But it was so full of 52% success on 1739 patients vs 53% success on 1231 patients type details etc. that it is best in one place on its own. And I created a new page (no fork) after another user added sections that made it too long. And all future studies can go there, which means in time it will just grow and grow. It will have to be article on its own, which can include details, without making this article overrun the Wikipedia length limits, and become larger than any other section. Most people who read this article should not be burdened with 1873 patients in one study vs 1871 patients in another. But that type of number and 57% success rate vs 48% failure should be accessible in the studies article. The focus of this article has been multi-element all along: philosophical, scientific and religious issues. And the length to each issue needs to be managed so the article will remain readable. That is what the "Main" tag is for in Wikipedia, to provide summary of lengthy articles and point to them. Moreover, further above on this talk page, you had commented that the Third party section was getting too long, stating: "I agree the "Third party" section (shouldn't it be Third-party?) needs to be cut down". And that was before user:Chhandama added another section to it. So it became too long and needed its own article that can grow in time as new studies come in. It is clearly a logical approach. History2007 (talk) 19:49, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Third opinion on studies

I am responding to a request for a third opinion.

It seems to me that Studies on intercessory prayer (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) is a reasonable location for the content and references which were moved there from this article. – Athaenara ✉ 21:11, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. History2007 (talk) 21:22, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, thank you Athaenara. Best wishes, Keahapana (talk) 22:39, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Efficacy of prayer

Regarding "The Holy Spirit and prayer". I had to do a paper recently as part of my studies (b.a. in theology) regarding a book by Bernard Haring 'The Law of Christ vol.1' where this subject is treated extensively. I am here adapting a short text from the book to meet with the needs of the proposed section "The Holy Spirit and Prayer" in the article "Efficacy of Prayer" by refering to Bernard Haring The Law of Christ and Paul Tillich Dynamics of Faith.

Prayer is not possible in a subject-object dichotomy where the person is separated from God, for God cannot be the object of a prayer without being at the same time the subject. ( Paul Tillich ) The union between man and God happens because of the Holy Spirit. "The Holy Spirit is the law in Christ Jesus for the Holy Spirit is for us the gift of Christ exalted in glory and signifies vital incorporation into Christ." (BERNARD HÄRING, The Law of Christ, I/For the law of the Spirit of the life in Christ Jesus has delivered me from he law of sin and death (Rom8:2), translated by Edwin G. Kaiser, Cork 1963, 259 ) It is the Holy Spirit who guarantees an authentic prayer. Alan347 (talk • contribs) 10:04, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

What you say is probably part of Christian teachings, but we need have good references for it. Thanks. History2007 (talk) 13:22, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

The Holy Spirit and prayer

"Christian prayer is a covenant relationship between God and man in Christ. It is the action of God and of man, springing forth from both the Holy Spirit and ourselves, wholly directed to the Father, in union with the human will of the Son of God made man." ( Cathechism of the Catholic Church, 2564) "The Holy Spirit who teaches the Church and recalls to her all that Jesus said also instructs her in the life of prayer, inspiring new expressions of the same basic forms of prayer: blessing, petition, intercession, thanksgiving and praise." ( Cathechism of the Catholic Church, 2644 ). "Christian prayer is a communion of love with the Father, not only through Christ but also in him". "The father gives us when our prayer is united with that of Jesus 'another Counsellor, to be with [us] for ever', the Spirit of Truth." ( Cathechism of the Catholic Church, 2615 ) "The [Holy] Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes with sights too deep for words." ( Cathechism of the Catholic Church, 741 )

Then there is the issue of faith as an integral part of prayer:

Faith and prayer

"One enters into prayer by the narrow gate of faith. It is the face of the Lord that we seek and desire; it is his Word that we want to hear and keep"(from Cathechism of the Catholic Church, 2656 ) "Once committed to conversion, the heart learns to pray in faith. Faith is a filial adherence to God beyond what we feel and understand. It is possible because the Son gives us access to the Father. He can ask us to 'seek' and to 'knock', since he himself is the door and the way. ( Cathechism of the Catholic Church, 2609 ) Alan347 (talk) 16:37, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Right, but we need some reference that uses "that argument" against the mechanical tests, else it will be WP:OR. History2007 (talk) 16:39, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Why do you say this ? This material is not original research, it has already been published by reliable sources Alan347 (talk) 16:43, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

I have no problem if you try and add it. Somebody will object sooner or later, and then you just discuss it with them yourself. Cheers. History2007 (talk) 17:01, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Alan, I went ahead and added references to your idea, to stop it being WP:OR. Just a few points: You can not say in Wikipedia: "prayer is not possible in a subject-object dichotomy" because that means it is a fact, so you have to say: "In Christian teachings, prayer is not possible in a subject-object dichotomy", etc. And the references I added say what you wanted to say, else just quoting the catechism was not enough. In time you will get used to it. Cheers. History2007 (talk) 18:43, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

efficacious prayers for deliverance and healing

Jesus' prayers for healing were efficacious so that we find him "driving out evil spirits", "healing many people", and also going as far as "raising people from the dead". ( example: Mark 1, 21-28; 29-34; 5, 21-43. )

"The apostles also performed many miraculous signs and wonders among the people" ( Acts 5,12 )

now for the contemporary refer to Benny Hinn or to Dr. John in Malta.

Next Friday's the next healing service at Fgura Parish Church, perhaps you can go catch some healings taking place live there.

I need to get back on this

Alan347 (talk) 21:39, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

The Miracles of Jesus is a separate article and is not the topic here. And whatever happens in a local church every Friday is also not relevant here. History2007 (talk) 23:24, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

It always depends on the perspective you want to offer my dear History2007, we are speaking on the efficacy of prayer here aren't we ? so why not put a section dealing with prayers that where efficacious, studying them on how and why they were efficacious ? Alan347 (talk) 09:55, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Miracles have their own page, so those need to be there. As for prayers in your local church, they need to be done in a scientific way for this page, like those in the studies here and referenced need to satisfy WP:RELIABLE . Is your church giving Lourdes a run for top spot for healing? Do you have WP:RELIABLE sources for them, apart from a local TV station?History2007 (talk) 11:39, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

the focus in the section Efficacious prayers for deliverance and healing would be to briefly describe a couple of efficacious prayers for healing. Alan347 (talk) 14:41, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Then that is not the focus here unless you have studies that tried those prayers. You can add those to a new page called Christian prayers for healing and may be an interesting page by itself if you do not oversell it and/or state that St. Francis himself showed up one day and cured your cousin etc. So please feel free to do that. By the way, since you mentioned Benny Hinn, as a form of free advertisement here, do you want to mention Peter Popoff too, just to remind us of both sides of the coin? History2007 (talk) 15:07, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

I've never heard about this guy you mention, and by the sounds of it, it does not look such an interesting idea to go look him up as most probably he's on the reverse side of the coin. I know the reverse side exists and it is an important part of our experience so that we can learn. Most times it does not pay back to give the reverse importance, best approach in learning is to seek out the right side so that we can grow. That's why I wanted to introduce the topic: effective/efficacious prayers, so that by studying the effective prayers we can move out of the in-efficacious zone, learn to pray more effectively and move into the effective zone. Just like Jesus' prayers were effective. Alan347 (talk) 10:16, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Edits

Hello, I'm new here and would like to make the following edit unless someone objects.

The second paragraph currently reads:

To date, scientific, religious and philosophical views on the efficacy of prayer do not agree...

I don't understand in what way "philosophical views" can differ from both religious and scientific ones. "Philosophy" or "love of wisdom"/"love of knowledge" is something both groups can and do claim and should therefore not be counted as some kind of distinct third view separate and apart from the other two unless indeed a view exists that is not in agreement with either group. If such a view does exist, surely it too will be based on some kind of philosophy and should therefore be named. In the absence of any such view I would like to edit the paragraph to read thus:

To date, scientific and religious views on the efficacy of prayer do not agree...

I don't believe it means anything to say or suggest that views can differ purely on "Philosophical" grounds. Agenzen (talk) 02:02, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

No big deal really, but there is also a debate on philosophical grounds, regardless of the science, so there are 3 parties arguing, so in my view deleting that will just make it more vague, but no big deal really. History2007 (talk) 05:42, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, I agree that different groups may stand on different philosophical ground in support of their own view. In this sense religion and science are both philosophical views in that they have their own philosophical and epistemological underpinnings. The article is suggesting that a third philosophical view exists that is distinct from the other two listed (scientific and religious). If such a distinct philosophical view does in fact exists then it should be named so that the reader will have some idea of what kind of view it might be and how it does not agree with the other two. As to weather or not it's a big deal I would point out that the suggestion of a possible third view gives the impression that the current situation is more uncertain than it would otherwise be if there were only two kinds of views involved. If there is indeed a third view, distinct from the other two, then I would rather mention it by name than remove a possible reference to it. Agenzen (talk) 16:35, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Hello again. The second paragraph also reads:

Medical studies have, at times, provided conflicting conclusion…

As far as I can tell there are different kinds of medical studies referenced in this article, first person, second person, and third party studies with and without the patient's knowledge and all these studies seem to measure different affects under different conditions and therefore I cannot understand how these studies can possibly "conflict" with one another in any of their conclusions (although I admit that the general public often draws their own conflicting conclusions after reading or even hearing about such medical studies). If there are in fact conflicting medical studies that measure the same thing and arrive at different conclusions then I believe they should be named or cited directly after the word "conclusion" otherwise a flag should be added to that claim and if such a conflict cannot be found the claim should be removed until it can be substantiated as fact. Thanks. Agenzen (talk)

Nope. On this, because it is summarizing the article, nothing is needed. There are many references below. History2007 (talk) 18:01, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Can you give me an example of 2 studies that directly conflicted with one another in their conclusion about something? And if so then why not reference them in the opening summery so that the reader can know something about the nature of these conflicts right away? I'm curious specifically as to what the studies themselves concluded, how they differed in those conclusions and the methods used. For example, was one study specifically designed to supersede an earlier one in order to address specific problems discovered or alleged? And if that is what is being summarized by the words "Medical studies have, at times, provided conflicting conclusion" then such information would certainly be relevant and should be readily available to the reader. But as it stands I have no Idea about the nature of these conflicts and therefore ask for clarification. Agenzen (talk) 19:45, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Why just 2? How do you spell confusion and contradiction: Studies on intercessory prayer? You should read these more carefully, rather than asking for a tutorial, thanks. History2007 (talk) 20:07, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

I assure you that I have read the article very carefully and rather than listing every possible permutation I wonder if you would be so kind as to support your claim by pointing out just 2 specific studies on that or any other page that you believe justifies your claim that "Medical studies have, at times, provided conflicting conclusion." And I will be glad to reference them for you or tell you why I object to the term "conflicting conclusion". In general I am taking the point of view that studies that measure different things or have been superseded by subsequent studies specifically designed to address flaws in the previous ones cannot, in my view, be said to "conflict" with one other. This is especially true when a study is discredited in scandal and or criminal indictment. It's a bit like claiming "Astronomical surveys, at times, provided conflicting conclusions as to the heliocentric nature of our solar system". Such a statement is misleading and should either be clarified or substantiated with more than mere intimidation and accusation of laziness. Cheers Agenzen (talk) 21:33, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Quote:

However, when they applied Byrd’s scores to their data, they could not document an effect of prayer using his scoring method.

STE study: Some prayed-for patients fared worse than those who did not receive prayers

Good enough... I will pray it is. Let us see the efficacy of that. History2007 (talk) 21:48, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

I hope you are not talking any of this personally it's my intention only to improve this article and only after discussing it with you and others before doing anything. As I've indicated I'm new here and perhaps don’t understand the etiquette. I get the sense that you are attached to this page and feel responsible for its contents and that's something I can both appreciate and respect.

Ok, as you have it, the first quote is saying that there was no affect and the second is saying that there seems to have been "some", in fact a very small, negative affects for those patients who knew they were being prayed for.

I'm suggesting that we either qualify the areas of disagreement, psychological vs. physical or substitute the word "conclusions" with "interpreted".

For example I think the article would be improved if we changed the wording to something like:

'Medical studies have, at times, been interpreted in conflicting ways by different groups while other studies have been specifically designed to clear up such ambiguities, meenwhile the debate...'

What do you think? Agenzen (talk) 22:46, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

I think a huge debate about peanuts. No major difference, just wasted talk. History2007 (talk) 23:50, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Let's just say that I think there is a difference and believe that difference to be of some value. I Also believe that the NPOV section on this page may be referring, at least in part, to this very statement.

Am I to understand then, that you have no objection if I were to rephrase the statement as written? (I'm really getting the feeling now, that you may be taking this personally, if true then I regret this very much). Agenzen (talk) 01:58, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Moving on...

The next 2 paragraph read as follows:

'Religious groups have objected to the very measurement of the efficacy of prayer and believe that what the studies measure is mechanical rather than real prayer. On the issue of intercessory prayer Christian teaching have emphasized the need for guidance from the Holy Spirit as to what needs to be prayed for and have taught that "God can not be coerced."[2][3][4]'

I think that paragraph is prefect exactly as it is and very relevant, well said and appears to be well sourced. (Although, my version of MS-Word wants to change "can not" to "cannot")

However the following paragraph reads:

'The philosophical controversy on this topic even involves the basic issues of statistical inference and falsifiability as to what it may mean to "prove" or "disprove" something, and the problem of demarcation, i.e., as to whether this topic is even within the realm of science at all.'

I believe this only adds confusion instead of clarification to what was just said in the previous paragraph, and should therefore either be changed to:

'These arguments address basic issues of statistical inference and falsifiability as to what it may mean to "prove" or "disprove" something, and the problem of demarcation, i.e., as to whether this topic is even within the realm of science at all.'

Or, perhaps, removed altogether as it does not really add anything new.

If rewritten as above, it becomes clear that the paragraph is an extension, or perhaps a clarification, of the issues involved in the 1st. And as such I'm not sure if it really adds anything at all. Perhaps these paragraphs can be merged to read something like:

'Religious groups have objected to the very measurement of the efficacy of prayer and believe that what the studies measure is mechanical rather than real prayer. On the issue of intercessory prayer Christian teaching have emphasized the need for guidance from the Holy Spirit as to what needs to be prayed for and have taught that "God can not be coerced". These arguments address basic issues of statistical inference and falsifiability as to what it may mean to "prove" or "disprove" something, and the problem of demarcation, i.e., as to whether this topic is even within the realm of science at all.'

But, as I said, I think the 1st paragraph is perfect as it is and therefore suggest the removal of the second paragraph and invite your comment.

Thanks for your patience - (Please try not to be upset) Agenzen (talk) 04:02, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

A dynamic encyclopedia

You started by saying that you are new. I think you just do NOT understand that this is a dynamic encyclopedia and talking about exact wordings is an utter waste of time. Look at the archives of Gospel of Thomas which I no longer watch. About nine months ago every single word in the intro was debated to death among 3 editors. After an agreement was eventually reached, it was stable for 3 to 4 weeks. Then the content was changed and the intro had to change. Now the intro has been totally rewritten. Whatever the exact wording maybe, it may change in 3 minutes when a new editor arrives. Change what you want, myself or someone else may change it back in 2 weeks. This is a dynamic encyclopedia and talking about exact wording is just a waste of time, for someone will change it soon. One day you will wish you had used your time for more productive purposes than debating the exact words. History2007 (talk) 07:15, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

I see what you mean, and truly appreciate both your advice and experience corroborating with others here on WP.

My intention was never to debate anyone here about anything but rather simply announce the fact that I was about to make some changes before actually doing so and ask if there were any objections. If you find it to be a "waste of time" then why not simply ignore it?

I have read some of the other comments and noticed that others have acted similarly, although perhaps in bigger chunks. Personally I prefer to chip away at a problem rather than rewriting it wholesale.

To be clear, the perceived "problem" in my view is that this article appears to lack a NPOV. For example the opening paragraph makes the following statement "Some studies have demonstrated benefit, some have demonstrated harm, and some have found no benefit from prayer". As I have indicated before I find such statement misleading in exactly the same way that a statement like "Some astrological surveys have suggested that the solar system is geocentric while others have demonstrated it to be heliocentric, and some (like Tyco Brahee) have even suggested a combination of the two." to be misleading given our current knowledge of the solar system.

I believe the cases referred to in the opening summery should not be lumped together in this way as they give the false impression that all these studies stand on equal scientific footing (or even measure the same thing) but rather be broken out and briefly summarized right at the top of the article so that a reader knows what he or she is reading. For example I would like to point out that while 1st party prayer and meditation seem to have some beneficial affects regarding soft factors like anxiety and depression, 3ed party studies have measured little or no affects of any kind.

I would also like to indicate (right at the top) that the Mantra study done in Duke in 2005" is regarded as the first time rigorous scientific protocols [were] applied on a large scale to assess the feasibility of intercessory prayer" and that it concluded in a null result. And as such should not be lumped together with the Byrd and Harris study especially in light of the fact that Byrd and Harris & it’s follow-up concluded ambiguously, and within statistical chance, while also suffering from the sharpshooter fallacy.

On the other hand I completely agree with the third paragraph that indicates that the very Idea that anything can measured at all is very much in doubt in that none of these studies actually measure prayer as practiced naturally by ordinary human beings as part of their faith.

This, then is the problem I'm trying to chip away at, and would prefer to ask for input before rewriting this section in a more, I believe, NPOV.

After all, How can I possibly know that my own POV is neutral unless I talk to others about it 1st?

Thank you so much for your patience and input. And look forward to working with you if you so wish. Agenzen (talk) 17:28, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

No problem, make your changes and we will look at it after the fact. But now that we are on the topic, let me tell you the whole idea of the studies were totally stupid. Think of it this way: suppose you want to study the effects of diet on cholesterol and you do a study, making sure some patients in the hospital get low fat and others get high fat foods. During the study, however, the family of patients visit the hospital and no one measures if the family brings French fries and hamburgers for the patients! That is a stupid way to do a cholesterol study. Similarly, no one measured here if the family of the patients pray for their recovery, or their death to get their inheritance. So the studies were dumb. Long live Harvard! History2007 (talk) 18:40, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

I believe the 3ed paragraph in this article expresses that very point and I completely agree that all these studies are dumb from the point of view that they can either prove or disprove the efficacy of prayer. But here is the catch, what these studies can in fact do, perfectly well in my opinion, is to set an upper limit on the efficacy of prayer.

For example it's perfectly fair to say that the most current and rigorous scientific studies suggest that third party, anonymous, Christen prayer under a insincere, scripted and rigorously controlled scientific environments seem to have no positive effect on heart surgery patients or their post operative recovery cycle.

If ever people though that prayer in general, to the Judean Christian God , just plain works as a simple force of nature, without regard to sincerity or personal knowledge or special guidance and regardless of the medical condition involved then these studies can be used to support the Idea that it just ain't so.

I don’t think these people are so dumb, really. I think they probably understood what the possible outcomes could mean well before they started.

I hope to work more on this next weekend. Thanks' so much for all your help. Agenzen (talk) 22:09, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Regarding "I don’t think these people are so dumb, really", let us do some studies on that, if we get funded... The key to all of this is of course funding... But scientifically speaking you never know who prayed for whose non-recovery, so we know nothing. History2007 (talk) 22:28, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

I suspect that is precisely why the STEP project only used first names and last initials. Not so dumb after all I think. On the other hand, perhaps you're right. I don’t know any of them personally. Agenzen (talk) 02:06, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Actually it is much worse than that. But anyway, it should be obvious that we know nothing about the Jewish or Muslim prayers. And the possibility that Rosary works on Fridays and nothing else does has not been tested. Maybe only Baptist prayers are heard on Wednesdays and Catholics on Tuesdays - maybe these people need specific prayer appointments with Heaven who knows.... And that is just the tip of the iceberg... I can go on and on... History2007 (talk) 09:10, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Your absolutely right, the studies can't claim anything outside the parameters they actually studied. All they can really say is that it doesn't seem to work mechanically under the condition they actually tested.

Byrd suggested that "intercessory prayer to the Judeo-Christian God has a beneficial therapeutic effect in patients admitted to a CCU" which leads directly to the following questions:

• Can we reproduce the results?
• Should we set up prayer centers next door to coronary care units in order to save lives?
• Can we use standard scripts so that they can be made more precise over time?
• Is sincerity a factor or does it just work like any other force of nature that doesn't care anything about your sincerity in order to function?
• Can it be measured under rigorous, so called "Scietific" conditions?
• Should doctors be trained and spend a portion of their day praying for their patients as part of their care and recovery?

The Mayo, Mantra and STEP studies give only partial answers to only some of these questions and they are in no way a direct challenge to anyone's faith in my view. Do you think this is not so? Agenzen (talk) 09:34, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Answers

In my view, the answers to the questions you posed are as follows:

Byrd suggested that "intercessory prayer to the Judeo-Christian God has a beneficial therapeutic effect in patients admitted to a CCU" which leads directly to the following questions:

• Can we reproduce the results?

Obviously not. Byrd should have published here.

• Should we set up prayer centers next door to coronary care units in order to save lives?

Who is "we"? Just training the nurses better will probably get better results at the moment. Hospitals are far from perfect. And getting people to eat less French fries and pork pies will work even better. Let them eat garbage then pray for them is not a great idea.

Are nurses more likely to be sincere in their prayers? Perhaps we (human beings) should ask that question next time? Agenzen (talk) 17:22, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

• Can we use standard scripts so that they can be made more precise over time?

Most religious people will tell you there is nothing "standard" in prayer. It has to come from the heart - pun intended.

And the studies confirm this. Agenzen (talk) 17:22, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

• Is sincerity a factor or does it just work like any other force of nature that doesn't care anything about your sincerity in order to function?

Most religious people will tell you that sincerity is a factor, just as it is for a small time restaurant owner who looks after his customers - they feel it. Is that a force of nature?

If they are forces of nature then they are not as simple as gravity and charge in that those forces don't care anything about sincerity. Prayer seems to more complicated than that. Agenzen (talk) 17:22, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

• Can it be measured under rigorous, so called "Scietific" conditions?

Yes, after the definition of "Scietific conditions" have been extended to include sincerity , etc.

How do you know? Agenzen (talk) 17:22, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

• Should doctors be trained and spend a portion of their day praying for their patients as part of their care and recovery?

Great idea, but only after the doctors complete the course on avoiding malpractice claims, fending off insurance companies, etc. if there is time. It is hard being a doctor - believe me. I know a few.

• The Mayo, Mantra and STEP studies give only partial answers to only some of these questions and they are in no way a direct challenge to anyone's faith in my view. Do you think this is not so?

They were certainly a challenge to my faith in the intelligence of those who designed the tests. History2007 (talk) 11:12, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Good one. I know it seems that way but only because of the question you're asking. All they are saying is that it's not Byrd and it's not STEP and if at all, somewhere in between. The studies do set an upper limit to Byrd's conclusions. Being rigorous is hard work and may look very idiotic from a distance. But it does provide partial answers to, perhaps stupid, questions we sometimes think obvious in retrospect. Agenzen (talk) 17:22, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

I think we have covered a lot, but for me the studies set no upper or lower limit on anything. Again, they did not consider the actions and prayers of the patient families and that invalidates them all, as well as 20 other mistakes they made. Period.

And again the studies were incomplete and simplistic because they just used "prayer". When they study things seriously they study them in detail, e.g. Folts looked at Purple Grape Juice, he did not just look at "fruit". And guess where the funds came from? And these studies are detailed. If they just study the effect of "fruit" as a generic item like "prayer" they get dumb results like these studies. Hence until specific prayers are studied as carefully as grape juice in a scientific setting, we know nothing. These studies were simplistic and dumb. History2007 (talk) 18:32, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

As this seems to be the hart of the matter, I would like to point out that these possible, unknown, x factors you keep mentioning don’t have a significant role in any study unless the results come out different than chance. It is unreasonable to assume that the result of an experiment came out exactly as chance because of some unknown x factor counter balancing the affects that would otherwise have been measured. This problem always exists in every study done about anything. Had there been a "sign" of some kind then further investigation would have been needed to find out where it was coming from and almost surely would have received funding from both sides IMHO. Agenzen (talk) 20:44, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

No, please read up on Confounding variables elsewhere since the Wikipage is not good. And the experiment designs were inherently flawed. History2007 (talk) 21:04, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm afraid I'm not doing a very good job of explaining this. I understand all about confounding variables. Let me work on the article and then we'll see. It is my hope that you will find nothing objectionable in my edits, I hope to work on it this weekend. Agenzen (talk) 21:34, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

No problem. I think you know what I mean. Just need to refer to the items we have discussed above. Most of them have references already in the 3rd party article. Cheers.History2007 (talk) 21:40, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

inconclusive studies

This is just a note for future reference. Lack of clarity, inconsistency and confusion is not limited to the studies presented here on prayer. This article: Inconclusive studies shows that the situation for studies related to the benefits of calcium as a dietary supplement is even worse - much worse. So the debates here should be put into perspective in that studies on many topics are inconclusive. History2007 (talk) 09:11, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

A bit more analysis on the studies and the methodology.

I was quite surprised that there had been more than one study affirming the efficacy of prayer... but when I got into the abstracts they seemed to use quite different methods of measurement and different standards for statistical analysis. I've only taken one stats course but I would appreciate it if someone would take the time to give a bit more of an in-depth view of the studies cited. It's tedious work but I think it would vastly improve the article... especially for slightly more advanced readers. Timothyjwood (talk) 17:28, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

(other thought after seeing the above section) have there not been any meta analysis done? Timothyjwood (talk) 17:29, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I think you need to realize that unfortunately this is not a rapidly growing field of study - in the immediate future. The research requires funds and no funds are around now in 2009. Of course, if one were to propose to get all the bankers to pray for the recovery of the financial industry, a billion dollars in grants may just arrive in a few days.... History2007 (talk) 17:17, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

RE: studies done, I thought it unfair to delete what I added, since it does involve an additional study, and also cites an academic magazine that offers other case studies. (see below - I would like it to be added back in) In her book Forward From the Mind - Distant Healing, Bilocation, Medical Intuition & Prayer in a Quantum World (Tiffany Snow Forward From the Mind - Distant Healing, Bilocation, Medical Intuition & Prayer in a Quantum World ISBN 0-9729623-6-0) Tiffany Snow claims that healing, even by distance, is a way of spontaneous nonlocal entrainment and resonance that occurs with a transfer of energy from one system to another until both are oscillating at the same frequency, between the human mind and the Divine mind, "connection in prayer" wherein healing can occur. As evidence, the book refers to various quantum mechanic studies, and statistics of a personal preliminary study reviewed by Dr. Bruce Greyson and examples published in the International Journal of Healing and Caring such as RECOGNIZING THE DEFINING MOMENT:"Expecting the Miracle through Client/Healer Resonance" - May 2005 IssueLifeObserver

I am sorry, but the edits you have performed on mulyiple pages, all lead to Spam on Tiffany snow, and I left a message on your user page. History2007 (talk) 08:35, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

So what about the link I put in for Father Billy Clark and his deliverance ministry? If I add his information to other places, is that going to be spam too? This is so unfair. I have specific interests in demonology, stigmata, near-death experiences, healing, and music. So I have studied much and there is a lot of information I can add, but why should I? Some of my favorite reads and people I have communicated with and heard talk, some I have even met, I can't write about if I use their information more than once? I am citing TV, magazines, books, websites. What more do you want? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lifeobserver (talk • contribs) 09:03, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

TV interview

There were a few sentences about a TV interview item with Jimmy Carter, and the interviewer said "you prayed but were relatively ineffective". There was no basis for conclusion there, e.g. if he had not prayed maybe Carter would have been even less effective, if that statement were true, etc. History2007 (talk) 23:20, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

First to claim prayer is ineffective?

Who is the first person or philosophy in history to claim prayer doesn't work? Sorry to ask the question here, but I don't know where else to ask it. --RisingSunWiki 02:28, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

If this is curiosity rather than a suggestion that the article should cover it, the place to ask is the Reference Desk. --McGeddon (talk) 08:47, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Relevance of this whole field of study ?

I don't understand how we could hold at the same time that "a personal God exists" and that "the efficacity of prayer can be scientifically measured".

If the efficacity of prayer could be scientifically measured, that would mean that there is no personal God, God would simply be a machine (or nonexistent). How could a personal God not be aware of the dumb experiment people are trying to set up ? Therefore, I don't get how atheists may use this as an argument against belief in a personal God (eg Christianism, Islam...).

This basic issue is not covered the article (the "not coercing God" part is another problem, and seems to me quite irrelevant here). Is there something I don't get correctly ? 90.45.18.248 (talk) 19:47, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

It is not what "we could hold at the same time" in anyone's view that matters, but what various references have written: please see WP:V, i.e. Wikipedia is not about truth but the summary of WP:RS sources. I guess what you are missing is that many of the people you kindly refer to as the "dumb experiment people" have MD degrees and make over $250K a year cutting patients open. So they perform the experiments (be they dumb or not), they publish the results and Wikipedia provides a summary of the views on multiple fronts, sans personal judgments about the intelligence of the physicians involved. A discussion of what/why they believe, etc. would fall under WP:Forum and would not be appropriate here. History2007 (talk) 20:40, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

I think you misunderstood my question : I'm not doubting the quality of the experiments, nor their scientific validity, but

• the use which has been made of them as an argument in a debate between atheists/believers (with little sources : the "debate/interview in Newsweek" is certainly not a source of the quality of the scientific experiments themselves).
• the implicit reasoning which lies behind the redaction of the whole article, which alludes to historical events (eg massive prayers for the Battle of Lepanto) as if it were obvious the conclusions of the scientific experiment have some relevance to measure past events. They may have some relevance, but it depends on some assumptions (of the reductionist kind) which are not made clear in the article, the reasoning of the redactors seems to be some kind of original research which leads us to a logical vicious circle.

To be clearer still : the vicious circle is not in the scientific experiment, it is in the presentation of the article. When I said "How could a personal God not be aware of the dumb experiment people are trying to set up ?", it is quite clear I'm trying to point the vicious circle : of course the exeperiment is dumb if there is a personal God. If there is not, it is not. Either way, it cannot prove per se the existence/nonexistence of a personal God.

I believe one should seek how people in the field of Analytic philosophy adress the interpretation of these studies, instead of someone like Rick Warren... 90.45.18.248 (talk) 21:36, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

But Wiki-articles grow through user contributions rather than grand designs. The way Rick Warren come about was that some user absolutely wanted to add the view of atheist Sam Harris, and so mentioned his idea that one should get a billion people to pray, then along with him mentioned Warren. One could delete Warren, but then the context of the debate will be less clear. And deleting Harris will be asking someone else to add it later along with a complaint. So unless these people are mentioned other users will come along and add them anyway. Now if you have a WP:RS source that says this whole field is less than logical, that can be added, else we should leave things as they are. I think what seems to bother you is the lack of a clear "logic of prayer" within the scientific and religious communities. It is clear that there is no agreement on that in scholarly sources. And it i snot the task of Wikipedia to invent one. It is most proabably true that many of these experiments are a "surrogate battle" about the existence of God, but I have seen no WP:RS source that says that. If that type of source can be found, that would be nice to add, but I have not seen one. History2007 (talk) 01:19, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Article seems to lack NPOV

This article seems to, by and large, be a thinly-veiled attempt by christian WP editors to make people believe that science is somehow of the opinion that prayer may actually be in some way effective. For instance, the snippet "To date, scientific, religious and philosophical views on the efficacy of prayer do not agree, and much controversy still surrounds the subject", makes it sound as if the purported "efficency" of prayer is still under debate or the like. However, nothing could actually be further from the truth: The vast majority of the scientific community has long since rejected the possibility that prayer has any kind of effect, mesurable or otherwise. This article further appears very slanted in that it only mentions, in the most cursory fashion possible, that Byrd's study was fundamentally flawed and opinionated - an opinion shared by the vast majority of all scientists who have reviewed it. Additionally, the MANTRA and Mayo studies are mentioned LAST in the section; presenting the "faith-based" arguments first and thus slanting the section in the favor of mainstream christian beliefs. The mention at the last part of the section in question that "Most studies above have not to date directly measured the belief level of the beneficiary" is also utter gobbledegook, and nothing more than the (unsourced) speculation of some random christian WP editor looking to spread a non-neutral opinion. Due to these and other flaws, I've marked the article as NPOW. 79.138.202.89 (talk) 20:09, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree that this article is profoundly bias and ignores the majority of studies available (particularly those that were, e.g. DOUBLE BLINDED to reduce silly confounding variables). I am therefore flagging this article as POV. --Xris0 (talk) 20:06, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

---

Items:

• Do you have a reference that says "science, philosophy and religion agree" on the efficacy of prayer? I would really be interested in seeing that.

• Do you have a reference for "The vast majority of the scientific community has long since rejected the possibility that prayer has any kind of effect, mesurable or otherwise."? Or is that your own survey? As for proving that prayer can never have any effect, please see the Popperian argument as in Falsifiability, etc.

• MANTRA and mayo studies are upfront now, so that is done.

• Do you know of a study that measured the belief level of the beneficiary?

• Do you have a reference that criticizes Byrd very strongly?

History2007 (talk) 20:28, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

IP user: Please either address these issues one by one in detail, or the tag has to come off in a day or two. History2007 (talk) 21:12, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

No response, so flag is coming off. History2007 (talk) 22:04, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

---

Very biased article. Not neutral at all, full of weasel words and extremely biased, completely irrelevant material. The Templeton Study is referred to only obliquely entire article. Obviously written by religious nut.

NPOV flag and double blind studies

There is an NPOV flag claiming the lack of double blind studies. Which 2blind studies are missiing here or in Studies on intercessory prayer that need to get added, in order to justify that flag? History2007 (talk) 12:49, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Given no discussion for a week, per WP:tag removal will remove. History2007 (talk) 14:26, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

It seems that Studies_on_intercessory_prayer could be merged into this article. IRWolfie- (talk) 09:40, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Actually it used to be in this article as a small section, but was split out of this article as it grew larger. There was a discussion, a WP:Third opinion was obtained, and stated that it was best left on its own as a separate article. History2007 (talk) 13:45, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Although Montaigne said, "A strong memory is commonly coupled with infirm judgement", I remember this article split somewhat differently. After I added a number of references to the "Third party studies" section in March and April 2010, History2007 and I disagreed about them (see Talk:Efficacy of prayer#Abbot quote above). Then he/she split the article on 8 April 2010 without any prior discussion (here's the diff). I objected, one editor gave us a third opinion, and I gave up without further debate (see Inexplicable deletions). Looking at this now, I think the split was counter-productive and agree with IRWolfie that it would be better to have one comprehensive article. What's the best way to proceed? Should we formally start a new merger discussion? Keahapana (talk) 04:07, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Biased article

First- I'm an irreligious person myself, so dont be so quick to get on your white horse to smack me down. But this article really does seem very biased in a "Lets prove religion wrong for kicks!" sort of way. It is definitely true that prayer itself has no effect whatsoever, studies where people didn't know they were being prayed for showed no impact. HOWEVER, what this article fails to address is the placebo effect that prayer can have. Though this isn't the result of the intervention of any god the prayer nonetheless did work, by believing they would get better people got better. Please don't be so quick to trash any talk of prayer working because prayer itself doesnt 'actually' work, the placebo impact is worth mentioning. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.174.58.161 (talk) 01:34, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

I think the article implies this issue in the first and second person section. It isgood that the article is focusing on data rather than theories trying to explain the result - using words such as placebo too much may be perceived as speculative and argumentative.

What is the concern of the weasel word top-hat template? Please be more specific or remove. Mange01 (talk) 14:05, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

There was actually a study upon the impact of intercessory prayer upon heart surgery outcomes, and there was a significant health worsening in patients who knew they were being prayed for. Tgeorgescu (talk) 12:39, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Un-biblical theological claim

"God can not be coerced" is contrary to what is taught by Jesus in Mark 11:24. Jesus set forth no requirements for getting results in prayer, he says e.g. that if a believing Christian prays to God that Obama dies of cancer, Obama will die of cancer for sure. This is even more categorically subscribed to in Matthew 18:19, speaking of more than one Christian. Tgeorgescu (talk) 12:54, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Ludicrous statement

“ For instance, Larry Dossey claims that there will be three eras of medicine, the first dealing with physical medicine (where patients take pills), the second with mind-body medicine (where the body treats itself through psychosomatic methods) and the third with eternity medicine in which patients are affected from a distance via intercessory prayer. ”

The above statement is WP:FRINGE/PS. While prayer might or might not have an impact on healing, stating that patients will be mostly treated through intercessory prayer is ludicrous, even deluded (as in severe rant, a DSM symptom). Nothing in medical science even suggests that prayer is able to replace surgery and drugs, and even advocating self-healing through psychosomatic methods is a pseudoscientific statement, as far as most real illnesses are concerned. Wikipedia is not a platform for spreading such absurd viewpoints, see WP:NOTADVOCATE and WP:BALL. Tgeorgescu (talk) 12:21, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

It's like saying "in the second era bananas will grow from wooden floors and in the third bananas will grow from concrete walls". Tgeorgescu (talk) 13:38, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

The statement isn't theology, because theologians don't dabble in prophesying eras of medicine, and it isn't science. Therefore it should be removed from the article. Tgeorgescu (talk) 13:47, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

I have removed it per WP:CB and Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not for things made up one day. Tgeorgescu (talk) 13:56, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

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Useless article

This article is completely pointless. The efficacy of prayer can only be proven under the following conditions:

• a person must be praying for something that is 100% impossible under the laws of that environment e.g. if i asked a divinity to allow me to float off the ground for 5 minutes and it was answered then this would prove the efficacy of prayer because this breaks all established earthly scientific laws. Winning a game, surviving a storm, being cured of cancer after praying for such outcomes doesn't prove efficacy. Such outcomes are completely possible without prayer.
• the answering of a prayer must be experienced on a personal, individual level — not from hearsay or past recordings e.g. in the Bible or Quran — i.e. a person must have their own indivdual prayer answered. Even video footage of a miracle-seeking prayer being answered would be inadequate because people can always be deceived using SFX.
• the prayer should be a private one, to prevent others duping the prayer-seeker through a stunt that gives the illusion that a prayer has been answered by a divinity.

Some of these points are mentioned in the article, but i definitely think, at the very least, more work needs to be done to give this article a semblance of legitimacy. 203.219.117.146 (talk) 03:59, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not about the opinions of its editors, instead it is about what WP:SOURCES say. Do mind that there is statistics, which helps us (or our sources) discern real therapeutic effects vs. placebo. Tgeorgescu (talk) 04:14, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

@Tgeorgescu: You misunderstood me: i was simply suggesting some lines of argument editors could look for among reliable sources to add to this article. I never said my opinions should be added outright. Also, i'm not sure what your second point was getting at. Efficacy in this case can only be measured by saying a prayer then having that prayer answered; the only prayer that would be elligible would be a prayer that has zero possibility of occurring under natural circumstances, i.e. a miracle. These are the proper and only conditions to test prayer's efficacy, despite what a desperate religious person would have you believe. 203.219.117.146 (talk) 03:51, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

Problem of demarcation

Introducing demarcation, falsifiability and other such epistemological concerns is only reasonable if we include them in every article concerning superstition. What does it mean to "prove" or "disprove" that gnomes exist? Who is to say? Come on guys. I believe that phenomena is the ultimate level of metaphysical reality so I'm totally fine with gnomes, but I don't expect any encyclopedia to take that view. The lead is not very convincing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.193.242.212 (talk) 11:00, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

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Dawking quote:

This is an answer to my edit being deleted, I will try to justify it.

In the Dawkins quote section, he says: "some elements of religion are testable"

I added a logical explanation to Richard Swineburn, he says: "One right reason is that he prays for a particular sufferer out of love and compassion for that sufferer" From here: http://users.ox.ac.uk/~orie0087/framesetpdfs.shtml

That means he gives a factual claim, god has a system to his answer of prayers, and all real world systems can be answered by science by definition.

Therefor I would like an answer to why this sentence is not accepted:

That is, we can define good reasons, therefor we can test if prayer from good reasons have an effect.

I am basicly saying what Swineburn is saying in general terms, right ? What I do understand is that this is not his sentence, so maybe we should add this sentence instead as the answer to the current which 2012?

"One right reason is that he prays for a particular sufferer out of love and compassion for that sufferer"

Thanks for the help. Roleren: January 4th 2018 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Roleren (talk • contribs) 11:02, 4 January 2018 (UTC)