Writing Studies 3302 Spring 2009

The medical proponents of prayer. I reread the title of that article a few times just to make sure I wasn't imagining things. To me, this article seemed like it would be more suitable in The Onion Newspaper. I can't believe people actually spent millions of dollars doing research on whether or not praying has an actual medical benefits. The fact that we are in a recession and money is really restricted these days is one issue. But the things the boggle my mind about this are (1) that someone actually believes there is a direct correlation between medicine and praying. It is one thing to hope and pray for a loved on to get better and to believe that if that person got better that it was an act of god. Believing that, I am fine with. But I don't believe anyone who prays for the sick actually thinks that their prayers are providing any real medical assistance. In fact, one could interpret prayers as almost an act of indirect selfishness, in that praying for someone only makes you feel better but does not provide any actual recourse or benefit for the one being prayed for. And (2), even if there was some evidence that praying assisted medicine, how would one document or analyze that data? How can you interpret how much praying one should do to help someone with a specific condition? Pray can't be calculated the same way prescription drugs can, so how could it be utilized in contemporary practices if it actually is proven to help? I don't mean to condemn or ridicule praying, but I just think that actually researching the scientific benefits of prayer is just ludicrous.

I really did not find it surprising that the study written about in the New York Times, did not find that there was any evidence to support that prayer works. However, I was surprised to learn that individuals who knew they were being prayed for had a higher rate of complications. Even after being raised Catholic, I can think of no good explanation for either of these. This study is another reason why I think that science and religion to not mix; one always seems to contradict the other. I would be curious to learn what the Catholic Church’s response is to this, or even maybe Rick Santorum who thinks that religion and science complement each other. I also think it is stupid that the government is investing its money into studies like this; $2.3 million dollars could do a lot of good elsewhere.
Polkinghorne mentioned the phrase, “if we know where an electron is, we can’t know what it’s doing, and if we know what it’s doing, we can’t know where it is.” He went on to elaborate by saying, “If you measured position absolutely accurately, you disturbed things so that you made the momentum completely uncertain, and vice versa.” I think that is a very interesting theory when used with God. That may be an explanation for the reason why the study in the NYT article found no evidence proving prayer was effective. In other words, if you truly try to measure the success and effectiveness of prayer, you will disturb it to the point of destroying what it was intended to do (or at least that potential is there). The same thing can be said similarly, when trying to prove the existence of God.

I’m glad Polkinghorne clarified that prayer is not “a set of blank checks” given to us by God but a personal interaction with the divine being. I feel a lot of people do not understand that and it’s frustrating. He did a great job explain what prayer really is and does, and pointed out that the answer to our prayers my not always be what we think it is going to be. God knows best and we are only human so of course we can’t expect everything to be answered in the way we think it is going to. “God works in mysterious ways,” after all.

It kind of bothers me how scientifically scrutinized every aspect of religion has become. Like they are now researching if prayer scientifically works and I feel they should just leave it be. Besides, any study trying to pinpoint if prayer works is not going to be successful for two reasons. One, because God is going to do what he wants to do, to whom he wants to. We already learned that maybe the patients or their families have to learn something from the not-quick recovery with complications because God wants them to. Second, because there are too many unknowns in any experiment surrounding prayer to be able to come to a sufficient conclusion. For example, how do the researchers know that no one is praying for the “no-prayer” group?

I thought the knowledge versus lack of knowledge of prayer was the most interesting in the articles about studies done on prayer. There is a definite difference between internal prayer and meditation and external prayer done by strangers or loved ones. Meditation, prayer, and focusing one spiritually can be extremely beneficial, but if the subject/patient is not being productive and is mentally relying on the prayers of others then that difference is evident.

Reading Polkinghorne’s writing about two different causalities and bringing quantum mechanics into the picture reminded me how torn the field of physics is in looking for an overall unification theory. Fundamental conflict between chaos theory, Newtonian mechanics and the likes has been going on since Einstein’s time, and it understandably has a hard time of resolving. I thought it was interesting he discussed these ideas and their application in a philosophical sense since we’re still understanding how they work.

I was personally astounded by the articles describing the studies done to determine the effects of prayer on medical patients. How do people even believe that that presence of prayer versus no prayer in a hospital is testable? Both articles gave numerous examples of studies where prayer had both positive and negative effects on patient mortality rates and recovery. There does not seem to be any actual trends that prove the effectiveness of prayer one way or the other. Some studies showed lower rates of complications for individuals who were prayed for and others showed the opposite result. I found it extremely interesting, however, that people undergoing heart surgery and told that they would be prayed for actually had higher complication rates than individuals who were told they would receive no prayers. I feel that this fact may possibly be the result of people thinking that prayer automatically involved God. Would it be possible for people to suffer more complications because they felt that God would possibly be judging them for the afterlife in the case that they died? Would this invoke stress in people who were concerned about their fate in the afterlife?

As I read both articles on the power of prayer from Carey and Meyers, I couldn’t help but think of how wasteful it is to attempt to study the effects of a supernatural “medication” for the body and soul. I am not declaring that prayer is fake in any way, but it is difficult for me to believe that science will be successful in either proving or disproving the validity of praying. Prayer is a direct link to God. If science feels the need to spend a couple million dollars in order to prove this process, why not focus it on something that is more tangible and realistic? One of the studies concluded that over 50% of the patients who knew that they were receiving prayers from others had complications. I was not surprised to hear this simply because the patients were more than likely expecting a miracle and when their demands were not met, they became worse. It would make more sense if these groups of prayer givers knew the patient on a personal level, and were not chosen at random by a group of researchers. Perhaps then they would be able to conduct a more successful case study. I do believe that God does not answer us directly and at times does not answer in the way that we had intended; but this does not infer that God does not listen at all.

I have never heard of the modern prayer experiment being executed before, but I am not surprised by the results. The Observer effect and bias consensus comes to mind when I read the article. The Observer effect is when a person’s behavior changes because they know they are being watched. If a sick patient believes a higher being has the ability to make them better, a placebo effect will take place.

I personally believe someone else praying for you will not do much since praying is an individual experience. Praying is a spiritual state of mind and while others can share the same faith, they cannot have identical experiences. I believe praying is helpful because it is a means for people express their faith and sharing your troubles (even if it is in your own head) will help you work out your issues better, but you will not receive any actual strength from someone else praying. Death is natural and God knows this, so why would he want to upset the balance by keeping certain people around longer than he has to? Isn’t it perceived as a good thing to pass on and rejoin God in Heaven? People pray for health so they can continue to stay with their families, but the point is not for them to stay on Earth for all of eternity.

The article about the effects on prayer of hospital patients is something that I have heard quite a bit about in my Psychology courses. Usually this topic comes up in the area of the courses discussing research methods. When being asked to design our own they advise us not to choose studies or come up with our own research that include untestable things. Prayer is often the example of a bad or not so good study. Prayer is definitely one of those things that we can pray and pray for a sick individual but we can't say that the end result was affected by prayer and can only attribute it to medicine. I have said in many other blogs and papers that the only real benefit and purpose of religion is that it helps people get through the days, months and years and gives them something to live according to or to live for. I think that is the benefit of prayer in hospital settings is a good thing for the patients to help them get through the tough times but I would not put the power of prayer on the actual healing and survival that might come after prayer. I read through the others posts and I agree with Erin, even though I am not necessarily a very religious person I am a believer in the idea that everything happens for a reason. So, whether or not God does not respond to our prayers the way that we wish or medicine does not work at its best and therefore there maybe an unfavorable outcome, it happens for a reason.

It is an interesting concept to test the power of prayer with scientific empirical processes like the article described. It is curious that those who were prayed for actually had the worse luck of the group. It seems to suggest that the god to whom the people were praying was malevolent, giving misfortune to those who asked for it. It is also odd that when people knew that they were being prayed for, they experienced trouble. Intuition would suggest that when people knew they were being prayed for, they would experience the benefits of having a good attitude, which has been shown to do important things for people in medical settings. I choose to attribute the numbers presented in the article to chance, because I think that if prayer could do anything, it would be positive. Whether the effect that prayer has is a positive attitude or real divine intervention, I would think it would be helpful, thus I think that the statistics were through chance.

I agree with Elle that there are too many unknowns about the experiment that was run. This experiment didn't disprove that prayer doesn't work; it only proved that praying to Yahweh doesn't work. $2.3 million is a small price to pay in order to falsify the world's most prevalant religion (or at least reveal that He doesn't care). In fact, more funding should be provided to conduct further experiments to determine whether praying to Poseiden, Vishnu, Kim Jong-il, or any of the other deities yields any medicinal benefits.

I found the study on whether prayer actually helped the coronary bypass patients a little absurd. I had never really thought about actually conducting a study on something so un-provable. I doubt the results would have changed anyone’s mind even if it had found the opposite conclusion. That’s what faith is: believing something with no tangible proof. In my opinion this study, and ones like it, are a complete waste of time and money. 2.4 million dollars? For a study that will most likely change nothing? Of course the results would show that prayer doesn’t help. Think about it: even if God really did heal people through prayer and he found out that researchers were trying to physically test this, do you really think he would allow his acts to be displayed for all to see? No. He’s way too mysterious for that. God has an image to uphold.

I thought Polkinghorne brought up an interesting point concerning how we are able to execute our mental intentions through physical actions of our body. It is interesting to think about how our minds are connected to our brains and whether this proves an existence of God. I also thought that he brought up an interesting definition of prayer and how it lines up our intentions with God’s intentions and fully commits us to what we value in the world.
On the other hand, I think that the “intercessory prayer” experiments are unnecessary. There was a quote in one of the articles that said this makes for “bad science and bad religion,” and I agree with this. I think that breaking down prayer into simply the number of people who are praying is inaccurate. As the article said, there are too many other variable such as who else was praying for the patients, the extent of the praying, the faith of the patients themselves, etc. I also think that these experiments are implying that if you pray for something long enough, it will happen. As I understand it, prayer is a way of connecting to God and expressing yourself, but ultimately trusting in God that things will happen the way He wants them to and giving yourself to Him. I think that just because hundreds of people pray for something, does not mean it will happen. I would think that it would help the people to understand that whatever happens is in God’s will.

I enjoyed these articles but found a few lacking points. For starters, I can't believe the studies in "Long Awaited" actually directed the prays. Though I'm not a religious man, prayer does fascinate me. I think there is a power in a collective community conscience, that community being as big as one desires. This is my understanding of something of a prayer. Also, prayer doesn't have to be religious, though all these articles tend to point it in that direction. It's very closely associated with meditation, to bring something into from an Eastern sense. A concentration of mind... not just asking God for stuff. This is where I differ from the articles.

The article of "Arm Twisting," was right on! Like I said prior, I'm not a religious man and more than likely will never be, but this is the type of human I really admire. Someone who can be deeply religious and still have an extreme sense of logic and rational to himself.

Polkinghorne was a great read and a bit tough. I like his break down of bottom-up causality and top-down causality but found it faulty on example he brought up which is the question of ignorance. Or basically, God in the gaps. Bottom up refers us to and understanding of the little minute happenings of a few things. Top-down is something that is just far too complex, like weather, or maybe human nature. He tend to put God's knowledge in that gap, in so many big words, and doesn't really get anywhere. A great read none the less.

I cannot say how much I truly wish that praying did effect disease. I have struggled with wanting to help terminally ill family members but for some reason I never found myself praying for them. For some reason I just really have a problem with the thought that if I don't pray that it will lessen their chance of survival. Though I question the existence of God, if my health or someone else's depends on how much I pray, wouldn't that be like me trying to play God? In addition, if I did turn to prayer in hopes it will lengthen their life, how much will it take? What is the proper dosage of prayer? I have stated before that just as certain medications can cause a multitude of different effects for patients, often the amount administered and the resulting effects are consistent. However, one cannot say the same about the effects of prayer. For example, do I only have to pray once a day to cure me of pneumonia as opposed to ten times a day for a more life threatening disease such as HIV? What if the use of prayer is combined with exercise and drugs designed to boost the immune system? It is impossible to determine if prayer is the primary reason for reducing health risks because it cannot be measured against other factors.

At this point, I think we can all agree the non–physical is not of the “natural world” and is therefore not science. The STEP experiment studied the clinical efficacy of intercessory prayer by measuring quantitative values such as length of hospital stay, or complications upon recovery. The conclusion to the STEP study found no significant correlation between intercessory prayer and patient recovery. I want to emphasize the STEP experiment’s methods. In the STEP study, the goal was to try to quantitatively evaluate the effects of a non-quantifiable action–prayer. In my opinion, the STEP failed as it tried to measure a non-objective correlation–the study did not use and could not possibly use a basis for measurement. Prayer is subjective, thus to try to quantify it would be scientifically erroneous. The better approach would have been to subliminally evaluate a patient’s happiness every hour while someone is praying. This hourly question of happiness may skew the patient’s “natural” answer. To most, the appearance of the human mind is nothing but metaphysical. To the best of our knowledge it is infinite and beyond explanation. However, there is very physical evidence that suggests otherwise. The concept of “mind over matter” is interpreted, many times as a metaphysical entity however, the fact that many people consistently experience this “power” suggests it is a very prominent part of the physical world. I think mind over matter injects a physiological aspect into the nature of the mind apart from brain scans and neurons. I think astrology provides a means for harnessing certain physiological aspects of the human mind so as to elicit desired emotions.

I personally believe the power of prayer helps channel positive energy that can help in rough times if done on a personal level, and actually believed by the one saying the prayers; however, I am not surprised that it showed no medical benefit in some of the studies talked about in the articles. Someone should conduct a study in which the patients say positive affirmations daily and see if they get different results. This could help us regulate for ideas about the nature of the energy that prayers hold. If the positive affirmations increase the number of patients recovering, we should beg the question of whether or not it’s more valuable than prayer alone. I say this because even if I know people are praying for me, I don’t necessarily come to believe that anything positive will happen to me, but if I’m telling myself good things will come, I might in fact begin to notice more good things. The problem I find with prayer is that you are asking for help. I think that telling our self that everything is going to be ok is actually more powerful. It puts you more in control of yourself than if you solely relied on supernatural beings to heal you. That being said, since when does science try to support supernatural explanations. I feel like we just discussed this type of thing when we learned about all of the trials, and debate on evolution.

I am not very religious, but I do think that prayer can help ones survival because it gives them hope. That drive to continue on because you feel someone is helping you (God) would be enough to hold on. I know for a fact that my Grandma held on for weeks longer than the doctors gave her, and it was due to her convictions in surviving and praying. She was one to truly believe that God existed, and I think that faith in him helped her "keep trucking". I feel that the study itself is kind of ludicrous in some ways, because each individual case is different. When you have that many different subjects, you cannot produce relevant data in my mind.

Again, this could just be because I have a strong dislike for people who try to disprove others religions, or disprove aspects of it. If we are trying to be moral to one another, wouldn't things like this "test" just be created to start shit? If people need to pray to help lighten their burden, then so be it. It is not necessary to try to prove its ineffectiveness/effectiveness.

The idea of attempting to scientifically rationalize the outcome of prayer, or simply how prayer works, seems a bit contrived. Given the fact that prayer does not always result in the pray-ers desired outcome there seem to be two means of explaining the phenomenon of prayer: 1. that prayer is a legitimate transcendent commune with the divine, in which the supplicator makes known his own will. Ultimately divine will takes precedent over the supplicators will, to further "the greater good" or "a higher purpose," and so the fact that prayer does not necessarily correlate to result does not detract from the purpose/worth of prayer. or 2. prayer is the expression of will or desire to some transcendent power as a means of hope or intense desire. While it may not affect outcome through an intervening God, its strong emotional power affects both the pray-er and the object of his prayer.
Either option clearly provides for the "scientific experiments" of prayer presented in multiple articles.

The power of prayer is something I have been preaching my whole life. I have often been unsure about my concept of god and religion but my belief in prayer has always and will always be with me. When I was young I saw an advertisement for a movie involving death and I became scared. I didn't know what to do because I had never felt fear before. I tried everything to shake the fear but it never left. So I turned to my ancestors to help guide me through. My mom's dad died when she was young so I never met him but I heard he was a good guy so I prayed to him. I asked for the strength to get over my fear. Then in the silence of night I heard his response. He told me not to fear because he is always with me. I knew from that day that life is much more than just what we can see. I love reading about scientist praying and studying the power of prayer. I think that in our increasing anti religious world (according to the newest edition of newsweek) prayer is sadly also on the way out. But you don't even have to believe in God to witness the power of a grandma sitting on her death bed praying for a cure to witness her daughters wedding and magically living just long enough to do so. In native american culture medicine men are very odd and to some are not legitamite healers. However, studies have shown that these medicine man are helpful in the healing process. I think there is something in the body which is triggered once we precieve that we are being helped that allows us to heal or accomplish some other otherwise unreachable goal. Olivers mom was dying of cancer last year and we were all very hurt by this. She had touched so many lives and it was hard to see her slipping away. Every week her group of loved ones got together and prayed. In addition to that her husband did Qi-gong with her every day. Shockingly she made a full recovery without the use of drugs or chemo. The world would be a better place if we all took a moment to pray and no scientist can ever prove to me differently.

The NY Times article on the study about prayer was interesting. I can’t say I’m surprised about the results of the study. The prayer groups involved in the study were very removed from the patients they were praying for. I think the more applicable thing to study is the effect of close, personal contact during recovery. Being in the company of family, friends and loved ones may have more of an effect than prayer from a distant prayer group. The effects of prayer from loved ones verses the effect of contact from loved ones should be looked in to in the future. I hope no one takes this study the wrong way and suggests that people should not be allowed to pray for recovery. While the effects of prayer on the patient are speculative, prayer can be a coping tool for friends and family who otherwise feel helpless in a difficult situation. From my experience working in a hospital, comforting and involving family and friends is one of the most important aspects to a successful operation beyond the first level of medical care.

For me, if I assume prayer works, it raises a larger question: Why does God require “arm-twisting” to help people? Why doesn’t he help everyone equally?

Over the last couple of decades, scientific studies seem to show that prayer is ineffective at helping sick patients get better. Unfortunately, these studies will not have much effect on those who learn of the results. Those that started off believing that prayer does NOT work will likely use the studies to confirm their opinion. Those that started off believing that prayer DOES work will say that the studies did not account for some certain factor, and they will continue on with their faith. By doing such studies, we are mixing science and religion, and they just can’t be mixed. Science is based on the observable and the absolute. Religion is based on faith and inspiration. It is hard to try and measure one using techniques of the other. I am not saying that these studies should not be done. In fact, they are very interesting. I just believe they do not have the effect intended; that is, their findings will not likely convince many people to change their minds about the effectiveness of prayer.

On an additional note, why would God concern himself with our prayers? According to believers, he created the universe, and the universe is unfathomably huge and complex. Trillions of stars, matter and anti-matter, energy and dark energy, gravity, space-time, etc. If God created such a large and complex universe, isn’t that a testament that he is too grand of a being to concern himself with we miniscule humans in a microscopic corner of the universe and our trivial praying? Also, didn’t he design a universe with life and death? Why would he answer such prayers to prevent the death of a specific being when he built the universe that way? If he was going to answer prayers to save a being’s life, wouldn’t he have just created a universe where nothing dies?