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marvin
Skeptic Friend
77 Posts |
 Posted - 08/11/2001 : 22:59:32
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“On Monday, August 13, ABC will be airing segments featuring the intercessory prayer research of Dr. William Harris, professor and director of the Metabolism and Vascular Laboratory at St. Luke's Hospital in Kansas City, Missouri. The segments will appear on "Good Morning America" between 7 a.m. and 9 a.m., and on "20/20 Downtown" at 8pm EST. Today CSICOP has published an online transcript of the March 13, 2001, University of Missouri debate between Dr. Harris and Irwin Tessman, Ph.D., of Purdue University.” ---csicop
This should be interesting to watch, I wonder what kind of spin ABC will put on the story and if they will have a token ‘debunker' on to give an opposing view.
“NCCAM's Fiscal Year 2001 appropriation from Congress is approximately $89 million. This figure reflects a 29% increase over the Fiscal Year 2000 budget.” ---NCCAM
Electroacupuncture for pain relief is purported to work. Now they're testing for depression, dental pain, Fibromyalgia and arthritis. Elizabeth Targ, daughter of 1970s parapsychologist Russell Targ, will receive over $200,000, in first year of a three-year study of the effects of distant healing on AIDS patients.
Well $89 million of tax monies to research alternative medicine, wouldn't it be hilarious if they discovered that prayer was bad for you.
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Zandermann
Skeptic Friend
USA
431 Posts |
 Posted - 08/11/2001 : 23:18:05 [Permalink]
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quote:
... Well $89 million of tax monies to research alternative medicine, wouldn't it be hilarious if they discovered that prayer was bad for you.
Prayer alone is unhealthy to the max. Anyone who is praying to rid themselves of sickle cell or diabetes or cirrhosis is barking up the wrong tree.
But prayer in conjuction with medical care? I doubt that can be unhealthy. Whether or not *you* are a believer, the patient who believes in God is bound to benefit from a placebo effect, if nothing else. Prayer would simply be another part of the arsenal in fighting whatever condition/disease the patient suffers from.
Of course, if the patient is not a believer, then the issue does not arise.
Either way, conjoined with appropriate medical care (and I am very skeptical of 'alternative' methods...too much anecdotal rather than scientific evidence for my taste), prayer can't hurt.
My personal prejudice is that prayer should not be lumped in with 'alternative medicine', unless the patient is foolhardy enough to rely on prayer alone.
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Wendy
SFN Regular
USA
614 Posts |
Posted - 08/12/2001 : 00:21:44 [Permalink]
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I'm agnostic, but I've really got no problem with it... provided they're not waking me up to pray for me, the way they wake me up to give me a sleeping pill. 
Wendy Jones |
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marvin
Skeptic Friend
77 Posts |
Posted - 08/12/2001 : 00:30:02 [Permalink]
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Zandermann,
There were two study groups one was prayed for, the other was not, and neither was told of the prayer research.
That brings up some interesting possibilities for testing of placeboes and prayer. What if you told one test group that they were being prayed for, but were not, and told another test group they were not being prayed for but were, being prayed for that is, and told another control group nothing.
How about the Doctors someone should pray for them too? You could pray for all the Doctors in one hospital and compare those results with another hospital that received no prayer. And then tell one hospital that you are praying for the Doctors, when in fact no prayers would be said.
When you have a control group receiving no prayer, how do you ‘know' that no one is praying for anyone in that group. After all how would you discover if a patient's five-year-old grandson is praying for grandpa to get well or not praying at all.
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Lisa
SFN Regular
USA
1223 Posts |
Posted - 08/12/2001 : 01:22:23 [Permalink]
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I read about one of these studies where prayer was purported to work. Upon closer examination, one odd thing stood out. The person who divided up the two groups, prayer and non-prayer, was the pastor's secretary. Now, there's no proof that this lady pulled anything, but if I was trying to prove my point, I know what I'd be tempted to do. Patient folder (1): one foot in grave, the other on banana peel - toss into non-prayer group. Patient folder (2): prognosis good, non-fatal disease - toss into prayer group.
Please let me repeat, I've never heard of any evidence that the secretary did this, but she did have access to information on the patients.
With very little patient information like sex, weight, age, and basic symptoms, most people could skew the outcome to either prove that a)prayer cures or b)prayer is deadly.
The same controls and restrictions should apply to this type of research as apply to say, a new cancer drug or headache remedy.
Lisa
Chaos...Confusion...Destruction...My Work Here Is Done |
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bestonnet_00
Skeptic Friend
Australia
358 Posts |
Posted - 08/12/2001 : 13:34:25 [Permalink]
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The person who gets to divide up the groups should just put people in groups without knowing which group is the prayer group and which the non-prayer group.
Another person should then choose which group would be the prayer and non-prayer one. And should not know anything about who is in either group.
Simple double blind study.
Radioactive GM Crops.
Slightly above background.
Safe to eat.
But no activist would dare rip it out.
As they think it gives them cancer. |
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comradebillyboy
Skeptic Friend
USA
188 Posts |
Posted - 08/13/2001 : 08:49:50 [Permalink]
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i am of the opinion that a positive outlook and a feeling of purpose are important factors in determining who recovers and who dosent. for many religion supports the positive outlook and purpose.
might want to know relatiomship between religious belief and feeling of purpose, or betweem religious belief andoutlook.
comrade billyboy |
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marvin
Skeptic Friend
77 Posts |
Posted - 08/15/2001 : 17:40:59 [Permalink]
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Well I recorded both abc segments on my vcr and the token skeptic was Dr. Gary Posner his opinion was that, ‘fifty years from now someone will read about this research shake their head and ask, why, why did they do this'. I'm paraphrasing of course. According to abc news science reporter Michael Guillen, sixty percent of the studies showed improvements for the prayed for groups, over the non prayed for groups. If I heard correctly 11% was the highest return of any group study. They never said what was the lowest.
Deepak Chopra made a cameo appearance, ‘This adds proof to everything I said in my book(s)”.
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Lisa
SFN Regular
USA
1223 Posts |
Posted - 08/15/2001 : 18:00:30 [Permalink]
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Did they go into what controls were used for this experiment? Has the experiment been repeated? Was it peer-reviewed by others in the medical profession?
When someone makes an extraordiary claim such as this, alarm bells start going off.quote:
Deepak Chopra made a cameo appearance, ‘This adds proof to everything I said in my book(s)”.
!!Heavy sarcasm alert!!
Well then gosh dang it, if Deepak says so, it must be true.
Lisa
Chaos...Confusion...Destruction...My Work Here Is Done |
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Tokyodreamer
SFN Regular
USA
1447 Posts |
Posted - 08/16/2001 : 05:43:31 [Permalink]
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What I'm really curious about is, do people who pray to God to heal others, really think that God is up in the air about what to do, and that their prayers tip the balance? I mean, would these people "healed" by prayers been left to die had no one prayed for them? Is God sitting up there saying, "Boy, if only 10 more people had joined that prayer group, I woulda healed that person! Oh well..."
This almost parallels the whole 'free will' argument. If God knows what's going to happen, would prayer even be necessary? He already knows what He's going to do, right?
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Ma gavte la nata! |
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rickm
Skeptic Friend
Canada
109 Posts |
Posted - 08/19/2001 : 15:23:33 [Permalink]
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quote:
What I'm really curious about is, do people who pray to God to heal others, really think that God is up in the air about what to do, and that their prayers tip the balance? I mean, would these people "healed" by prayers been left to die had no one prayed for them? Is God sitting up there saying, "Boy, if only 10 more people had joined that prayer group, I woulda healed that person! Oh well..."
This almost parallels the whole 'free will' argument. If God knows what's going to happen, would prayer even be necessary? He already knows what He's going to do, right?
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Ma gavte la nata!
This my friend, is a brilliant analogy. And can I use this one myself.
"What would chairs look like if our knees bent the other way" |
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Tokyodreamer
SFN Regular
USA
1447 Posts |
Posted - 08/19/2001 : 19:49:22 [Permalink]
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quote:
This my friend, is a brilliant analogy. And can I use this one myself.
 Please, feel free! I can't claim to have thought of this on my own, but I can't for the life of me remember where I heard someone mention it in this way. I remember something about Christians being arrogant thinking that they had power over God's actions by way of prayer...
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Ma gavte la nata! |
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@tomic
Administrator
USA
4607 Posts |
Posted - 08/19/2001 : 21:22:55 [Permalink]
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I could have even used it here somewhere. It's an old one friends and I used to throw out in high school. We had to have a lot of ammo attending a catholic high school and all.
@tomic
Gravity, not just a good idea...it's the law! |
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Valiant Dancer
Forum Goalie
USA
4826 Posts |
Posted - 08/20/2001 : 09:15:51 [Permalink]
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quote:
I'm agnostic, but I've really got no problem with it... provided they're not waking me up to pray for me, the way they wake me up to give me a sleeping pill.
Wendy Jones
Wish you were joking about the waking you up to give you a sleeping pill. When I was in the hospital and they did that to me, I asked the nurse if she was completely stupid.
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marvin
Skeptic Friend
77 Posts |
Posted - 08/20/2001 : 10:38:55 [Permalink]
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I recently finished a readers digest condensed book titled, ‘Intern' the author was Dr. X. the year was 1965 or so, during his time with internal medicine he claimed that the night shift nurses would wake him up from a nap, he was on call for 72 hours sometimes, at midnight to prescribe sleeping pills for a few patients. He claims that he went out of his way to talk to the night shift nurses, and ask if anyone needed sleeping pills before he took his nap. To his consternation they would still wake him up, to come to the nurses station and ok the prescription, so the nurse could wake up the patient and give them a sleeping pill, most of the time it was for pain medication, and a few times he refused to wake the patient to administer a sleeping pill.
At the end of the book he did say that he ‘understood' nurses more, and wished he hadn't been so hard on them at first.
I guess I can see the night shift nurses' points, or rationale for not wanting a patient to wake up during the night. But to wake a patient up, to take a sleeping pill because someone ‘forgot' to administer the medication sooner, is irrational. Why is it still occurring?
Ralph Nader comes to mind, claiming that some Doctors and hospitals, do more harm than good. I recall an estimate of ~200,000 deaths caused by malpractice each year. And Doctors do consider a long stay in a hospital a risk of secondary infections.
IMO until morbidity and mortality results are publicly reviewed, these ‘mistakes' will continue.
The reason Doctors give for not allowing these facts and figures to be released to the public is that, ‘the public is too ignorant' ‘they wont know what to make of the figures, they may wind up worshiping some particular hospital' ‘after having laetrile shoved down our throats, what would be next, no operations while Mars is ascending'.
I must agree, as an average, yes the public is ignorant!
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James
SFN Regular
USA
754 Posts |
Posted - 08/20/2001 : 17:16:35 [Permalink]
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quote:
quote:
I'm agnostic, but I've really got no problem with it... provided they're not waking me up to pray for me, the way they wake me up to give me a sleeping pill.
Wendy Jones
Wish you were joking about the waking you up to give you a sleeping pill. When I was in the hospital and they did that to me, I asked the nurse if she was completely stupid.
What did she say, Valiant Dancer?
quote:
But to wake a patient up, to take a sleeping pill because someone ‘forgot' to administer the medication sooner, is irrational.
My question is, Why the fuck are they waking someone who is asleep? I can understand if the patient is having trouble sleeping, it'd help them go to sleep with little trouble. But to wake someone to give them something that's gonna put them back to sleep is just plain stupid.
The way I see it, christians are godless too...they just don't know it yet. |
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