study shows prayer doesn't help in recovery
Offline Study: Prayer doesn't affect heart patients
Thursday, March 30, 2006; Posted: 2:26 p.m. EST (19:26 GMT)
NEW YORK (AP) -- In the largest study of its kind, researchers found that having people pray for heart bypass surgery patients had no effect on their recovery. In fact, patients who knew they were being prayed for had a slightly higher rate of complications.
Researchers emphasized their work does not address whether God exists or answers prayers made on another's behalf. The study can only look for an effect from prayers offered as part of the research, they said.
They also said they had no explanation for the higher complication rate in patients who knew they were being prayed for, in comparison to patients who only knew it was possible prayers were being said for them.
The work, which followed about 1,800 patients at six medical centers, was financed by the Templeton Foundation, which supports research into science and religion. It will appear in the American Heart Journal.
Dr. Herbert Benson of Harvard Medical School and other scientists tested the effect of having three Christian groups pray for particular patients, starting the night before surgery and continuing for two weeks. The volunteers prayed for "a successful surgery with a quick, healthy recovery and no complications" for specific patients, for whom they were given the first name and first initial of the last name.
The patients, meanwhile, were split into three groups of about 600 apiece: those who knew they were being prayed for, those who were prayed for but only knew it was a possibility, and those who weren't prayed for but were told it was a possibility.
The researchers did not ask patients or their families and friends to alter any plans they had for prayer, saying such a step would have been unethical and impractical.
The study looked for any complications within 30 days of the surgery. Results showed no effect of prayer on complication-free recovery. But 59 percent of the patients who knew they were being prayed for developed a complication, versus 52 percent of those who were told it was just a possibility.
Dr. Harold G. Koenig, director of the Center for Spirituality, Theology and Health at the Duke University Medical Center, who did not take part in the study, said the results did not surprise him.
"There are no scientific grounds to expect a result and there are no real theological grounds to expect a result either," he said.
Science, he said, "is not designed to study the supernatural."
Atheist Books, purchases on Amazon support the Rational Response Squad server which houses Celebrity Atheists.
- Login to post comments
"covers ears"!!!!!
Matthew 4:7 Jesus said to him, Again it is in the Writings, You may not put the Lord your God to the test.
LOL nice article.
www.andyhanson.net
How can you expect to learn if you can never be shown incorrect..? I can understand people having faith, but blind, unwavering faith where there is no possibility of error seems to show complete and utter stupidity, in my eyes.
How can a child learn math if they have the belief that '1+1=3' and refuse another answer? Accepting the possibility of being wrong is the only way you can grow.
Congradulations. You have just proven yourself...wrong. You conclude by proving that you cannot prove anything about the subject viathe utilized methods.
All studies (like polls) depend more on the person doing the study (the person who determines how questions are worded and who is washed out as outliers) as to the facts they are studying. Facts are stupid, they can be made to say just about anything.
From a hypothetical standpoint, we should expect prayer to have a small effect, even given pure matterialism as an assumption because of a little something called the placebo effect.
"Truth is the cry of all, but the game of the few." George Berkeley
"Truth is always strange — stranger than fiction." Lord Byron
Fixing the world, one dumb idea at a time.