| India. Most people there prefer having a son, and a tremendous amount of praying goes into the effort to produce one. Sheldrake examined statistics of live male births in India and used data from England as a control where the preference for sons was less strong. He found that in both England and India there were 106 males to 100 females, just as in every other country. He stated, “if this enormous amount of psychic effort and praying of holy men were working, you would expect on average the percentage of live male births to be higher.” Although these statistical studies from the nineteenth century strongly suggest that prayer is not effective, they do not meet the “gold standard” of a completely valid scientific study. The media regularly mentions a large number of contemporary studies that supposedly scientifically validate the beneficial effects of prayer on human health. So what is the truth in this matter? Actually, there are only three that meet the “gold standard.” Happily, the fact that there are only three studies considerably reduces that amount of information freethinkers need to acquire to refute frequent and erroneous claims. When we say that a finding in scientific study is statistically significant, “significant” has a specific statistical meaning. To be considered significant, a finding must be (.05) or less, which means the probability that it could be due to chance is 5 in 100. The main point to appreciate is that this figure, although reasonable, is strictly arbitrary. Therefore, the figure of (.05) is borderline significant, .04 (a probability of 4 in 100 of being due to chance) is considered significant, and .06 (6 in 100) is considered not significant. The figure (.05) is the one accepted for “ordinary” scientific studies. But what criterion should be applied in proving a supernatural finding? After all, as the old saw goes, extraordinary claims should require extraordinary proof, and this requirement should especially apply to claims of the supernatural. The James Randi Educational Foundation has a standing offer of one million dollars to anyone who can demonstrate any supernatural event under carefully controlled scientific conditions. The foundation has never had a single person who even got past the preliminary testing. Its members think that a study that would prove a claim of the supernatural should eliminate the possibility that the result could be by chance, in the range of 1 in 10,000,000, a far cry from 5 in 100. Robert Parks, in his excellent book, Voodoo Science, observes that a characteristic of voodoo science is that there are always very small differences in studies, just barely detectable, and that can’t be amplified in further investigations. These barely detectable positive results usually indicate flaws in the studies themselves rather than real findings. Let’s examine in some detail the three studies on intercessory prayer that were large, prospective, randomized, double-blind ones—the only three that pass muster as valid scientific investigations of the effects of prayer on human health. Intercessory prayer (prayer at a distance) was chosen so that the placebo effect of direct prayer would be eliminated. All of these studies were done on coronary care unit (CCU) patients. The first study was entitled “Positive Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer in a Coronary Care Unit Population” by Randolph Byrd, M.D., published in the Southern Medical Journal, July 1988. Dr. Byrd stated: “My study concerning prayer and patients in a general hospital coronary care unit was designed to answer two questions: (1) Does intercessory prayer to the Judeo-Christian God have any effect on the patient’s medical condition and recovery while in the -> page three |