ifriit said:
Finally, for those who believe intercessory prayer scientifically sound: how do you address the concerns brought up by these articles?
Let's take
http://www.ffrf.org/fttoday/april02/index.php3?ft=williamson.html first since it has gotten me very angry for the scientific errors.
Here's the first major blunder:
"Many religious people want to cling to the ancient belief in the supernatural, including prayer, and yet accept the conclusions and benefits of modern science. They can't have it both ways. "
The faith bias of the article is stated right at the start. We are not dealing with an objective analysis, but with the promotion of a rival faith -- atheism.
"To study the natural world, scientists must have an implicit assumption that it operates only by natural, predictable processes, which cannot be affected arbitrarily by an all-powerful deity. "
Science has NEVER had that assumption. What happens with methodological materialism is that we can ONLY study the material causes. There is no assumption that the material processes cannot be arbitrarily affected. If they are, then they are, and too bad for us.
"One of the major ways that scientists provide proof of theories is through well-designed studies, of which the "gold standard" is the large, randomized, prospective, controlled, double-blind type. If such a study could be influenced by a personal god who responded to prayers to change the results, science would be in shambles. There would be no way ever to do a valid experiment since investigators couldn't be sure that someone, somewhere, hadn't uttered a specific or generic prayer that would affect the study. In short, science by its very nature, rejects any influence of prayer on the physical world."
The irony meter pegged again, since it is the results of gold standard studies that are being objected to!!
Also notice that "proof of theories" after several of us have demonstrated that science doesn't prove.
And, if science were in a shambles, so what? "The only rule of the scientific method is that we must discard any scientific statement if the evidence of our senses shows it to be wrong." (Eldredge). If the idea that there is no deity that can interfere with the natural processes is wrong, then we have to discard that idea. However, these guys turn that on its head and instead rejects data that might indicate that the idea is wrong!! Straight out of creationism: reject the data if it contradicts the Bible. Here we have "reject the data if it shows prayer".
"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. "
Ah, HA! We get to change the rules so that the evidential bar is higher for ideas we don't like? Who decides what is "extraordinary"? Should we let the religious decide that having embryonic stem cells differentiate into all the tissues in the body is an "extraordinary claim"? And therefore set a higher bar for it?
This is nothing more than a debating ploy. In science, all claims are equal.
So, from the start we see an attack to change science so that data that is not liked for emotional reasons gets to be discarded. Sound familiar? What other endeavor does that?
"The study was not "blinded' in two respects: 1) Janet Greene, the coordinator of the study, on whom Dr. Byrd depended for the collection of data, knew exactly who was being prayed for, and interacted regularly with the patients in the study. 2) "Table 3" was formulated by Dr. Byrd at the request of editors who initially evaluated his paper after the "blinding" had been removed. "
1) SOMEONE always has to know the treatment groups and can't be blinded. The person delivering the drug and placebo has to know which group the patient belongs to. In every study. If this is a valid criticism, then it applies to EVERY such study and they all have to be thrown out.
The criteria here is that BYRD and the floor physicians and the patients were blinded. Therefore no one could fudge the results of evaluating the patients or sending them for complications. So the blinding was what it was supposed to be.
2) Yes, Byrd was unblinded when he did the overall assessment. That doesn't mean he was biased, just that he could have been. There is a way to test that and Cochrane's Review did so. They took the Intermediate group and first put it with the Good group and did the statistical test. then they took the Intermediate group and put it with the Poor group and did the statistical test. Results: the same as Byrd's original analysis. This shows that the results are "robust" in statistical terms and that Byrd did an honest analysis. If he had shaded either the non-prayer downward or the prayer upward, it would have shown up in the new analysis.
"There was no difference in clear-cut end points such as days in the CCU, days in the hospital, or mortality between the two groups. Only when complicated statistical analyses were done on a long list of items do any data emerge that favor the prayed-for group--hardly evidence of an all-powerful deity."
ALL end points are arbitrary. In the case of days in CCU or hospital or mortality, they are very arbitrary. Lots of factors go into those outcomes. For instance, if a prayer patient was going to be in 20 days without prayer and got out in 15, that won't compensate for a non-prayer who was going to be in 5 but had a complication to move him to 15. IOW, the very multiplicity of factors going into days and mortality can obscure an effect that is there. But going to specific indices can't make an efffect appear that isn't there.
"Of the six items where the prayer group did better, four were of borderline statistical significance and only two were clearly significant."
This isn't the whole data. The significance of the 6 parameters that were statistically different does not tell the whole story. In 14 other parameters, the prayer group was less than the controls, in one they were the same, and were worse in only 5 areas. Also, the chi-square test is not that sensitive. For instance, for diuretics 5 patients in the prayer group needed them compared to 15 in the controls. That is statistically different. But for major surgery before discharge 5 patients in the prayer group and 14 in the control group had it. That difference of 1 patient means it was not quite statistically different. Or in congestive heart failure 8 patients in the prayer group vs 20 in the control was statistically significant. In the category of receiving ionotropic agents (drugs to help the heart beat) 8 patients in the prayer group compared to 16 in the control was not statistically different. For antianginal agents 21 patients in the prayer group needed them compared to 19 in the controls.
Thus there is a trend. Where the prayer group is better, in 14 categories it is a lot better by 30-50% fewer patients. In the 5 categories where prayer is "worse" it is only by 1 or 2 patients. Example, 2 patients in the prayer group needed a permanent pacemaker compared to 1 in the control.
"This study provides no information on the physicians involved in this study. This information could be important since certain physicians use antibiotics and intubate patients much more readily than others. "
Doesn't matter. People were randomly assigned to physicians and therefore, the non-prayer group is just as likely to have high prescribers than the prayer group. Remember, the physicians don't know which of their patients are in the study and of those which ones are in which group.
"The method that Dr. Byrd used in his scoring in "Table 3" had not been validated by any previous studies. "
Yes, it had. It is the standard clinician's judgement that has been validated by training all physicians in it.
"When Irwin Tessman, Ph.D., professor of biological sciences at Purdue University, requested of Dr. Byrd that Dr. Tessman be allowed to review the raw data that went into the study, he was refused. Since Dr. Byrd's claim is one of the supernatural, it would seem appropriate that all aspects of the study be reviewed by independent investigators."
I don't hand out MY raw data to anyone who asks. This is extraordinary to request such data. It's not at ALL appropriate. We have a strawman here.
"The degree of obvious religiosity communicated by Dr. Byrd raises doubts that he could be completely objective on a scientific investigation of prayer, something that he deeply believes is effective. Under "Acknowledgments" at the end of the paper, he writes: "I thank God for responding to the many prayers made on behalf of the patients." "
The DATA is objective. The critique is forgetting that multivariant analysis on OBJECTIVE data of whether or not a patient got antibiotics, etc. Whatever Byrd's religious leanings, this is simply ad hominem to say that his personal feelings automatically influenced the study.
The Harris study:
"The only finding in the Harris study that indicated the prayer group outperformed the control group was in using the MAHI-CCU Scoring System and then only at a probability level of (.04), a figure very close to the cut-off level of (.05). "
The ONLY criteria used was the MAHI-CCU Scorring System. So, to say that "the only finding ... that indicated the prayer group outperformed the control group" is to say that "the only finding that showed the Yankees outperformed the Red Sox was the score of the game".
Harris et al. devised the scoring system in order to avoid the criticism Byrd's study had attracted of all those individual scores. So now what was wanted in Byrd's study -- the presence of a unified scoring system -- become the criticism for this study? Talk about not being able to win!!
Now, again we change the rules because we don't like the results. p less than 0.05 is accepted in the scientific community. That is where we say that having less than a 1 in 20 chance of the results being due to sampling error is good enough for us. It doesn't matter if p = 0.4999999. The groups are statistically significantly different. They are not MORE significantly different if p = 0.000000001. It simply means that the odds of a sampling error are lower. But it can still happen. This simply shows that the authors don't understand statistics.
"1) As already noted, the MAHI-CCU Scoring System has never been previously scientifically validated. Without such validation, any result produced by it is subject to question."
Every scoring system has to be used for the first time sometime. Actually, I haven't seen anyone suggest specifically how it isn't valid. Nor do these guys says it wasn't.
"2) The much higher dropout rate in the first 24 hours in the prayer group is a very serious criticism of the study. The statistical probability that this finding would appear by chance is (.001), or 1 chance in a 1000, a statistically very significant finding. This higher dropout rate, since the mortality rate in the two groups was the same, suggests that the prayer group, for unknown reasons, was not quite as ill as the control group since patients discharged within a day often turn out not to have serious problems."
LOL!! Which means that the ones that were left were the sicker ones!! If you take the dropouts, then the results are even more in favor of prayer, aren't they? The results could also suggest that intercessory prayer was really working since the results are unlikely to be due to sampling error. Since everything else was controlled except prayer, then the logical conclusion is that prayer is the cause of the increased recovery (dropout rate).
"Positive findings in a scientific study are not considered valid until replicated by independent investigators. "
Here the article declares that the results of EACH AND EVERY component must be replicated. Nonsene! For one, since the scoring system was designed to take the overall progress and not focus on the details, it doesn't matter HOW the effect was managed in detail, just that it happened.
After all, the premise that upsets these guys is that an intelligent agent is the cause, and there is no reason an intelligent agent has to get the same effect in two different people, especially if it using supernatural means. A MATERIAL effect must use the same route, but not a deity. Another smokescreen to hide data that they don't like.
"The most recent study and, I believe, the best designed one,"
Best designed because it gave the results he wanted? LOL!! Considering his criteria of experimental design before, I think we can dismiss his idea of what constitutes a well-designed study.
"This trial was done on patients immediately after discharge from the Coronary Care Unit, a time when the intensity of extraneous intercessory praying by family and friends would generally be waning. "
AH HA! IOW, done at a time when the material effects of medicine have already proved effective! As I have noted, having uncontrolled prayer is irrelevant. Here what we have is bias NOT to find results because only patients who have passed the crisis with uncontrollled prayer and material medicine are being considered. Talk about selection bias!
And this, of course, is the one that he wants to decide the issue, even tho it doesn't even try to replicate the other two!!
That's enough of this garbage.
