Effect of prayers on healing

[Mister Agenda]

Hi all,

I came across this article:

Moderator Notice
Link removed.

Which claims that a research that was done on the effect of prayers on patients healing (retroactively!) wasn't done properly. It claims that:

"Of course there are many problems with this paper... It appears that most of the significance of this study can be ascribed to one outlier in the control group, whose stay in the hospital was extended. However, without access to the raw data it is hard to prove this. The fact that the median does not differ between the two treatment groups is another hint, i.e. that the results might look very different when the outlier is removed"

I didn't understand what he means, because as far as I know Median, Upper quartile and Lower quartile are not affected by extreme values in the list. So even if there was a patient who stayed for a much longer time in the hospital, it shouldn't have change the results in the final table.

So, do you agree with the article's author claim, and if so why?

Thanks.

Hmm. The null hypothesis would be that intercessory prayer does not work at all, let alone backwards through time. Not sure how it's supposed to be a useful tool for doctors since the outcomes will already have taken place. For instance if a patient dies from cancer, praying for remission after is certainly not going to bring them back to life.  

The flaws of the study make it inconclusive (and potentially unethical and the premise makes it preposterous), and I am far from convinced.