Effect of prayers on healing

[CommonMan]

Any reason that your comments are so negative?

We're just keeping you entertained dear until one of the bouncers show up. You see I've never seen a live banning before.

Was my question so unusual for an atheists forum?

Just trying to understand.

[Megabullshit]

Some people here gathered for praying in a mosque in India amid the corona virus issues .
Now 200 are infected from the gathering alone

[Nay_Sayer]

The effect is Nil.

Any other gems op? Or was this your only gambit?

Any reason that your comments are so negative?

I thought it was quite benign. Jumping the gun?

Thoughts and Prayers.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

How many come here thinking this is the first time we've seen this really clever gambit?

[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.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Some people here gathered for praying in a mosque in India amid the corona virus issues .
Now 200 are infected from the gathering alone

You can be tagged as a bigot for pointing out that religious people sometimes do stupid and dangerous things.  Tread carefully.

Boru

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Any reason that your comments are so negative?

We're just keeping you entertained dear until one of the bouncers show up. You see I've never seen a live banning before.

Just to be clear, we don't ban people for a single (or double, or triple) instance of breaking the 30/30 rule.

And we certainly don't ban them for posting 'new age bollocks'.

Boru

[Duty]

Hi all,

I came across this article:

Moderator Notice
Link removed due to 30/30 violation.  Please familiarize yourself with the rules.

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.

The median was the same, it was the mean average which was used to draw the EXTRAORDINARY conclusion/claim of the original study, and THAT value was thrown out by the outlier in the control group. That's my reading. 

Also, as Christopher Hitchens wrote: "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" - and ONE study, albeit published in a reputable journal, which has not been replicated AFAIK, does most certainly NOT qualify as extraordinary evidence.

---

Ah, it all makes sense now - turns out that the "study" was a mere joke.

The British BMJ journal is known for an annual Christmas special issue filled with unusual articles. For example, two years ago they explored the question of Why Rudolph’s nose is red. One BMJ Christmas piece from 2001 caused quite a bit of controversy, however, and this paper forms the main topic of Ronagh and Souder's article. It was called Effects of remote, retroactive intercessory prayer on outcomes in patients with bloodstream infection, by Israeli researcher Leonard Leibovici. He reported that prayer was able to help sick people - even backwards in time! Leibovici took some patients' medical records and prayed over them. A control group of patients got no prayers. Group assignment was randomized. The patients had been suffering from septicemia 4-6 years before; many of them were now dead. Leibovici reported that the prayer group had left hospital sooner and had had a lower duration of fever. So not only is prayer effective, it can actually change the past. Leibovici  that he did not personally take these results seriously. They were intended as a reductio ad absurdam of randomized controlled trials for impossible treatments:

https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/th...ke-science

[arewethereyet]

Juliane. Post me a pic of your ####### before you get banned.

I thought that I came to a forum of a grown up men.

Grown up men.

Yeah, you're gonna be a hit around here...just the first of your bigotries to spill forth, no doubt.

[The Grand Nudger]

Hi all,

I came across this article:

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.

Welcome aboard.

You're asking if I agree with your claim, not the authors - to wit; that the author of the paper insists that extreme outliers don't tank the data set.   Correct?