{"id":603,"date":"2006-04-06T08:27:23","date_gmt":"2006-04-06T16:27:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/archives\/2006\/04\/06\/the-problem-with-prayer-studies\/"},"modified":"2006-04-06T08:31:46","modified_gmt":"2006-04-06T16:31:46","slug":"the-problem-with-prayer-studies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2006\/04\/06\/the-problem-with-prayer-studies","title":{"rendered":"The Problem With Prayer Studies"},"content":{"rendered":"

I men\u00adtioned this to my stu\u00addents last night at Chi Alpha\u2019s week\u00adly meet\u00ading and I thought I\u2019d pass it along here as well: there have been a whole series of dou\u00adble-blind stud\u00adies on prayer, some of which show that prayer is potent and oth\u00aders which fail to demon\u00adstrate any ben\u00ade\u00adfit. Why such wide\u00adly vary\u00ading results? Because prayer stud\u00adies are ridicu\u00adlous\u00adly dif\u00adfi\u00adcult to con\u00adstruct, as high\u00adlight\u00aded by this humor\u00adous arti\u00adcle from Scrap\u00adple\u00adface<\/a>.<\/p>\n

(2006\u201303-31) \u2014 A team of sci\u00aden\u00adtists today end\u00aded a 10-year study on the so-called \u201cpow\u00ader of prayer\u201d by con\u00adclud\u00ading that God can\u00adnot be manip\u00adu\u00adlat\u00aded by humans, not even by sci\u00aden\u00adtists with a $2.4 mil\u00adlion research grant.<\/p>\n

The sci\u00aden\u00adtists also not\u00aded that their work was \u201csab\u00ado\u00adtaged by reli\u00adgious zealots\u201d secret\u00adly pray\u00ading for study sub\u00adjects who were sup\u00adposed to receive no prayer.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There are just too many inde\u00adpen\u00addent vari\u00adables. How can you know that the con\u00adtrol group is actu\u00adal\u00adly receiv\u00ading no prayer? How can you be sure that the peo\u00adple who are pray\u00ading are pray\u00ading with faith? With the right faith? In the right God?<\/p>\n

And then, of course, there is THE Inde\u00adpen\u00addent Vari\u00adable. What if, as the arti\u00adcle sug\u00adgests, God sim\u00adply choos\u00ades not to be our lab rat?<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sure some clever sci\u00aden\u00adtists will some\u00adday fig\u00adure out how to iso\u00adlate the vari\u00adables more mean\u00ading\u00adful\u00adly, but for now the stud\u00adies tell us much less than the media would have us believe. <\/p>\n

And for the record, it\u2019s the media to blame for the hype. I\u2019m sure the sci\u00aden\u00adtists are mak\u00ading appro\u00adpri\u00adate\u00adly cau\u00adtious claims. Sci\u00aden\u00adtists almost always do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I men\u00adtioned this to my stu\u00addents last night at Chi Alpha\u2019s week\u00adly meet\u00ading and I thought I\u2019d pass it along here as well: there have been a whole series of dou\u00adble-blind stud\u00adies on prayer, some of which show that prayer is potent and oth\u00aders which fail to demon\u00adstrate any ben\u00ade\u00adfit. Why such wide\u00adly vary\u00ading results? \u2026 Con\u00adtin\u00adue read\u00ading \u201cThe Prob\u00adlem With Prayer Stud\u00adies\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-of-random-interest","category-rants-opinions-and-general-contrariness"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Ded-9J","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=603"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}