Quote:
Originally Posted by Tobra
I can think of a dozen individuals off the top of my head who prayed for a successful outcome to a surgery that had no chance of being successfull and got it.
|
Surgery that "had no chance of being successful" and they went through with it anyway? I suggest you alert the media, then, as no one else knows about this.
Here's a quote from the following article:
"As with so many things, the hype about prayer definitely outshines the reality. To date there has not been a single good study showing that prayer has any value for helping sick people."
From:
http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/msciprayer.html
As I mentioned previously, there is no concrete evidence that prayer has any positive effect. Some studies have even shown a negative effect.
Quote:
|
I can tell you for a fact that if you have people praying for you, you do better in a bad medical situation.
|
This major study refutes your "fact" soundly:
A quote from the article:
"In a clear setback for those who believe in the power of prayer, their prayers were not answered. Prayers offered by strangers did not reduce the medical complications of major heart surgery. Not only that, but patients who knew that others were praying for them fared worse than those who did not receive such spiritual support, or who did but were not aware of receiving it."
From:
http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/2006/04.06/05-prayer.html
Humans are horrible at probability. They count successes all the time while dismissing failures.