The title of this piece is a clever saying that I saw on a t-shirt somewhere. I decided to ask the pastor at the church I attend if prayer helps people heal or recover. He replied, “Yes! It’s been proven by studies.”
I still had my doubts, so I searched some studies. Here’s what I found on PubMed:
One team concluded: “These findings are equivocal and, although some of the results of individual studies suggest a positive effect of intercessory prayer,the majority do not and the evidence does not support a recommendation either in favour or against the use of intercessory prayer. We are not convinced that further trials of this intervention should be undertaken and would prefer to see any resources available for such a trial used to investigate other questions in health care.”
Other researchers said, “ evidence presented so far is interesting enough to justify further study into the human aspects of the effects of prayer. However it is impossible to prove or disprove in trials any supposed benefit that derives from God’s response to prayer.”
In the few cases where intercessory prayer may have shown a statistically significant effect, the methodology could be faulty, don’t you think? Otherwise, why would God pick and choose studies in which to participate? And lest we forget, a small statistically significant result often means a small effect size — some God to make a difference for a few of the prayed-for, but not all of them!
Another team said, “There is no scientifically discernable effect for IP as assessed in controlled studies. Given that the IP literature lacks a theoretical or theological base and has failed to produce significant findings in controlled trials, we recommend that further resources not be allocated to this line of research.”
I now turn to something that Sam Harris has said — when talking to an audience member — who explains that we are all atheists to at least some gods, such as Zeus, yet many accept a personal (Abrahamic) God: “You could have made precisely the same comment by changing the word ‘God’ to ‘Poseidon’ [….] You can say that no scientific study has now ruled out existence of Poseidon [….]” How many gods do you not believe in? Could you not attribute any effects of prayer to one of these many gods, perhaps from The Illiad and The Odyssey or perhaps some Native American god? Consider that, my friends.
Praying is a roll of the dice — and to take a phrase from Albert Einstein, God does not play dice with the universe! Pray to anything, and you will get the same result as praying to God; try it. Perhaps I’ll try it and see which one does better, God or, say, this paper bag that is next to me. Surely I can design a simple experiment that way.
In the meantime, remember the power of confirmation biases. It may seem as though God is answering your prayers, because you’re probably discarding the negative results from your memory yet remembering the confirming results.
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