In Reply to: Re: Does prayer work? posted by Oldtimer on August 16, 2004 at 16:52:33:
Thanks for your thoughtful response Oldtimer. I'm glad you pointed out that there are different kinds of prayer. Here I'm only considering the kind of prayer that is a petition or supplication for divine intervention in very real, tangible ways.
Regarding the placebo article, you correctly point out that a recent Dutch study points out that methodological methods used to demonstrate the effectiveness of placebos may have been flawed. However, the author of the article points out: "[The Dutch study] claim flies in the face of more than fifty years of research. At the very least, we can expect to see more rigorously designed research projects trying to disprove Hróbjartsson and Götzsche."
I guess what I was thinking about when I made the comparison to placebos was of some vague recollections I have of studies that demonstrated the effectiveness of prayer on physical healing.