WTF is this forum coming to? Awesome discussions on life, the universe & everything!

[Elton]

I love this forum. I really do.

Well that sums up the human condition to an extent no? We either live in ignorance of suffering to fool ourselves into lives of deluded happiness or we accept it exists and simply move on. But that's the difficult part, to understand. I can't never say I've suffered much, if at all. Sure my patience has been tested, but I have led a life of 19 years that hasn't had many trials, and I'm damn glad I'm this lucky.

Kayin, truly you are humbling.

[kenco_uk]

These forums are epic, full of really quite amazing people. Sure, there's the odd pungent smell, the strange looking one by the door and perhaps the one with three legs and a roving eye doesn't look too savoury but you'd get those sort of fruitcakes anywhere.

I've never found any other forum quite like home here. Tekheads was as good, Bigforums nearly as good but was starting to wane. Here though, well things have changed but it has been er.. a while I think there's still a really strong sense of community here, compared to other gathering places on the 'net.

Awww you guys! *hug*

[LennyRhys]

A slight change of topic: I think it's very exciting to hear the recent news about the discovery (not yet claimed, but almost certain) of a Higgs Boson particle.

Any scientists here want to chip in?

[CarlT2001]

All I can say is that the church definately needs the Higgs Boson otherwise there would be no mass.

[Porkins' Wingman]

If two billion other people hadn't got there first on that joke, I'd have considered repping you...

...but probably wouldn't have bothered.

[LennyRhys]

Come on people! It could be one of the biggest scientific discoveries ever, and the best you can do is make a joke about it?!

[Nexxo]

It's the RELIX particle!

[hyperion]

It gives cheesecake to all other particles!

[KayinBlack]

They found a superheavy boson. It may or may not be the Higgs, and we might have to look at superstrings after all. I'll wait until the verdict is back before speculating.

[thehippoz]

my two guys in the power room isn't so crazy after all!

[KayinBlack]

Last September, a thought-provoking study appeared in the Southern Medical Journal (2010; 103:864–9). Researchers from Indiana University showed that proximal intercessory prayer (PIP) by evangelical Christians improved auditory and visual acuity in patients from rural Mozambique with poor hearing and sight. PIP’s effects were greater than that produced by sugg­estion or hypnosis, which can also sharpen auditory and visual acuity.

PIP involves touch – such as an embrace or the placing of hands on the patient’s head – and praying close to the patient. Praying or knowing someone cares enough to pray for you may make you feel better by enhancing well-being, optimism and confidence (Medscape General Medicine 2007; 9:56). So, PIP could trigger placebo responses – bolstering the body’s innate ability to heal itself. But several studies now suggest that intercessory prayer (IP, or asking a higher power) speeds healing – even if patients don’t know that they’re the subject, if other people prayed from a distance or, most remarkably, prayed retrospectively. Not surprisingly, these results proved deeply controversial. IP doesn’t just challenge established medical and scientific beliefs – it rips them to shreds!

The scientific study of IP began in 1988, when doctors in San Francisco split 393 patients admitted to a coronary care unit into two groups. The first group received no organised prayer. Christians outside the hospital prayed for the second group’s recovery. When admitted, the two groups were equally ill. But the IP group developed less severe heart disease, were less likely to need mechanical help breathing, and consumed less medicine in the form of antibiotics and diuretics (Southern Medical Journal 1988; 81:826–829). Then, in 1999, researchers in Kansas City found that IP reduced heart disease severity by 11 per cent (Archives of Internal Medicine 159:2273–2278).

A year later, the British Medical Journal (2001; 323:1450–1) published even more startling results. In 2000, Leonard Leibovici (Rabin Medical Centre, Israel) randomly divided 3,393 patients who had had septicæmia between 1990 and 1996 into two groups. He arranged remote retrospective IP for one group. One in 50 fewer people died in the IP group (28.1 per cent mortality) than in the control group (30.2 per cent) – although Leibovici couldn’t rule out that this was the play of chance. But the lengths of hospitalisation and fever were shorter in the IP group. Statistical ana­lysis suggested these weren’t chance findings.

Other studies tell a similar story. Patients left unconscious after severe head injury recovered better if they were the subject of IPs (American Journal of Hospice and Palliative Care 2009; 26-264-269). Another investigation examined bush babies (Otolemur garnettii), small African primates, which injured themselves (as in humans, a sign of distress). Self-inflicted wounds healed quicker in bush babies which were IP subjects compared to animals which were not. The IP group also showed improved blood quality – such as increased red blood cells and hæmoglobin – and more normal behaviours, such as time spent grooming (Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine 2006; 1242–8). This finding is important. Bush babies presumably don’t have strongly held beliefs about religion and medicine that could contribute to the placebo effect and complicate human studies.

Furthermore, other distance healing techniques – such as spiritual healing, noncontact therapeutic touch and external qigong – also seem to work. For example, in AIDS patients, distance healing reduced the likelihood of new AIDS-related illnesses (by 83 per cent), visits to doctors (by 30 per cent), hospitalisations (by 75 per cent), time spent in hospital (by 85 per cent) and illness severity – while improving mood (Western Journal of Medicine 1998; 169:356–363). In 2000, researchers (Annals of Internal Medicine 132:903–910) examined 23 trials involving 2,774 patients; 13 studies sugg­ested that various types of distance healing worked.

You could argue that benefits in one, even two, studies are flukes. But as several – although not all – studies show similar results, the findings are harder to dismiss. An authoritative review by the Cochrane Collaboration (which usually assesses medicines, surgical techniques and so on) looked at 10 studies of IP. So, if IP is ineffective you’d expect clear evidence to emerge. Yet the authors commented: “The evid­ence does not support a recommendat­ion either in favour or against the use of intercessory prayer.” Critically, they add that the lack of “clear effects does not mean that intercessory prayer does not work”.

In other words, we can’t unequivocally claim distance healing works; but equally, there’s no compelling evidence that distance healing does not work – and that’s remarkable. And discrepancies between studies are understand­able. Perhaps the study designs are more appropriate for investi­gating new medicines than distance healing. The Cochrane Review notes that problems with the IP studies’ designs “are enough to hide a real beneficial effect”. Perhaps distance healing works only for certain healers (prayers) and patients. After all, prayer is intensely personal. Perhaps differ­ent techniques have different effects. Perhaps dist­ance healing works in only some medical situations – boosting the immune system so people recover more quickly, but not regenerating amputated limbs. But if further investigations show distance healing has an effect – however small in however few studies – it’s hard to overstate just how radically the results will revolutionise our understanding of the Universe.

I found this interesting, not just because of the claims, but the fact that it was backed up with the ID numbers of each test. Anyone who can grab those texts so we can read them? I want to read the one with bush babies-they don't have religion, yet it seemed to work for them.

Also interesting is the fact that alternatives to prayer were used, sometimes without the participant's knowledge, and yet there were still recorded benefits.

Before anyone thinks I'm about to launch into a "see, I TOLD you it worked," I'm thinking more along the lines of quantum entanglement. I wonder if we don't have more untold potential there-that the power of prayer might work in a different sense altogether. We already harbor insanely different and barely believable abilities-like these folks.

While I have no contempt for the scientific method, I do think there are things we don't know (and possibly can't know.) Doesn't mean we shouldn't look, but we may never find an answer.

[stonedsurd]

Originally Posted by KayinBlack

While I have no contempt for the scientific method, I do think there are things we don't know (and possibly can't know.) Doesn't mean we shouldn't look, but we may never find an answer.

Spot on, IMO.

[Nexxo]

Nevertheless, the scientific method is the only way to do science. You cannot make the method subject to the answers you want to find. We tend to find what we look for. The scientific method protects us from such human biases and reasoning errors.

All that the Cochrane Review states --correctly-- is that there has not been sufficient research to yield a conclusive answer one way or the other. It's intriguing and when I get some time I'll see if I can pull down the articles and provide the links do people can read them. But although I would like it to be true as much as anybody, I'd have to see a lot more compelling evidence.

[KayinBlack]

I understood that from the get-go, Nexxo. My point was that there ARE some studies with interesting results, they happen to provide proper references, I was interested in looking up those studies and seeing if they were decently done or if they were something intentionally skewed. I know full well that there are people who intentionally fabricate results-but as they held up to review by an independent group, there might be something to them.

I even understand that the number of "it works" to the number of "not sure" is roughly 1 to 1. I just though it interesting, and felt that it had bearing on the topic at hand.

But of course, I also know you probably figured I did as well. I'd like to see where this goes-it seems a bit more honest than some studies I've seen.

[Nexxo]

I think that there rarely is any deliberate deceit in research --just people making honest mistakes or subconsciously getting carried away by what they'd want to be true. I'm open to the idea that there may be an effect, and think that such an effect, if found, is worth studying very closely, because for one thing it would show how our expectations and beliefs about the patient's condition and prognosis alone can have an important impact on their recovery and survival.

[C-Sniper]

Kayin, Let me see if I can't pull those research pieces down through my University for you (being with UF/Shands we have an extensive medical subscription). It seems like an interesting topic that I am also curious about since there are many rumors but not much scientific fact

[KayinBlack]

I knew that there were studies that seemed proper that supported it, but it took me a bit to find where to locate them.

I've seen stranger things than prayer actually being effective in scientific journals, so I'm not too surprised. And yeah, while I might want it to be true (though who in my situation wouldn't) I won't give up the rigors of the scientific method in attempting to verify the authenticity. Simply claiming "because I said so" isn't an argument.

[thehippoz]

you guys need to repent and change your ways!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ci9KI4rSXw4#t=7m32s

[Scirocco]

Funny, when I painted pictures of hell, it looked more like the waiting room at a government office and an insurance agent was trying to sell me policies why the guy next to me was showing his family vacation photos.

[KayinBlack]

I always did think hell was other people...