>Repeating myself, but the effect of religion can be investigated
>statistically. These days many medical, biological, and physical studies
>are statistical. Could even have blind studies. For example, we ask a
>group of non-literate Christians in Africa to pray by name for half the
>cancer patients at Sloan-Kettering without tellling the patients.
>
>billwald@juno.com
>_______________________
Bertvan:
>I remembered the name of the doctor. (sorry, everyone, about pushing the
>wrong address button) Dr. Larry Dossey has conducted experiments where
>patients were unaware of who was being prayed for. Prayer was determined to
>have a statistically significant effect. Also the Princeton anomalies lab
>has determined that ESP has a tiny but consistently measurable effect.
>
>Both of these results are probably not large enough to satify "believers",
>and "non believers" merely declare fraud. In the present climate of
>materialism, we will never know. As one materialist once said,
>"Why, I wouldn't believe that stuff even if it were true!"
my *that* would be convenient!
if the results are measurable *and* repeatable, then however odd or
unexpected, the results would have to be accepted. It's what peer review is
all about. If only one person or one group can get those results, then the
results are probably wrong. If Dossy's experimental technique is
faulty--and peer review would reveal that--then the results are probably
wrong. However, if the same effect is tested in several ways by several
*different* people and the results come out the same, then we are looking
at reality as well as we can determine it. Ignoring it would be as stupid
as ignoring the fact there is a coffee table in the dark living room no
matter how many times we trip over it!
Susan
----------
For if there is a sin against life, it consists not so much in despairing
of life as in hoping for another and in eluding the implacable grandeur of
this one.
--Albert Camus
http://www.telepath.com/susanb/
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