>Tedd:
> Could you be more specific? I couldn't find any published prayer
> studies conducted by Larry Dossey, although I'm sure he reports
>several in his popular books.
> In http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/gary_posner/godccu.html
> Gary Posner reviews a 1988 study and finds several problems that
> could account for the very slight statistical significance
> allegedly measured. Have there been studies since conducted
> with better controls?
Hi Ted;
I looked at Dossey's web site and saw nothing about scientifically conducted
experiments. I agree that anything he reports in books would be merely
anecdotal. As I read of the 1988 UCSF study, I realize how difficult such an
experiment would be to conduct. Great passion might well be an essential
ingredient of effective prayer, and I don't know if passion-on-demand can be
produced for a scientific experiment. The possible effectiveness of prayer
could be acknowledged without necessarily stipulating a god. No one knows
what thoughts are. They can apparently affect physical matter. Science
calls one such phenomena the "placebo effect" - as if giving it a name
somehow places it beyond the need for scientific explanation. Generally,
thoughts appear to be confined to the consciousness of individual organisms.
Many of us suspect that, like particles held in the nucleus of the atom, they
sometimes "leak". If the .02% result achieved at the Princeton anomalies lab
is consistent, it is unexplained phenomena. It's main value could be a hint
that the universe might not be as simple as some of us like to picture it.
Bertvan
http://members.aol.com/bertvan
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