On Thu, 16 Oct 1997 uhs0403 at ohsu.edu wrote:
> I remember a study some time back in which prayer and religious faith was
> compared with non-religious (scientific) treatments. Prayer and religious
> affiliation was associated with slightly worse outcomes. I wish I had the
> ref.
> And in research on shipwrecks and accidents, the presence of clergy was
> associated with a higher probability of the plane crashing, train wrecking or
> the ship sinking.
>
Did you pray for the reference? If so, your prayer has been answered.
Rabinowitz (1984) described seminal research by Francis Galton in his 1883
work _Inquiries into Human Faculty and its Development_. According to
Rabinowitz:
"Galton...collected mortuary tables of preachers and kings. Preachers,
who presumably prayed a great deal, did not live longer than other men.
Kings tended to live about five years less than other rich men. Since
everybody prayed for kings, Galton decided that prayer wasn't
efficacious in producing results".
Heilig (1997) also gives an interesting summary of Galton's work, citing
Haldane in _Possible Worlds and Other Papers_ (1928):
"[Galton] considered that of all classes of society in England those most
prayed for were the sovereigns and the children of the clergy. If prayer
is effective they should live appreciably longer than other persons
exposed to similar risks of death. So kings were compared with lords, and
the children of the clergy with those of other professional men. The
conclusion to which his numbers led was these much-prayed-for persons had
slightly shorter lives than those with whom he compared them."
Heilig further notes "Galton also determined the frequency with which
ships carrying missionaries experienced disaster at sea and compared
this with the frequency of disaster experienced by other ships. He found
that missionary ships sank with a frequency and loss of life only slightly
greater than that of less-blessed ships. The conclusion...is that in
neither analysis were the differences great enough to make it probable
that prayers have any harmful effect". [ ! ]
Somewhat more recently than 1883 is a research news item in Science this
April (Roush, 1997). It provides a profile of Herbert Benson, who has
recently (1996) published a book with the title _Timeless Healing: The Power
and Biology of Belief_, which says it all. In the profile, a
"controversial" study in the Southern Medical Journal (July, 1988) is
mentioned. Apparently this study claims that "coronary intensive-care
patients prayed for by born-again Christians had better outcomes than
did..controls." However, this study is apparently flawed, and Benson now
has the definitive study on the efficacy of prayer in progress, which is
claimed to be controlled, randomized, and double-blind.
Finally, there was a letter-to-the-editor (Cox, 1997) commenting on this
business which noted that Joyce and Welldon published a double-blind
clinical trial of the effect of prayer on chronic psychological or
rheumatic disease at the London Hospital (Journal of Chronic Diseases,
18, 1965, 367.) They found no significant difference between the prayed-for
and the control groups.
-Stephen
References not given above
Cox, B. (1997). Testing the power of prayer. Science, 276, after May 9
[sorry about the inexact reference]
Rabinowitz, F. (1984). The heredity-environment controversy: A Victorian
legacy. Canadian Psychology, 25, 159--
Rousch, W. (1997). Herbert Benson: Mind-body maverick pushes the envelope.
Science, 276, 357--
Heilig, J. (1997). Testing the power of belief. Science, May 9, p. 891.
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Stephen Black, Ph.D. tel: (819) 822-9600 ext 2470
Department of Psychology fax: (819) 822-9661
Bishop's University e-mail: sblack at ubishops.ca
Lennoxville, Quebec
J1M 1Z7 Bishop's Department of Psychology web page at:
Canada http://www.ubishops.ca/ccc/div/soc/psy
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