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Comment by duxup | Hacker News Reader

I wish this was all just individual "well they're stupid that's on them" but all this stuff ends up hitting kids and other people ...

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It's more at a group level than an individual level. At least we're not yet pushing the power of prayer.

That might have been better. Vitamin A helps only if you severely lack it and is actively harming them in amounts they take it.

Prayer would just do nothing.

Prayer would just do nothing.

That might be a little harsh. I would at least compare it to a placebo. Chants and prayers can help keep ones hand in the box for the Reverend Mother. [1]

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RooSqqn1FjA [video][fear is the mind killer]

i thought i remembered studies where people who know they are being prayed for have worse outcomes than those that don't. The guess being some kind of performance anxiety. Couldn't track down the details, so perhaps just my own misrememberance.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16569567/ Conclusions: Intercessory prayer itself had no effect on complication-free recovery from CABG, but certainty of receiving intercessory prayer was associated with a higher incidence of complications.

However, in my search I also found studies that showed prayer to be effective.

Replication is important. Statistically, effects can be enormously correlated in one study, yet have no correlation in many other studies.

An factual anecdote isn't worth much. A fictional anecdote regardless of how popular it is, is even less valuable.

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