Comment by dalke | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dalke | Hacker News Reader

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No, prayer has not been shown to work.

Rather, what do you mean by "work"? If people who pray feel more relaxed, then yes, it works for some people. So does meditation. So does reading a book, or watching a movie. Or playing cards, or talking with friends.

If by "effective" you mean that people who pray have a higher longevity, higher rate of being cured, etc. then no, it doesn't work. This type of prayer is usually called intercessory prayer.

Take for example http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16569567 .

> Intercessory prayer is widely believed to influence recovery from illness, but claims of benefits are not supported by well-controlled clinical trials. Prior studies have not addressed whether prayer itself or knowledge/certainty that prayer is being provided may influence outcome. We evaluated whether (1) receiving intercessory prayer or (2) being certain of receiving intercessory prayer was associated with uncomplicated recovery after coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery. ...

> 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.

Take for another example http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19370557 .

> OBJECTIVES: To review the effects of intercessory prayer as an additional intervention for people with health problems already receiving routine health care.

> AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS: These findings are equivocal and, although some of the results of individual studies suggest a positive effect of intercessory prayer, the majority do not and the evidence does not support a recommendation either in favour or against the use of intercessory prayer. We are not convinced that further trials of this intervention should be undertaken and would prefer to see any resources available for such a trial used to investigate other questions in health care.

Reduced stress is an important quality of life factor. It has been shown to provide this, therefore it works.

"Spiritual well-being and coping. An analysis of 43 studies on people with advanced cancer noted that those who reported spiritual well-being were able to cope more effectively with terminal illnesses and find meaning in their experience. Major themes of spiritual well-being included self-awareness, coping with stress, connectedness with others, faith, empowerment, confidence, and the ability to live with meaning and hope."

http://www.cancer.org/treatment/treatmentsandsideeffects/com...

Palliative care, which is what we are talking about now, is different than treating a disease. Standard medicine is well aware that tending to the emotional needs of the patients, including providing an on-call chaplain at some hospitals, helps make some patients feel better. Hospital chaplains have been around for a long time, and are not specific to alt.med, nor did the practice of providing access to religious support derive from alt.med.

That said, it's interesting that the paragraph you quoted doesn't mention the word "prayer" at all. It refers to "spiritual well-being." Earlier in that page it pointed out that spirituality "is often expressed through religion and/or prayer"", but it doesn't say that it's the prayer which leads to any change.

More specifically, it also says that "Meditation, twelve-step work (as practiced in Alcoholics Anonymous and similar groups), and seeking meaning in life all involve spirituality. Even simple practices such as silent observation, listening, or gratitude can become part of an open-ended spirituality that can infuse everyday life. Some people express their spirituality by spending time with nature, doing creative work, or serving others."

It notably doesn't say (as you suggest) that prayer is an effective method to reduce stress, nor does it say that prayer is any more effective than 'spending time with nature' or 'doing creative work.' (To that list I'll add 'talking with a counselor.')

So I don't understand your point. That page doesn't show that prayer "works", except perhaps as pallative treatment for those who already believe that prayer is effective. But then that's not very surprising, is it? And other forms of palliative care would also be effective. Perhaps even more effective?

You must certainly acknowledge that "spiritual well-being" as given on that page is a rather broad term. Telling a patient to spend time relaxing in the mountains, as an example of spending time with nature, is not specific to alt.med. Indeed, a century ago, going to a spa in the countryside, where one could get away from the stresses of life was the common treatment for well-off people with tuberculosis, 'consumption', and other hard-to-cure diseases. So it's not like these suggestions are foreign or even recent to standard medicine.

(Though once we figured out how to cure tuberculosis, this treatment for tuberculosis disappeared. That's why palliative care is different than treatment.)

Also, don't you find the circular reasoning rather odd? As you quoted, "those who reported spiritual well-being were able to cope more effectively with terminal illnesses and find meaning in their experience", but as I quoted in the second paragraph, "seeking meaning in life [involves] spirituality." In a rather direct sense it says that those who seek meaning are more able to find meaning in their experience. Should anyone be surprised about that?

I also think the idea that one should "find meaning in their experience" is a biased term. What meaning is there in going through cancer treatment? Other than the obvious - a combination of genetic and environmental factors, plus random chance lead to having cancer, and it's pain in the ass to get cancer treatments - why should anyone seek a deeper meaning?

Of course, if you think the universe is constructed around you, perhaps because there's a God or universal spirit who intercedes on your behalf and 'works in mysterious ways', then perhaps thought, prayer, and reflection might help revel that hidden meaning, or perhaps help you accept that it's all for the best. But then it's rather biased metric, because those who don't think there is meaning to cancer will also tend be those who don't have a religious or spiritual faith.

Ok, if that's not good enough for you then pick one of the other examples that the ACS provide. Or continue attacking the ACS as a reputable source, whatever.

Or go and look up the examples that the med student provided, Inositol or Theanine. I expect you'll find reasons to ignore the evidence there too though, that's the problem with zealotry.

I don't understand your argument. You said that alt.med methods are effective. I and Nursie point out that the methods which are effective for alt.med are also part of std.med. They are not unique to alt.med and therefore cannot be used to justify the validity of other alt.med practices which are not part of std.med.

Do you agree with this argument? If not, why not? If both std.med and alt.med make the same recommendation then what's "alt" about alt.med? Otherwise I continue.

You point out that prayer is effective. I respond that intercessory prayer has not been shown to be effective, despite several large-scale experiments. Yes, prayer can be part of palliative care, since it might make some people feel better. But palliative care is not treatment.

It also leads to questions like, is reading a good book on the topic of death or dealing with terminal cancer (as with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bibliotherapy) a better, more effective palliative care than telling people to read the Good Book?

You point out that the ACS says that prayer is effective. I point out that you've misread the page, because the ACS page does not say that prayer is effective. It only says that prayer is a visible aspect of how some people carry out their 'spiritual life', and that a spiritual life may help some people feel better.

Furthermore, the definition of 'spiritual life' on that page is so ill-defined that it includes, say, the hobbies of a dyed-in-the-wool hard-core reductionist, atheist, anti-CAM person. Which might also be hobbies that a std.med practitioner would suggest. There is nothing "alt" about a doctor suggesting that someone relax by taking a holiday in the countryside, away from computers and phones.

So no, it's not good enough me as evidence that alt.med is effective. Nor should it be good enough for you.

Yes, there are perhaps a dozen dietary supplements and herbs which might be useful. These are overshadowed by the array of supplements on the market that have no redeeming quality except perhaps to enrich the pockets of the multi-billion dollar supplement manufacturing industry.

Which means that yes, Nursie and I are wrong in that there is a thin sliver of possibly useful treatments to come from alt.med. Most interestingly, these tend to be for anxiety and depression, where effectiveness is much harder to evaluate than "can cure a staphylococcus infection." Thin evidence, I say, but I'll concede that sliver.

Your argument though is that those dozen possible treatments justify the entire alt.med industry? Color me doubtful.

You say that I ignore the evidence. What I ask is that you present the evidence. The ACS page does not seem to provide the evidence that you say it does. The ACS page is, of course, a summary and cannot be held up to full scrutiny, which is why, in order to strengthen my argument, I've made references to some of the experimental research papers on the topic, and they concur with my position.

Surely if there is the good evidence that you say there is then you can either find more experimental research with conclusions that strengthen your viewpoint, or can highlight the flaws in the papers I cite, yes?

You're also attempting to Strawman me by presenting arguments as mine that I never stated.

"Your argument though is that those dozen possible treatments justify the entire alt.med industry?"

That was rhetorical. You point out that there's perhaps a dozen herbs and nutritional supplements which might .. and I do stress the might .. be a useful treatment. Does that justify the entire herbal and diet supplement industry? Since your argument does seem to be that Nursie is wrong for saying that 100% of alt.med is useless as a treatment, when the actual number is 99.9+%. Do you really want to get that fraction of a mil? Because I'll grant you that <0.1%, and wonder why it's so important to you.

Again I ask you the question, what puts the "alt." in "alt.med"?

If a practice is common to both std.med and alt.med, when should we attribute its discovery or common use to alt.med?

Obviously you shouldn't say that open heart surgery is part of natropathy, but why not? It works, so why doesn't alt.med claim it as its own?

You can't, for example, say that food supplements are only part of alt.med because fluoride in (some) water systems, vitamin D in milk, and iodine in salt are three food supplements that medical researchers successfully insisted be part of the standard food supply, in order to improve public health.

What makes 'alt.med' alt?

But in some sense you're right. The old canard is that we have a name for alt. medicine that works - it's called "medicine." Because fundamentally, modern medicine is based on trying to find what works. The thing is, very little of alt.med "works", by almost any definition except palliative care, and even then, no more helpful than other forms of care.

Take a look at any of the research papers on the subject, where the alt.med methods were put to a test, and you'll see that any signal that is there is about as strong as the noise.

Compare that to the first people who were treated with penicillin. Compare that to the children who no longer got polio. Those are examples of clear, strong signals of effective treatments.

You're attempting the No True Scotsman argument. You say any alt med that works is part of std med.

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