John Platko wrote:ADParker wrote:John Platko wrote:2) There's no reason to believe that prayers, if they are answered, are answered in any kind on predictable and/or repeatable way. And even if they are, there's no reason to believe that a scientific study would have access to all the variables required for an accurate prediction.
More irrelevance!
Your contention was about the ability to count the results, not what the results could mean or how the cold be interpreted.
Obviously one can count a natural state change like going from a state where modern medicine detects an illness to a state where modern medicine detects no illness. That is the role of the medical board at Lourdes, to determine if such a state change has occurred along with determining if there is a medical explanation for the state change. However scientific methods are unable to count when the supernatural plays any role in such a state change. For that kind of counting another process is needed. Someone(s) must weigh all available evidence, similar to a juror/jury in a trial, and make a judgment if the state change from potentially cured to actually cured was the handiwork of the supernatural.
On the topic of the study however: Your claim here is still ridiculous, because like so many you can't seem to be bothered to grasp what the study was testing for in the first place: The study was a test of a claim; that a certain action has a certain predictable result, that praying to god X in this particular way get these certain results (like the claim that if one prays in this way one will get what they pray for). Now; you (and all of those apologists) can blather on about how "that's not how prayer works!" and "you shouldn't expect results like that" blah blah blah. But that is entirely beside the point, as the study was about testing for those results, nothing more, nothing less.
The study was about testing what effect prayer had on results. However, there was no control group, i.e. no group that didn't have prayer in their corner. Furthermore, there was no control on who was prayed for and who was not prayed for. It would be like studying the effect of a certain pill on an illness with no control of who did and who did not receive the pill or how many pills they received! Therefore, the study was bogus.
If you can't keep to a single topic at any one time then there really is no point in arguing or even talking with you is there?
When I argue against your claim that; there's no reason to believe that prayers, if they are answered, are answered in any kind on predictable and/or repeatable way, you 'counter' by arguing against the
methodology of the groups in the study instead?!
This is like that Gish Gallop crap; where the apologist throws out some many stupid little claims, and then 'argues' by the dishonest means of ignoring what has been argued against and jumping to any topic not yet addressed, and claiming some sort of victory because those ones haven't been challenged.
"a, b c and ....x, y and z are bogus!
"Here's why a is not at all bogus.........."
"Like I said; b is bogus, and you haven't offered any argument against that!"
"{Sigh} and here is why b is not bogus......"
"But it is bogus because look; c, d and e are bogus!"
John Platko wrote:It's like if a study gets negative results in a study to see if pouring cold water onto sheets of paper makes it catch on fire, and people complaining that the study was flawed because combustion doesn't work like that!
The reason MOST people got so upset of course is because they got it into their heads,
contrary to all of the facts, that the negative result had something to do with the actual
existence of their cherished believed in god. With my analogy one could imagine some people getting all upset because deep down they think the negative result is a challenge to their belief in the existence of fire or something daft like that.
Negative results? There's simply no reason to believe that the people who showed the best signs of recovery didn't have more prayers working for them. What part of, there was no control on who was prayed for, do you not understand?
Yes
John Platko; negative results. The study reported negative results.
How hard is that for you to grasp, seriously?! They reported no detection of the prayers having any discernible effect (besides a relatively minor increase in complications for those who knew they were being prayed for.)
But of course that is beside the point:
Because the negative results I noted here had nothing to do with that prayer study at all! I was all too clearly talking about a hypothetical You are more and more showing signs of having a serious issue with comprehension here. Rather in line with those apologists who can't set their cherished beliefs aside even long enough to recognize that not everything is about that, to the point that some act as if one has attacked their god and their very soul by pointing out a trivial math error.
John Platko wrote:It's because some people have a strong persecution complex about certain cherished beliefs (the cherishing of those beliefs and the persecution complex and excessive defensiveness of the beliefs being largely indoctrinated into them I strongly suspect) resulting in them leaping to interpretations of those beliefs being under attack regardless of the facts of the situation.
We don't need to speculate on psychological reasons why some may or may not like the study. We have the facts of the study. There was no control over who received prayers. And it's hard to imagine an ethical medical study which warns family and friends, "You're loved one has volunteered for a medical study, this study will evaluate the effects of prayer on recovery. Please refrain from praying that you loved one recovers. Thank you, the medical staff."
That might
almost have been relevant if I had been talking about that prayer study
John Platko.
John Platko wrote:John Platko wrote:3) If such a study could be done and the cause effect relationship of prayer to healing could be modeled then it would have been a classification error to consider healing caused by prayer supernatural.
What the Hel are you on about?!
Again this has nothing to do with
your own contention.
No; what positive results would show (and you can bet your arse apologists and 'believers' would be jumping up and down trumpeting it all over the place if it had!) is a correlation between the actions (prayers) and the results (whatever was being prayed for.) And that would provide grounds for further studies being warranted. There is always a cost/benefit measure to such things; there is little point in studying something until there is some indication that there is something there to study.
Those future studies might involve:
1. More studies to confirm, or otherwise, that the correlation actually exists.
2. Studies to try to determine what the causation(s) might be. Including studies to try to verify/discount particular possible causes.
Well you provide a link to a study, like Hackenslash did, and I'll be happy to critique it, like I did for Hackenslash. As I recall, by the time I was done, Hackenslash agreed the study Hackenslash linked to wasn't very good.
hackenslash never thought it was that good. but you go on thinking that it was your 'brilliant; critique that convinced him. Not that you seem to need any further encouragement to be oh so impressed with yourself.
I would provide a study for you...except that you know; that would have nothing to do with what I said.
How about a silly picture instead?
John Platko wrote:I'm now saying what I've been saying. Doing science to explain the supernatural is
(Not to be confused with doing science to fix supernatural classification errors.)
The pointless stupidity in what you are saying is manifest in the first six words: "Doing science to explain the supernatural."
Science, nor reasoning, nor any of it, tries to "explain the supernatural"; they try to explain observed phenomena. "The supernatural" is what people make up as some kind of bullshit answer (some erroneously claim it as an explanation.)
What you are saying is like claiming that scientists are trying to explain Dark energy. No they bloody well are not; they are trying to explain the phenomena which has led them to offer "dark energy" as the placeholder label for whatever it is hopefully turns out to be the explanation.
In other words "explain the supernatural" is an idiotic term. For a start it presumes that "the supernatural" is real.
John Platko wrote:{Sigh} if you can't even be bothered to address responses to your own claims properly then you are just wasting everyone's time, including your own.
"
by 
why would I present evidence for something like that?