Apr. 04, 2006 - 18:34 MDT

RESEARCH ?

There is a vast field of "thoughtful" endeavor that misses the mark by a whole lot, I think. Paul Campos, a professor of law at the University of Colorado in his articles often sticks a pin into the puffery of so called research. His column today in the Rocky Mountain News is one such. In full:

PRAYER STUDY NEVER HAD ONE

"Imagine a scientist who undertakes the following experiment. He has heard of something called "falling in love," which many people claim has great benefits for emotional and physical health. Although he has never had the experience himself, and indeed doubts whether it actually exists, he decides to test the hypothesis that falling love is good for one's health."

"To do so, the scientist studies the behavior associated with falling in love. He discovers that people who fall in love think constantly of the beloved, write love letters, buy gifts, and engage in various other rituals that indicate the depth of their attachment. Being a university professor, he decides to test his hypothesis by employing his students. He randomly assigns each student a person in another country with whom the students is to fall in love. The students are given the names and addresses of the assigned objects of their affections, and are told to think constantlly of these persons, write them love letters, buy them gifts, etc., so that the professor can measure whether all of this will improve the students' health."

"Obviously, such a bizarre experiment could only be designed by someone who is utterly ignorant of what it means to fall in love, and who indeed is fundamentally incapable of even imagining what the phrase signifies."

"Yet this experiment is less bizarre and misguided than a recently completed 10-year study, funded by the Templeton Foundation at the cost of several million dollars, to study the effectiveness of prayer."

"The experiment involved 1,800 students who all underwent a particular form of heart surgery. Members of three religious congregations were given the first names of some of the subjects, and told to pray for their health. After a decade, the researcher compared the health of the subjects for whom the congregants "prayed," and compared it to those whose names were not given to the congregants. The researchers found no significant difference in the health of the two groups."

"It's a sign of the astonishinglly ignorant attitude many supposedly educated people have toward religion that such an experiment could even be proposed, let alone funded and carried out. The sheer idiocy of the thing has so many facets that it's difficult to choose which to highlight.? Here are just three:"

## "Are these researchers under the impression that a being who according to their hypothesis is both omnipotent and omniscient is nevertheless subject to strategic manipullation ?"

## "Do they take the view that prayer consists of nothing more than uttering cewrtain words in a certain order ? If so, why not use parrots, or computer programs to "pray" for the sick ?"

## "No experiment of this sort could produce the slightest evidence either in favor of or against any religious faith worth of the name. If those who were "prayed" for in this manner had enjoyed significantly better outcomes, this fact would not affect the views of genuine atheists, who after all consider it a matter faith that any apparent evidence for supernatual interventions can be explained by alternative hypotheses, of which there will always be an unlimited number.

"All of which is to say that no form of faith is testable by science -- including faith in science. (As was pointed out 250 years ago by the philosopher David Hume, using the scientific method to test the validity of the scientific method is a form of perfectly circular reasoning)."

"Those who design experiments of this type confuse religious belief with absurd superstitions that wouldn't be held by an intelligent child, let alone an educated adult. It's no wonder they also swallow such absurdities as the claim that science doesn't require faith, and that religious belief is contrary to reason."

++++++++++++++++++

Basically that's what I was thinking when I first read about it, but lacking a unversity background and Mr. Campos store of knowledge all I could say is that the damn thing sounded fishy to me.

Remembering all the facts, figures, charts and graphs that fooled me over the years until I began to find out who did them and what possible interest they could have had in the outcome of their so called back up of figures.

Figures and so called facts can sway most of us, I will be willing to state including me who has been led down the garden path all too many times.

I think Mr. Campos has made his point and I agree with him.

And so many of our pie-in-the-sky pooh-bahs have the bad habit of claiming such things to be pure RESEARCH . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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