Scientific experiments are often carried out with the intention to disprove a theory. Sometimes these experiments not only add proof to the original theory but also have bizarre outcomes.
Such is the case of an experiment carried out by Leonard Leibovici in the year 2000 in Israel. He was a professor of internal medicine and an expert on hospital-acquired infection.
In an attempt to show that the scientific method could not be used to study alternative methods of healing he set up a scientifically rigorous experiment which had some very unexpected results. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC61047/
The experiment was a study of 3393 patients with blood stream infections. They were split into 2 groups using a random number generator so no personal bias could occur. (1691 in the treatment group and 1702 in the control group). Neither the patients nor the hospital staff knew who were in which group or even that a study was being carried out. A coin was tossed to designate the intervention group.
A list of the first names of the patients in the intervention group was given to a person who said a short prayer for the well being and full recovery of the group as a whole.
The study looked at 3 areas: death in hospital, length of stay in hospital, and duration of fever.
The results were:
- The length of stay in hospital and duration of fever were significantly shorter in the intervention group
- There were less deaths in the treatment group but the difference was not statistically significant (28% vs 30%). The author of the study did make the comment; “A larger study might have shown a significant reduction in mortality.”
If we believe that prayer is effective then these results are what we would expect. However, the intriguing feature of this experiment was that the study (praying) was carried out in 2000 but the patients were in hospital between 1990 and 1996 ie the effect of prayer was retroactive!
I like the conclusion drawn from this study; “Remote, retroactive intercessory prayer can improve outcomes in patients with a bloodstream infection. This intervention is cost effective, probably has no adverse effects, and should be considered for clinical practice.” I’d love to know how that could work!
The final point in the paper was also very important; “No mechanism known today can account for the effects of remote, retroactive intercessory prayer said for a group of patients with a bloodstream infection. However, the significant results and the flawless design prove that an effect was achieved. To quote Harris et al: “when James Lind, by clinical trial, determined that lemons and limes cured scurvy aboard the HMS Salisbury in 1753, he not only did not know about ascorbic acid, he did not even understand the concept of a ‘nutrient.’ There was a natural explanation for his findings that would be clarified centuries later, but his inability to articulate it did not invalidate his observations.”
Now, there’s something to think about.