NAME: _Emmanuel Ayumba__________________________________

BIOL 1106
Principles of Biology I
Critical Thinking Exercises #2 – Science, Medicine, & Prayer

Read the following case and answer the associated questions. Most of the questions can
be answered directly from the text. Others may require you to formulate an opinion. In
those instances, be sure to support your conclusions with reasoning.

Furthermore, since this is related to the scientific method, the answers can be specific.
For that reason, your answers should likewise be specific.

Finally, the following case involves situations where people have incorporated religion or
prayer into the scientific method. Since the investigators were attempting to be scientific,
you need to analyze their methodology from the perspective of science.

(Remember, this assignment is not an evaluation of faith, but rather

an evaluation of a scientific project that just happened to included
prayer as a component. A critical reader should be able to critique
the merits of a scientific research project and it methodology, apart
from his or her own person beliefs.)
Copyright © 1999–2008 by the National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science.

Case 3: Prayer Heals, Scientist Reports

Heart patients who had someone unknowingly praying for them suffered fewer complications,
according to a study conducted by researchers in Kansas City, Mo. William Harris, a heart
researcher and the lead author of the study, said in 1999 when the results were published that
it’s “potentially a super- or other-than-natural mechanism,” or a “natural explanation we don’t
understand yet.” The study by Harris and other researchers involved 990 patients admitted
during a year to the Mid America Heart Institute program of St. Luke’s Hospital.

Patients, randomly divided into two groups, either had someone pray for them each day by
community volunteers for four weeks, or had no one assigned to pray for them. That strangers
were praying for patients in one group was not revealed to the patients, their families, or their
caregivers. They were not even told they were participating in the study. The volunteers were
told to pray daily for the speedy recovery with no complications for patients. They were only
given the first names of selected patients.

Patients who were prayed for suffered about 10 percent fewer complications, ranging from
chest pains to cardiac arrest, after four weeks, according to the study. The research was
published Oct. 25, 1999, in the Archives of Internal Medicine. The American Medical
Association publishes the internal medicine journal.

Researchers concluded that prayer may be an effective addition to standard medical care.
“Although we cannot know why we obtained the results we did, we can comment on what our
data do not show,” according to the report. “For example, we have not proven that God
answers prayer or that God even exists. It was intercessory prayer, not the existence of God
that we tested here.”

Harris admitted in the study that he could not control all variables. For example, at least 50
percent of the patients admitted to the hospital said they have a religious preference. “It is
probable that many, if not most, patients in both groups were already receiving intercessory
and/or direct prayer from friends, family and clergy during their hospitalization,” according to
the report. “Thus, there was an unknowable and uncontrollable (but presumed similar) level of
“background” prayer being offered for patients in both groups; whatever impact that (the) group
assignment had on healing was over and above any influence background prayer may have
had.”

But this study and a similar one in 1988 in San Francisco that involved 393 heart patients had
questionable methods, according to an expert not involved in either study. Both studies used
their own scoring systems that tallied complications. Dr. Herbert Benson, a professor of
medicine at Harvard Medical School, said their scoring systems have not been proven
medically valid. Benson also is president of the Mind/Body Medical Institute at Beth Israel
Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. In one study, prayed-for patients suffered worse and
others have found no apparent benefits to being prayed for.

Benson, however, noted that people who believe in God or in prayer typically fare better than
those who don’t, according to medical research. But whether prayer itself makes a difference
remains unproven, according to Benson.
Questions

Based on this description of the study led by William Harris, evaluate the science in
the study by answering the questions below:

1. Write a hypothesis for the project led by William Harris.

Unknowingly having someone praying for your health affects the amount of heart
complications you experience.

2. What are the predictions they made for this study?

If unknowingly having someone praying for your health affects the number of heart
complications you experience, then heart patients who have someone praying for them will
experience more or less complications than those without someone praying for them.

3. Identify the independent variable.

Whether or not you receive intercessory prayer.

4. Identify the dependent variable.

The amount of heart complications you experience.

5. Identify two controlled variables?

Blind experiment- not only are the subjects unaware of what group they are in, but
they are also unaware that they are even taking part in a study.
The number of times that prayer volunteers prayed for patients was also controlled.

6. Describe the control group.

The control group would be the people that received no assigned intercessory
prayer group.

7. What kind of evidence (data) was collected in the study?

Quantitative data counting the number of complications subjects experienced.

8. What was the conclusion of the researchers in the study led by William Harris?
Having people pray for you helps reduce the number of complications you
experience from heart disease. This means that, “prayer may be an effective
addition to standard medical care.”

9. Critique the project from a purely scientific viewpoint. What were its scientific
 strengths and scientific weaknesses?

Strengths:
The researchers used a blind experiment, so that patients were not affected by knowing
whether or not they were being prayed for. Choosing not to make anyone in contact with
the patient aware of the experiment also ensured that no changes occurred in the patient’s
environment that would throw of data. Targeting only patients with heart complications
ensured that the scope of the study did not become too broad.

Weaknesses: It would have made sense for the experiment to be double-blind, so

that knowing what group the patients were in would not affect researchers’ categorization
and scoring of complications. Also, the experiment would have benefited from the use of a
more community wide set of criterion for scoring complications.