So ive been reading a book called "The God Delusion" written by R. Dawkins. The book mentions a double blind experiment funded by religious activist.
heres a quote from Live Science commenting on the experiment.
NEW YORK (AP)—In the largest study of its kind, researchers found that having people pray for heart bypass surgery patients had no effect on their recovery. In fact, patients who knew they were being prayed for had a slightly higher rate of complications.
Researchers emphasized that their work can't address whether God exists or answers prayers made on another's behalf. The study can only look for an effect from prayers offered as part of the research, they said.
They also said they had no explanation for the higher complication rate in patients who knew they were being prayed for, in comparison to patients who only knew it was possible prayers were being said for them.
Critics said the question of God's reaction to prayers simply can't be explored by scientific study.
In the intervening nine years, while we awaited the results from this unprecedented mother of all prayer experiments, other prayer experiments surfaced:
•A 1997 experiment on “Intercessory Prayer in the Treatment of Alcohol Abuse and Dependence” found no measurable effect of intercessory prayer.
•A 1998 experiment with arthritis patients reported that no significant effect from distant prayer was found.
•A 1999 study of 990 coronary care patients—who were unaware of the study—reported about 10 percent fewer complications for the half who received prayers “for a speedy recovery with no complications.” But there was no difference in specific major complications such as cardiac arrest, hypertension and pneumonia, with the median hospital stay the same 4.0 days for both groups.
•A 2001 Mayo Clinic study of 799 coronary care patients offered a simple result: “As delivered in this study, intercessory prayer had no significant effect on medical outcomes,” the study said.
•A 2005 Duke University study of 848 coronary patients found no significant difference in clinical outcomes between those prayed for and those not.
as far as the double blind study, religious followers dismissed the results and said that "God" could see through the experiment, and that "God" only answers prayers for good reasons. The results concluded that there is no correlation between physical conditons and prayer. So i would like to hear what you all have to say about all of this.