The efficacy of prayer was researched by Galton: the long life of monarchs was extensively, and often daily, prayed for by their subjects - so he examined the life-span of monarchs. Case study rather than RCT, I suppose.
Robert
Professor Robert Moore
School of Sociology and Social Policy
Eleanor Rathbone Building
The University of Liverpool
L69 7ZA
Telephone and fax: 44 (0) 1352 714456
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From: email list for Radical Statistics [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Clive Durdle [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 25 July 2018 10:32
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: The joy of RCTs
Was the demeanour of the gods taken into account? Had the proper sacrifices and rituals been carried out? Were the gods pleased? Did they want your daughter sacrificed? Are you a pawn in an ancient dispute between the gods? :-)
I’m reading Koestler Sleepwalkers and EO Wilson Consilience.
Maybe rct would be recognised as problematic more easily if we returned to science’s original name, philosophy of nature? :-)
Sent from my iPhone
On 25 Jul 2018, at 09:06, Clive Durdle <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
Because of health issues I walk strangely. Two women came up to me and said they would pray for my knees. Nothing wrong with my knees , issues elsewhere!
So are there not the following issues?
What if the gods answered those prayers for my knees? Do the gods answer prayers directly as asked?
How do we know that in this study if piggyback prayers were made - oh gods please listen to our prayers for the control group? ......
Clive
Sent from my iPhone
On 25 Jul 2018, at 08:55, Paul Spicker <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
A snippet on Twitter, to be found
<https://mobile.twitter.com/_MiguelHernan>
@_MiguelHernan
offers a quick lesson on why we shouldn't trust randomised control trials. 860 older people were randomly allocated to intervention and control groups. Before any intervention had been done, the researcher realised that people in the intervention group already had significantly higher mortality (p=.0003). His reference: Vass M (PhD Thesis). Prevention of functional decline in older people. Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Copenhagen 2010, p.120.
This paper in the British Medical Journal has it covered:
https://www.bmj.com/content/323/7327/1450
It shows what you get with "significant results" and a "flawless design" - in this case, a successful intervention based on praying for divine intervention some years after the outcomes had already happened. Perhaps that's why the Danish result is off-beam - someone has compromised the results by praying for the control group.
Paul Spicker<http://spicker.uk/about.htm>
Emeritus Professor of Public Policy
Robert Gordon University
tel: +44 1334850164
website: http://www.spicker.uk/
blog: http://blog.spicker.uk/
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