Slashdot Mirror
Prayer Does Not Help Heart Patients
mu22le writes "A recent study conducted by the Duke University Medical Center on 700 patients, found that having people pray for heart bypass surgery patients had no effect on their recovery. Researchers emphasized their work does not address whether God exists or answers prayers made on another's behalf.
This result seems to contradict a previous study by the same authors that reported "cardiac patients who received intercessory prayer in addition to coronary stenting appeared to have better clinical outcomes than those treated with standard stenting therapy alone"."
Funny strip, but don't confuse humor and science/logic. No self respecting creationist denies that species adapt to different environmental conditions, such as new drugs. That's microevolution, changes within a species, genus, or some upper limitation of the extent those changes can go. It's been proven, and it's easily observed. Macroevolution, which is essentially the progression from paramecia to humans, isn't nearly as clean cut or easily proven, and that's where the point of contention is. Even still, a lot of creationists do believe in macroevolution, or at least some form of it.
About the OT, there's obviously a lot more research to be done. Thus far, there have been two studies on this topic, and the results contradicted each other, so unless you're just an antagonist who exists solely to rant against religion every time you get the chance, you'll suspend judgement for now. That's just the obvious conclusion of anyone with a good, scientific mindset.
As to what Creationists accept, that has changed over time. Ten years ago there were plenty of Creationists who went around saying "adaption only within kinds". When sufficient numbers of examples of speciation were thrown in their face, they suddenly started doing odd things like redefining "kinds" and producing their own private definitions of what micro- and macro-evolution are. In fact, some are now quite happy to accept any form of evolution providing it does not have humans in the tree.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
But those who actually *believe* in hogwash like that aren't going to be convinced by a scientific study, are they? Cognitive dissonance and stupidity are a mixture that's very difficult to overcome.
The first thought that comes to mind on this is the Christian attempt to prove the world was indeed round
Most people try to spin this the other way around though.
In 1492, every educated man knew that the world was round. So did every ocean-going sailor. The "bigoted church leaders of Spain" did not oppose Columbus. Columbus had in fact been housed, supported, advised, and greatly aided by Spanish monks who encouraged him to present his proposal to the King and Queen. A Dominican priest, later Archbishop of Seville was one of his greatest supporters at the court. There was a University Commission which concluded that plans for his voyage were impractical. But the Commission agreed with Columbus that the world was round and gave no indication that they believed the Bible taught that the world was flat.
The "hogwash" most atheists use to describe religion these days is usually fact based on fiction such as Washington Irving's novel about Columbus that stated the Christians (not the scientists) were the ones saying the world was flat.
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one the bus load of girls just went down.