designing a convincing prayer experiment

Hi Stephen,Thank you for yet another demonstration of your lack of scientific background: A double-blind test means that neither the experimenters nor the subjects know whether they're in the experimental group or the control group. In other words, a double-blind test only applies when sentient beings with awareness, like people, are involved, in order to protect against the placebo effect.Since Loehr's experimental subjects were plants, not people, and since plants aren't normally considered sentient, the experiment could only be single blind, where Loehr didn't know which plants he was praying for. Maintaining your history of inconsistency, you also change your story. In your opening post you say that Loehr did "kitchen table experiments". But as soon as someone inquires, suddenly these "kitchen table experiments" become scientifically rigorous "double-blind" experiments. Clearly you are once again making it up as you go along.--Percy

Faith and science are two different realms. Science tells me how to land on Mars, faith how to land in heaven. Stephen is arguing that faith is science and that his faith can tell him how to land on both Mars and heaven. This is patently ridiculous.Your viewpoint is at odd with Stephen's, not mine. The enemy of evolution is not necessarily the friend of faith, and Stephen provides an excellent example by putting God to the test through scientific experimentation. This is aside from the fact that Stephen seems to bollix every attempt at seeming scientific, which was really my only point in the message you replied to.--Percy

Replication is required if you're being scientific. Loehr's experiments were never published in any peer-reviewed journal, so the possibility of replication doesn't even exist.Why can't such a great scientist as yourself use the term "double-blind" correctly, and why do you drop all scientific requirements for evidence and experimental results to instead accept anecdotal data?--Percy

You still provide no hint of a scientific approach informing your opinions, and your unfamiliarity with science is made clear by your misusages of many scientific terms and concepts, like "double-blind" and "evidence".Subjective experiences are not scientific. Message 162 of The best scientific method thread addresses this perhaps most pronounced deficiency of your approach to science.--Percy

Hey, don't get too personal, I'm one of the few here using an actual photograph! Seriously, let's keep this on an objective and scientific level. You're supposedly a scientist. How do you, as a scientist, justify your promotion of Loehr's non-scientific experiment as legitimate science (not to mention turning from legitimate discussion to ad hominems). If you truly want to define a persuasive prayer experiment, which the title you've chosen for this thread implies, then why not simply point to which of Loehr's methods have scientific potential and suggest them for inclusion in the experiment you're designing.Though, of course, actually designing an experiment would contradict what you just told Trixie, ie, that you don't test God anymore. Sigh, consistency is such a chore, isn't it? --Percy

You haven't answered Abshalom's question. Here it is again: And, of course, there are many other possibilities.--Percy

Where does the scientifically developed information about which prayers work with which Gods come from? And then please answer Abshalom's specific question about how you tell the difference between God helping A and Satan hindering B.--Percy[This message has been edited by Percy, 01-27-2004]

Hi, Stephen!If we're talking about scientific experiments, then you're not making any sense at all. I asked, "Where does the scientifically developed information about which prayers work with which Gods come from?" You answered: There is nothing scientific whatsoever about this. It is completely subjective. Should we conclude that you have no scientific information for this? And where does this information come from? If your answer is the Bible, then surely you understand the Bible is not a scientific resource and so cannot be cited in scientific work.--Percy

Benzene rings and wave/particle duality were not discovered using subjective Bayesianism. To the contrary, we have hard evidence of both.So, perhaps you can explain to us what is scientific about this: And tell us where the information for this comes from: --Percy

Thanks for the reference. I had already found the link and read that passage, and I commented on a couple other portions in Message 170 of the The best scientific method thread.--Percy

You're confusing the source of inspiration with evidence. A scientist was able to interpret his data because of a dream, but we don't accept benzene rings because of the dream, but because of the evidence. For the Bible to be scientific it must be falsifiable. Are you willing to leave the Bible open to disproof?--Percy

Maybe it has. Your theory is that demons exist. When asked for evidence supporting your theory, you provided only subjective evidence in the form of annecdotal stories, one personal and the rest from the Bible. If this is an example of your approach to developing theory, then it is severely flawed because of it's reliance upon subjective experience. Well, the actual issue is whether the Bible can be considered a scientific resource, which means that not only must it be falsifiable, but its experiments must be replicable. In other words, we must be able to repeat the experiments that produced the evidence of demons in the Bible. You're going to have to expound on this a lot more, because the Bible is full of anecdotal stories, not descriptions of experiments.You *do* realize, I hope, that many stories in the Bible have already been falsified, for example chapters 1 and 2 of Genesis, and the Noachic flood, at least in any global sense.--Percy

Hi Stephen,This is also a reply to your Message 153 in the History's Greatest Holocaust Via Atheistic Ideology thread. I'm trying to centralize discussion on this topic into a fewer number of threads, perhaps eventually just one.So, quoting from that other message: And yet a mere 6 hours earlier in your above post you wrote: One may express the same thought with many different words, and you and I have said the same thing. You're quibbling about non-existent word distinctions to deflect attention from the inherent contradictions in your position. Since you prefer the term "confirmed", I can accurately say you believe the hypothesis that demons exist has been confirmed by prayer studies and the Bible. There is nothing scientific about this position, and it doesn't follow HD.Your arguments tend to have at least one flaw. Here I enumerate your arguments and identify the flaws:

1. Confirmed prayer studies imply demons
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   Flaw: Leap of logic. No connection has been established for demons as the instruments of the positive results, and you haven't proposed a scientifically valid deductive connection.
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2. The prayer studies used anti-demonic prayers.
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   Flaw: Error of fact. None of the prayer studies cited here have described what prayers were used.
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3. The Lord's prayer is an anti-demonic prayer.
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   Flaw: Leap of logic. No connection has been established for the effectiveness of different prayers for various purposes, including getting rid of demons, and you haven't proposed a scientifically valid connection.
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4. Demons exist.
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   Flaw: Circular reasoning. Many of your claims, like those above, assume the existence of demons before you've produced any evidence supporting their existence.
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5. Bible code studies confirm the validity of the Bible.
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   Flaw: Leap of logic. No connection between word patterns in texts and the text's validity has been scientifically established, and you haven't proposed a scientifically valid connection.
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6. Bible code studies are valid.
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   Flaw: Error of fact. Bible code studies have been demonstrated to be worthless. There are many debunking sites on the web (eg, Bible Codes Refutation).
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7. NDEs (Near Death Experiences) confirm the validity of the Bible
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   Flaw: Leap of logic. No connection has been scientifically established, and you haven't proposed a scientifically valid connection.
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8. NDEs have been subjected to studies testing the "orthodox theology hypothesis" (a term apparently of your own invention - a Google search brings up only a single result, a post by you here at EvC Forum)
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   Flaw: Error of fact. No scientifically valid studies of this nature have been conducted.
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9. Theomatics confirms the validity of the Bible.
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   Flaw: Leap of logic. No connection has been scientifically established, and you haven't proposed a scientifically valid connection.
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10. The Bible confirms itself (specifically, you say, "As to the falsification of the Bible, it declares of itself that the 'tests' you refer to prove nothing.")
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    Flaw: Circular reasoning. The Bible's declarations about its own qualities, such as that it contains the Word of God, are not valid evidence that it actually possesses those qualities. You need independent and scientifically valid confirmation.
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11. The Bible is never wrong because it says it can be wrong (specifically, you say, "An alternative hypothesis about the Bible, that it is literally true in every statement has been disproven, but the Bible declares of itself that that is not true. 'It's the glory of God to conceal a matter.' Prophecy is 'dark sayings.' As written, every test of the scriptures that I know of have been confirmed when tested."
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    Flaw: Non sequitur. You're in essence saying that the Bible is right even when it's wrong.
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12. There is a scientific controversy concerning demons (switching now to Message 153 in the History's Greatest Holocaust Via Atheistic Ideology thread).
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    Flaw: Error of fact. There is no evidence of this controversy in any scientific literature.
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13. Scientists have been wrong in the past, and this is evidence that they are wrong about demons.
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    Flaw: Error of fact *and* leap of logic. First, scientists have taken no position on the existence or non-existence of demons because there is no evidence for the phenomena. Second, even if scientists *had* taken a position that there is no such thing as demons, the likelihood that they are wrong is a function of the evidence and not of past episodes of scientific error.

You're inability to make correct statements or reason logically is why we know you're no scientist. While demons may be the cause of your disability, there is no evidence of demons, and it's much more likely that you're just another impassioned Christian blinded by overzealous faith.--Percy

You already replied to this, see Message 224, which was your reply to Message 214 of the same thread, which was a copy I posted after I noticed you missed the original.--Percy[This message has been edited by Percy, 02-18-2004]