"But for about 20 years now, a controversial area of scientific research has sought to determine whether a supernatural power, invoked through prayer and working alongside doctors, can cure illness... The research involves intercessory prayer, or people interceding on someone else's behalf..." - Can Prayer Help Heal?, Wisconsin State Journal, October 11, 2009.
I have a dream... that one day we will accept effects like this without resorting to God as a default cause. We will accept that 'prayers' are simply thoughts that anticipate future outcomes in a variety of ways, and we will understand outcome selection as a collective effort. "It's not about us controlling God"... but it is about us controlling the process of state selection.
I have a dream... that one day no one will dream of thinking that 'prayer' can replace modern medicine. I don't think that God is behind these effects, but I also don't think that you have enough control to trust the outcome of someone else's life to your thoughts.
I have a dream... that one day we will study these effects without thinking that the only purpose of such results is to prove or disprove the existence of God. I have a dream... that one day the skeptics will realize that it is neither necessary nor correct to accept randomness as the fundamental state of the universe. A dislike for religious explanations as the alternative to randomness should not push us into prematurely accepting that perceived randomness is not connected to thought.
I have a dream... that one day you will see what is right in front of you. You will understand how patients who have been told that they are being prayed for will develop different expectations about their outcomes. We will understand how to give patients information in a way that maximizes their ability to push themselves towards the outcome that they desire. And we will understand their right to choose whether or not we intercede in how we weave our thoughts around their problem.
I have a dream... that one day statements like this - "I think God and God alone chooses whether you have a miracle." - will be obsolete, not only because we will understand the effects of 'prayer' as something other than the intervention of a divine being, but also because once such things are understood, they will no longer be considered 'miracles'. One day God will no longer be the default explanation for all 'coincidental' or inconvenient occurrences.
I have a dream... that you will one day have the same epiphany that I had while counting bacteria in a microbiology lab. If my thoughts can determine whether I will find these bacteria alive or dead, then this entire endeavor is pointless and there is a "bigger problem" that I should be working on.
I have a dream... that one day we will find a meaning behind such a system, because I don't like the idea that life/conscious experience can be this capricious without a reason.
I have a dream... that someday one of you will want to talk with me about this idea, and together we will be able to expand this research.
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If you understand what I've been talking about, you'll see why these stories are of interest...
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/27/health/27canc.html
http://www.madison.com/wsj/topstories/445700
Regarding the various studies on intercessory prayer done by skeptics...
Ask yourself what were the differences in the information distribution about the experimental conditions? What were the differences in the expectations about the results as a result of this information? Try to construct a map of information and expectations - who knew what, expected what, where and when - and then compare it to the map that you create for a study that produced a successful 'prayer' result.
Remember, we're attempting to model the flow of information and expectations in order to understand why the effects were or were not achieved. This is messy and difficult, because these studies weren't controlled for in ways that facilitate this 5-D perspective. But try to envision it anyway.
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