Imaginary friend no help

by Feòrag

United States: Extensive research into the power of prayer has concluded that it makes no difference whatsoever.

Doctors in the United States will today disclose that heart patients who were prayed for by groups of strangers recovered from surgery at the same rate as those who were not.

The three-year study, led by cardiologists from Duke University Medical Centre in North Carolina, involved 750 patients in nine hospitals and 12 prayer groups around the world, from Christians in Manchester to Buddhists in Nepal...

Names selected at random by a computer were sent to the 12 prayer groups, who began praying immediately for their recovery. Neither the hospital staff nor the patients and their relatives knew who was being prayed for.

The Bishop of Durham is unamused:

He said both the Old and New Testaments said very clearly that you must not put God to the test.

Funnily enough, he doesn't appear to have commented on earlier research done by the same people, which suggested that third-party prayer was helpful. Power of prayer found wanting in hospital trial - Daily Telegraph, 15th October 2003.