Richard Dawkins Going After Faith Healers

[ZapperZ]

In an entry on my blog, I mentioned about a BBC TV program where evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins (of "The God Delusion" fame) is now going after faith healers and other supernatural claims. It seems that he found that entry and made a comment to it. He reported that he's working on a writing project that deals with a broader examination of all supernatural "phenomena". In the comment, he asked for evidence for a "non-physical" thing that exist.

So far, since he posted it, no one has taken him on his challenge.

Zz.

 

[neutrino]

Whatever I had in mind, Ivan has already stated in the comments. :)

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Interesting! I just finished reading his book.

 

[Moridin]

I'm am looking forward to seeing his new documentary 'The Enemies of Reason'. Various types of supernaturalism constitutes a multi-million dollar industry in the world, from faith healers to astrology and other kinds of pseudoscience.

I think that this kind of rationalism is good for the world right now. I do have some comments on the issues brought up though.

There is a frequently used ad hoc to faith healing, and indeed much else pseudoscience, that they represent 'another kind of knowledge', 'another way of knowing' or something 'outside science, reason and logic'. This is just a way of trying to bypass substantiating themselves as accurate.

There are a few problems with this line of reasoning and I'm skeptical towards it.

I dissect their claims into three categories: epistemological claims, methodological claims and evidential claims. In this context, epistemological claims is claims of other kinds of knowledge. Methodological claims are claims of other ways of getting to knowledge and the evidential claims is that they can support the assertions that has grown out of their epistemology or methodology with evidence.

If one claims that there exist a different kind of epistemology or methodology for knowing about the supernatural, or indeed evidence for the supernatural, one still has the burden of evidence to show why their reasoning is relevant, independent of its natural or supernatural origin.

There are further problems with their advocacy. If it is beyond science and reason and not controlled by logic, then how come they know it in the first place? Provided their reasoning is correct, thee would be no way they could know it in the first place. If someone is cured by faith healing, the action is indeed within the natural realm. Unless of course, they use a different type of epistemology or methodology, but it is still up to them to show how it is relevant.

 

[mgb_phys]

Is there much point?
You aren't going to convince the practioners; the ones that are crooks arent' going to admit it and the idiots aren't going to understand.
As for the general believers - if they understood statistics, clinical trials and the scientific method they wouldn't believe in this junk anyway.
Is it a worthwhile crusade or just a publicity stunt/ego trip fro the author?

 

[Moridin]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/08/05/newage105.xml

Britons spend more than £1.6 billion a year on alternative remedies which Prof Dawkins describes as "therapeutic stabs in the dark". Health has become a battleground between reason and superstition, he says.

It is not about convincing the practitioners, but creating a conscious-raiser among the public.

 

[mgb_phys]

I agree it is incrediable but I think the number of people who currently spend money on crystal healing who will watch this and go "you mean there is no statistically significant correlation between the alternative treatment and a positive clinical outcome - I had no idea" is pretty small.

 

[chroot]

mgb_phys,

You're right. The "true believers" in things like crystal power genuinely believe their effects are in "other dimensions" or "planes of being" and are therefore not vulnerable to the tricksy statistical methods of scientists.

For these people, the placebo effect is quite likely stronger than would be the effect of any verifiably efficacious therapy.

- Warren

 

[Gokul43201]

Faith healers don't die - they merely take extended vacations in other spectral planes.

Consider Peter Popoff, who was driven to bankruptcy by a Randi expose', 20 years ago. Popoff is now back in the business with TV shows in the US and Australia and is likely raking in a million bucks a year off his scam.

The market for peddling miracles is virtually infinite.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

This study seems to be the core of any legitimate scientific debate about faith healing [this this involves prayer, not "healers"].

... Conclusions Remote, intercessory prayer was associated with lower CCU course scores. This result suggests that prayer may be an effective adjunct to standard medical care. [continued]

http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/159/19/2273

Transcript of the March 13th, 2001, Debate Between William Harris, PhD, Saint Luke's Hospital, Kansas City, MO, and Irwin Tessman, PhD, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN

http://www.csicop.org/articles/20010810-prayer/

 

[ZapperZ]

Ivan,

This was covered by Bob Park a long time ago.

http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN99/wn102999.html

Three have been many other more recent claims such as this that have crashed and burned.

Zz.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Has he published his results? The only rebuttle that I've found was in blog form. [except for links on the original page]

 

[Ivan Seeking]

...I was trying to cover a lot of territory, but it seemed that even the most credible rebuttles allow that there may be a slight positive result in the Harris study.

 

[ZapperZ]

There are no results to publish. As Vic Stenger mentioned, the quality of the result itself is apparent.

But here's a more important fact. If this is true, we would have a more resounding, and better detection of it since then. That is what scientifically-proven phenomenon truly does. We know more and more about it after the initial discovery. Can you say the same about this? Has it been repeated?

If you have read Bob Park's column for any period of time, you would have come across several other published studies that negate and contradict the effects claimed in that paper.

In other words, we are still dealing with not trying to refine the initial discovery, but still dealing with whether this actually exist or not, after all these years (and more if you consider that such a claim has been made for as long as there are prayers and faith).

Zz.

 

[Evo]

Prayer does not heal the sick, study finds

The study debunking prayer was in the American Heart Journal last year.

Praying for the health of strangers who have undergone heart surgery has no effect, according to the largest scientific study ever commissioned to calculate the healing power of prayer.

In fact, patients who know they are being prayed for suffer a noticeably higher rate of complications, according to the study, which monitored the recovery of 1,800 patients after heart bypass surgery in the US.

The findings of the decade-long study were due to be published in the American Heart Journal next week, but the journal published the report on its website yesterday as anticipation grew.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article1072638.ece

 

[ZapperZ]

Here's an even earlier study done by the Mayo Clinic:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2843/is_2_26/ai_83585945

Differences between percentages of patients from the two groups who succumbed to end-point events were found to be insignificant. Differences in the survival times of subjects free from other end-point complications and events were also found to be insignificant.

The study stands in contrast to the results claimed in a 1999 study of intercessory prayer on CCU patients conducted by William Harris et al. and published in Archives of Internal Medicine.

Zz.

 

[BoredNL]

In an entry on my blog, I mentioned about a BBC TV program where evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins (of "The God Delusion" fame) is now going after faith healers and other supernatural claims. It seems that he found that entry and made a comment to it. He reported that he's working on a writing project that deals with a broader examination of all supernatural "phenomena". In the comment, he asked for evidence for a "non-physical" thing that exist.

So far, since he posted it, no one has taken him on his challenge.

Zz.

Consciousness.

Try to touch or observe it any way in any other way than through your own. I think it exists because I experience it. If it doesn't exist, then reality does not exist. This opens the possibility that other non-worldly things exists (one likely possibility is that humans and animals have a consciousness, but I can never prove it. It's possible that all things have a consciousness, but again, I would not know whether this is true or not.). However, this does not prove that any other non-physical things exist any more than it does that there are invisible pink elephants swimming around my head. There could be no non-physical things floating around my head. There could be every conceivable form of physical thing in non-physical form floating around my head. There could be an infinite amount of combinations of all things represented in an infinite number of non-physical planes of existence.

But I wouldn't know.

This is the flaw in atheism. Athiesm doesn't admit the possibility of any non-physical thing, and yet there is; consciousness. The certainty that there are no non-physical things is often based an "appeal to ignorance" fallacy. Because nobody can prove that there are any other non-physical things anywhere, they assume that there is not. This is why I am agnostic. I don't believe in God or Zeus or whomever.. There is a lack of proof for those wacky ideas, however I cannot prove that there is nothing else non-physical out there. Religion and atheism are flawed in precisely the same way, they are both certain because their take on things cannot be disproven in the physical world. An atheist would have to have a way to detect all non-physical things and then detecting no non-physical things to be certain of their position. Religion must prove that a non-physical thing exists in a non-physical world, and yet it cannot. (ironic, isn't it?). There could be a non-physical thing out there that resembles the idea of a God or invisible flying pink elephants, but I wouldn't know, now would I? And so I cannot conclude one way or the other. I can conclude that Christianity is false, that other religions are false, I can even conclude that it is time wasted to pursue all religions in an effort to prove or disprove them all, because I imagine the likelihood of a non-physical thing being proven is rather slim indeed.

Now, if consciousness does not exist because I cannot observe it physically, then there is no physical reality. Without this reality in which all things take place, this question, as well as all others, becomes irrelevant. I choose to believe that reality exists; to not do so would defeat the purpose of living, and therefore all desire within my consciousness. No matter how I try otherwise, I cannot be other than compulsed to exist happily. Without that fundamental cornerstone of logic, that reality exists, I cannot think or conclude on any practical matter and so my life would fall to ruins and I would be an imbecile with no chance for joy. I think it's illogical to bring oneself to ruin on such a premise that consciousness does not exist because we cannot physically prove its existence.

-Phil

P.S. I'm a big fan of Dawkins, but I don't agree with the premise of pure atheism, although I do find it more forgivable than religion. Religion is absurd.

 

[Evo]

Btw BoredNL, you made a great post in philosophy on the meaning of life, meant to say something earlier to you.

I don't equate the supernatural to conciousness. I can (by the definition of consciousness) determine if another human is conscious, although there can be a blurred area. I believe that you can observe conciousness, isn't that how we normally decide if a person is conscious, by observation? I think you mean something other than being physically aware.

I know atheists that don't believe in a god or gods but believe in the supernatural like ghosts, for example.

 

[morphism]

That's a good post, BoredNL.

 

[BoredNL]

Thanks. :)

Non-physical and supernatural are two separate things though. One means something that exists apart from the physical world (and so would never be observable from physical reality). The other is simply unexplainable by any physical laws, such as ghosts (if they were to exist). Consciousness is both.

You cannot see a person's actual consciousness. You can see them move, speak, smile, laugh, cry, but you cannot see their consciousness. It's possible that the only consciousness that exists is your own, and that although all things seem to follow strict laws, it is still simply a fabrication of your consciousness.

Because a God could be a non-physical thing that cannot ever be observed from the physical world, which we have no way of proving or disproving, no matter how absurd the notion may seem in light of the absurdity of religions, there can be no proof that there is no God. To repeat my point though: There is no physical proof either.

 

[mgb_phys]

Thanks. :)
there can be no proof that there is no God.

Except the Babel fish.

 

[Evo]

Because a God could be a non-physical thing that cannot ever be observed from the physical world, which we have no way of proving or disproving, no matter how absurd the notion may seem in light of the absurdity of religions, there can be no proof that there is no God. To repeat my point though: There is no physical proof either.

I'm agnostic also for the same reasons.

This is interesting but I think we might be derailing the thread away from faith healers.

 

[BoredNL]

Except the Babel fish.

lol.

Darn, you got me!

 

[Tony11235]

I love it how everyone thinks they know the answer to consciousness, or at least have a valid opinion to it.

Anyway, it looks like Dawkins is 'pulling a Randi', only without the money.

 

[BoredNL]

I love it how everyone thinks they know the answer to consciousness, or at least have a valid opinion to it.

Anyway, it looks like Dawkins is 'pulling a Randi', only without the money.

Randi and Dawkins are both heroes of mine.

 

[Tony11235]

Randi and Dawkins are both heroes of mine.

I like Randi as well, though Dawkins has better reasoning I think.

 

[BoredNL]

I like Randi as well, though Dawkins has better reasoning I think.

Randi has the million dollar challenge because there are those who purport to have supernatural powers. He doesn't ask them to prove how the supernatural power works (which, by definition is impossible, since anything supernatural is impossible to explain within the laws of reality), he simply asks them to prove that their powers actually work better than mere chance, and then the million dollars is theirs. It isn't an attempt to disprove such things as God or religion. It is a call for those who believe in the supernatural to prove that it exists, but not one person has yet. This is useful, because chances are at least 1 person with supernatural powers would be willing to demonstrate their power for a million dollars if there were actually people out there with supernatural powers.

I think Dawkins simply has more of a presence in society right now because of his films and recent mega-exposure. Randi only has snippets here and there of videos, mainly from lectures given at colleges and short segments on news stations. He is mentioned in psychology books, is very involved in modern skeptic movements, and is a respectable author, published in magazines, books, etc. He has done all of this using his sheer wit. I think if Randi were to have the same exposure as Dawkins, he'd be just as respected as Dawkins. Both have intelligent senses of humor, a sharp wit, and are very outspoken in their beliefs, but they have two different ways of going about things. Randi is a magician and a Skeptic, Dawkins is a genetic scientist. I think their styles compliment each other's. I prefer Randi's style though. He's more "in your face" and badass, yet at the same time he is empathetic of the plight of those whom he deems as mislead.

 

[Tony11235]

Randi has the million dollar challenge because there are those who purport to have supernatural powers. He doesn't ask them to prove how the supernatural power works (which, by definition is impossible, since anything supernatural is impossible to explain within the laws of reality), he simply asks them to prove that their powers actually work better than mere chance, and then the million dollars is theirs. It isn't an attempt to disprove such things as God or religion. It is a call for those who believe in the supernatural to prove that it exists, but not one person has yet. This is useful, because chances are at least 1 person with supernatural powers would be willing to demonstrate their power for a million dollars if there were actually people out there with supernatural powers.

I think Dawkins simply has more of a presence in society right now because of his films and recent mega-exposure. Randi only has snippets here and there of videos, mainly from lectures given at colleges and short segments on news stations. He is mentioned in psychology books, is very involved in modern skeptic movements, and is a respectable author, published in magazines, books, etc. He has done all of this using his sheer wit. I think if Randi were to have the same exposure as Dawkins, he'd be just as respected as Dawkins. Both have intelligent senses of humor, a sharp wit, and are very outspoken in their beliefs, but they have two different ways of going about things. Randi is a magician and a Skeptic, Dawkins is a genetic scientist. I think their styles compliment each other's. I prefer Randi's style though. He's more "in your face" and badass, yet at the same time he is empathetic of the plight of those whom he deems as mislead.

Yeah Randi is a little more 'in your face' . He probably had more of a presence in the media in the Uri Geller and Peter Popoff times.

 

[TestUser12]

I enjoyed the first episode of the show very much. It didn't really tell me anything that I didn't know (but I'm sure it was very educating for people who don't know about such things). I think it communicated how these practices don't hold up to scientific scrutiny very well.

I always enjoy when someone says they truly believe in something like communicating with the dead and it pans to Richard's face and he's always pulling the same "are you serious??" face. Makes me chuckle every time.
Brilliant.

Some of the sections on the history of science were great and I feel is something that not enough scientists know about.

Bravo! I'm looking forward to the final episode.

 

[ZapperZ]

Excellent. I'm looking forward to your report for the final episode. When is it going to air? And why can't a US station carry it? PBS, where are you? Maybe they're afraid that it'll trump over their Deepak Chopra series.

Zz.

 

[TestUser12]

It airs next Monday, would a bit of a summary of the program be useful for those of you over the pond (and elsewhere)?

I'm not sure how much I can remember, but i'll give it a go when I get home.

 

[ZapperZ]

Oh yes. I certainly would like to read about it. You can be as detailed or as brief as you want.

Zz.

 

[Moridin]

Official Channel 4 Website:

http://www.channel4.com/culture/microsites/E/enemies_of_reason/index.html

Here are some early newspaper reviews and reactions of The Enemies of Reason:

The gullible age
New age therapies cause 'retreat from reason'
Charlie Brooker's screen burn
Unreasonably superstitious
Richard Dawkins and the New Age fakers
http://www.postchronicle.com/news/breakingnews/article_21296011.shtml
Hampshire psychic locks horns with scientist on TV

Video interview with Richard Dawkins (with clips from EoR):

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1964171996506271039&q=the+enemies+of+reason+-youtube&total=221&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=1

 

[ZapperZ]

I've read most of them. I find that most of the reviews seems to have a common theme: The public isn't that gullible to actually seriously accept these crackpots. Yet none of them actually cited any statistics to back it up. A few of the authors brush aside the significance of questioning people about their belief in astrology, because they think that the public realize that astrology is simply "entertainment". This is not true.

In one of the latest http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind04/c7/c7s2.htm#c7s2l2, there was a study done in Europe about astrology and asked the public if they think it was "scientific".

Belief in pseudoscience is relatively widespread.[32] For example, at least a quarter of the U.S. population believes in astrology, i.e., that the position of the stars and planets can affect people's lives. Although the majority (56 percent) of those queried in the 2001 NSF survey said that astrology is "not at all scientific," 9 percent said it is "very scientific" and 31 percent thought it is "sort of scientific" (figure 7-8 figure and appendix table 7-5 Microsoft Excel icon).

Belief in astrology is more prevalent in Europe, where 53 percent of those surveyed thought it is "rather scientific" and only a minority (39 percent) said it is not at all scientific (European Commission 2001). Europeans were more likely to say that astrology is scientific than to say the same about economics: only 42 percent of those surveyed thought that economics was scientific. Disciplines most likely to be considered scientific by Europeans were medicine (93 percent), physics (90 percent), biology (88 percent), astronomy (78 percent), mathematics (72 percent), and psychology (65 percent). History (33 percent) was at the bottom of the list. (Comparable U.S. data on the various disciplines do not exist.)

So while it may be obvious to most of these reviewers that astrology is quackery, it isn't to a large portion of the public. So Dawkins attack on it, and even his ridicule of it is well justified.

Zz.

 

[TestUser12]

I completely agree, many people take this stuff seriously, even well educated people.

These aren't in order but these are things that were in the show:

1. Discussion of astrology, classic experiment with 20 random people and a random horoscope, around 1/2 believed that the horoscope was true for them. Talks to some astology professor or something (can't remember what the guy's job actually was), asks some awkward questions and gets the guy to hint that he doesn't really believe in it. Compares astrology to astronomy and asks people to go out into the country and look into the vastness of space, or go to an observatory.

2. Segment on dowsing, some professor of psychology (i think!) testing dowsers with bottles filled with sand/water in a double blind experiment, dowsers perform no better than chance. Short interviews with some dowsers who give excuses for why they couldn't perform. Pretty much echoes other experiments by skeptic societies. Has a nice little bit in here about why the double blind is such a magnificent technique.

3. Psychics and cold reading. He's at a psychic/alternative therapy/whatever conference, and sits down with a guy who gets him to select cards, guy guesses at some things until he hits on something that is recognised by Richard and goes on about that. Richard asks him to explain the other things he said that he didnt recognise, lots of excuses. Little segment with Derren Brown about how cold reading is used, how to recognise it etc (Derren seems a little nervous here, no idea why). Richard attends a spiritualist church meeting led by someone who claims to be able to get messages from the "other side". We see a lot of the exact same things that Derren describes with cold reading. The psychic guy makes a few blunders, probably quite a bit of editing in this section. Richard interviews him afterwards and asks him if he really believes in this stuff. Psychic guy says yes. *pan* *hilarious Dawkins face* *laughter*

4. a REALLY NICE section on the discovery of echolocation in bats (at the time, sonar was a top secret military technology), how the initial experiment was disagreed with in the scientific community, then as more scientists tested it, it was found to be true. Great example of science in action. I liked this bit :)

5. He also attends some kind of meeting with the editor of resurgence. I don't really remember much of this bit, The guy made some crazy claims though.

These are the bits that I remember best. Throughout the programme he keeps reiterating the point that these practices are not studied by science because they have no reason behind them, and how we cannot progress if we continue down this path.

I believe he managed to get across what he meant to, that reason is precious and is somethign that we all can and should use in our every day lives.

I'm certain I've missed some of the stuff in this program, it was an hour packed to the brim.

I'll keep tuned for next week's :)