Religious advertising

[Hope]

That simply shows that spontaneous healing can take place. What has that to do with evidence for gods?

Len, can you provide us with any evidence for scientifically verified spontaneous healing?

On top of that, can you provide evidence for any occurrence of spontaneous healing where you can also be categorically certain that someone somewhere had not prayed for the person who was healed?

[Shaker]

That simply shows that spontaneous healing can take place. What has that to do with evidence for gods?

Zero, that's what.

I'll see if I can retrace my online steps to an article I read not so long ago about some very recent research which is beginning to suggest that the immune system is implicated in cases of the spontaneous regression of tumours.

[Hope]

Come again?

Well, spontaneous healing can't be proven scientifically.  Its just a convenient way of getting around the paradox of a healing occurring which has no medical or scientific explanation.

[Shaker]

Len, can you provide us with any evidence for scientifically verified spontaneous healing?

On top of that, can you provide evidence for any occurrence of spontaneous healing where you can also be categorically certain that someone somewhere had not prayed for the person who was healed?

Given the amount of prayers for the sick taking place across the world on a daily basis and the random distribution of (1) full recovery, (2) life but with long-term illness and disabiity and (3) death, can you state your methodology for being able to tell the difference between successfully answered petitionary prayer and the operation of sheer random chance?

[Hope]

That simply shows that spontaneous healing can take place. What has that to do with evidence for gods?

It means that there means outside of medical science and its understanding for healing to occur and therefore that one can't categorically rule out divine intervention.

[Leonard James]

Len, can you provide us with any evidence for scientifically verified spontaneous healing?

No, but you seemed to think you were doing so when you started this exchange. Here is what you said :-
"There are people who have been given copies of their medical records that show healing that has had nothing to do with medical intervention."
That IS spontaneous healing.

On top of that, can you provide evidence for any occurrence of spontaneous healing where you can also be categorically certain that someone somewhere had not prayed for the person who was healed?

Of course I can't. But can you produce evidence that the praying has had any effect on the healing process?

[Shaker]

Well, spontaneous healing can't be proven scientifically.

Per #51 that may not remain the case for too much longer.

Its just a convenient way of getting around the paradox of a healing occurring which has no medical or scientific explanation.

It's an honest admission of the lack of current data, and not your preferred route of plugging gaps with whatever bedtime story you happen to find appealing.

[Nearly Sane]

Well, spontaneous healing can't be proven scientifically.  Its just a convenient way of getting around the paradox of a healing occurring which has no medical or scientific explanation.

Nothing can be proven scientifically, Mcfly.
You need a methodology to claim it as something else, Mcfly. You got one, this time. McFly? Or going to avoid the question as if it wasn't asked like you have run away all those other times. Come on, McFly!

(being Biff is quite relaxing)

[Rhiannon]

Me neither, although I don't like these over cover adverts that are often on newspapers these days (actually like the one in the OP link). To my mind when you pick up a newspaper the front page should be the front page, not an advert masquerading as the front page.

Agree with this - I wouldn't have noticed it inside the paper. And as it happens the proper front page of my local paper featured a story that is both important and sad, and I think this disrespectful to the family concerned.

[Shaker]

Nothing can be proven scientifically, Mcfly.
You need a methodology to claim it as something else, Mcfly. You got one, this time. McFly? Or going to avoid the question as if it wasn't asked like you have run away all those other times.

He will

[Leonard James]

It means that there means outside of medical science and its understanding for healing to occur and therefore that one can't categorically rule out divine intervention.

Shaker's post #53 answers that.

[Hope]

Given the amount of prayers for the sick taking place across the world on a daily basis and the random distribution of (1) full recovery, (2) life but with long-term illness and disabiity and (3) death, can you state your methodology for being able to tell the difference between successfully answered petitionary prayer and the operation of sheer random chance?

I don't know the proportion of all recoveries that are recorded as having been spontaneous and therefore outside the scope of medical science, but then nor do you, so I'm not sure that you could provide a methodology for your understanding either, Shakes.  Thertein lies the rub; nwither of us have sufficxient understanding of the world and all that that involves to be able to lay out a viable, let alone verifiable methodology.  Your position, and that of others here, is no less guess work than anyone else's.

[Leonard James]

I'm off to bed now, guys. Will catch up in the morning.

[Gordon]

Well, spontaneous healing can't be proven scientifically.  Its just a convenient way of getting around the paradox of a healing occurring which has no medical or scientific explanation.

All it really means is the recovery (full or partial) from some physical problem where the precise mechanism isn't yet known or isn't fully understood - it doesn't mean there is the possibility of supernatural intervention, where the term 'healing' as you use seems to suggest this as a possibility: spontaneous recovery is how I would describe it.

That there are unknowns is no great surprise: turn the clock back just a few decades in medicine and what is common knowledge today would be back then unknown.   

[Shaker]

I don't know the proportion of all recoveries that are recorded as having been spontaneous and therefore outside the scope of medical science, but then nor do you, so I'm not sure that you could provide a methodology for your understanding either, Shakes.  Thertein lies the rub; nwither of us have sufficxient understanding of the world and all that that involves to be able to lay out a viable, let alone verifiable methodology.  Your position, and that of others here, is no less guess work than anyone else's.

I'm not guessing.

You're insinuating gods - that's guessing par excellence.

[Shaker]

I'm off to be now, guys. Will catch up in the morning.

Buenos noches amigo

[Hope]

Shaker's post #53 answers that.

If one is gullible or - what was your word, Len - credulous. 

[Shaker]

If one is gullible or - what was your word, Len - credulous.

Well that fits you to a T.

[Hope]

That IS spontaneous healing.

Which is just another way of saying that medical science had nothing to do with this recovery.  Its a non-term.

Of course I can't. But can you produce evidence that the praying has had any effect on the healing process?

To return to Shakes' invoking of chance, if the spontaneous healing occurs very close in time to when prayer can be proven to have occurred, the chance that it had an involvement is statistically quite high.

[Gordon]

Well, spontaneous healing can't be proven scientifically.  Its just a convenient way of getting around the paradox of a healing occurring which has no medical or scientific explanation.

There is no paradox - there will be a medical/scientific explanation: it is simply the case that the explanation is not yet fully known. Your focus on 'healing' is also misleading, since your are using it to imply the possibility of the divine in special cases only: those where the explanation is not yet available, which conveniently excludes all those where the explanation is understood.

The 'not yet known or fully understood' position doesn't just apply to unexpected recoveries of course, since at one time many of the conditions medical science has developed explanations for were similarly unknown. For example, the characteristics of Down's Syndrome was accurately described long before its cause (it is a chromosome abnormality) was known.

Seeing current ignorance as creating a gap for your god of choice is a fairly hopeless approach given that medical science hasn't stopped investigating.

[Shaker]

To return to Shakes' invoking of chance, if the spontaneous healing occurs very close in time to when prayer can be proven to have occurred, the chance that it had an involvement is statistically quite high.

No. This is an absolute travesty of reasoning. You've just added yet another one to your vast array of fallacies - this one is known as the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.

For those who prefer their world evidence-based however, here's a long but clear and informative article on spontaneous cancer remission and the growing science behind it:

http://goo.gl/07Mezn

[Gordon]

Which is just another way of saying that medical science had nothing to do with this recovery.  Its a non-term.

Nonsense - you are confusing medical intervention with physical processes: your body already uses physical processes to 'heal' without medical intervention, such as when blood clots in cases of traumatic haemorrhage.

To return to Shakes' invoking of chance, if the spontaneous healing occurs very close in time to when prayer can be proven to have occurred, the chance that it had an involvement is statistically quite high.

Let's see your workings then: for example, what data do you have and what statistical tests were best suited to your data so as to calculate probability: since you are implying 'cause and effect' then your data is presumably parametric so we're into T-test territory, rather than non-parametric stuff such as Spearman's rank correlation coefficient: right?

I suspect it is more likely you're just thinking fallaciously again (in this case the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy)! 

[Shaker]

Let's see your workings then: for example, what data do you have and what statistical tests were best suited to your data so as to calculate probability: since you are implying 'cause and effect' then your data is presumably parametric so we're into T-test territory, rather than non-parametric stuff such as Spearman's rank correlation coefficient: right?

I had to look that up.

I now need a drink 

I suspect it is more likely you're just thinking fallaciously again (in this case the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy)!

Great minds ...

[Leonard James]

All it really means is the recovery (full or partial) from some physical problem where the precise mechanism isn't yet known or isn't fully understood - it doesn't mean there is the possibility of supernatural intervention, where the term 'healing' as you use seems to suggest this as a possibility: spontaneous recovery is how I would describe it.

That there are unknowns is no great surprise: turn the clock back just a few decades in medicine and what is common knowledge today would be back then unknown.

Exactly.

Gordon and Shaker, you are both far more capable than I am of dealing with Hope's deliberate refusal to accept the obvious. Good work!

[Khatru]

Well, spontaneous healing can't be proven scientifically.  Its just a convenient way of getting around the paradox of a healing occurring which has no medical or scientific explanation.

Wouldn't you agree that no matter what phenomena science is yet incapable of explaining, filling in the gaps with one's deity(ies) of choice and associated myths which challenge the very laws of nature as we know them is a bad idea?