Category: Truth and reason

I have been accused many times of being strongly opinionated, to the degree that I have offended many people in my lifetime, many of whom I love and admire. I have often projected my opinions, beliefs, and knowledge as indisputable facts, based upon my research, experience, intuition, and sometimes even off-handed thought. I have never lacked for confidence in myself. I was raised that way. It has served me well.  However, that self-confidence has often fostered in me an attitude of arrogance, even condescension toward ideas that run counter and sometimes even parallel to my own.

When I first began to recognize this, in my late teens, my attitude was essentially, “like it or lump it.” As I matured, I began to try not to be so abrasive when expressing my opinions or countering another’s assertions. I would “try to put it kindly,” while telling people they didn’t know what they were talking about. I became condescending in my arrogance. Some folks call that tact (Tact: The ability to tell someone to go to Hell, and have them thank you for it).  Later in life (I hope not too late), I began to realize that I am not always right, and that even when I am right at the moment, that can change. I learned that there is something I can learn from everyone, and further, that I needed to learn from everyone. I began to place more value on what others thought, believed, and knew, not only for my own education, but to help them add to theirs, if I could. I try to listen to their thoughts, offer my own, then take from it what I will and let them do the same. I’m still not very good at it. Old habits are hard to change. I find it easier while writing than in actual conversation.

Now, in my late-fifties, I have developed this overwhelming humility…yeah, right!

Better said, I have learned a few things over the years about what I know and what others know.

“…Think it Possible that You May Be Mistaken“

I once heard a quote from Oliver Cromwell that greatly affected me and has helped me soften my arrogance. He wrote to the synod of the Church of Scotland in 1650, “…think it possible that you may be mistaken.” I have learned over the years that no matter what the evidence indicates, whether scientific, empirical evidence, eye-witness, or other circumstantial evidence, everything can change. Things seen in the dark may appear much different by the light of day. A thing related by one eye-witness, may be supported or contradicted by additional eye-witnesses. Conclusions reached by analysis of hard evidence may be altered by other evidence later discovered. Evidence interpreted in the light of limited knowledge may not produce the same conclusions with increased knowledge. Consider the three blind men disagreeing on the description of an elephant while groping its form: One described it as being like a long, flexible hose; the second described it as being like a huge tree trunk; the third described it as being like a wall. They were all correct…and they were all wrong.

People Change Their Own Minds

You can’t change a person’s mind. They must do it themselves. You can’t convince someone they are wrong, no matter how overwhelming the evidence may be. People have arrived at their conclusions, beliefs, etc., through a process of thought, discussion, experience, decision-making, and other means, and they don’t toss those things aside easily. No matter how illogical or ill-conceived their ideas may seem to you, they have developed those ideas through the best mental resources they have at their disposal, or at least the best they felt necessary to allocate to the process (note that I did not say the best information available, just the best mental resources). No matter how correct, convincing, and well-founded your arguments may be, people are not going to give up their conclusions just on your say-so. It is a personal pride thing and is directly related to the natural survival instincts in human beings. It is not necessarily a bad thing, as it keeps people from being too easily swayed…as the waves of the sea. If not disciplined, however, it will inhibit personal growth on all levels.

In the final analysis, direct contradictory argument seldom works to anyone’s benefit. However, people can be led to change their minds.  For instance, John (fictitious) says gravity has no effect on his airplane.  “See? It flies, therefore it defies gravity.”  You ask him to explain how it flies.  He carefully explains that as the airplane flies the shape of the wings causes the air to flow faster over the wings than under, causing lower pressure above the wing, which lifts the aircraft, defying gravity.  You ask if that is why he ties it down when he is not flying it.  He responds, “Well, maybe gravity does have some effect on it under some circumstances.” So, he has started to realize that it is possible that he may be mistaken. He is beginning to adjust his thoughts and change his own mind in light of new information he is considering. In order to lead someone to change their mind, one must present information in such a way that the person desires to consider it. No one likes a slap in the face, whereas “a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.” A wise man once framed the couplet:

A mind that’s changed against its will
Is of the same opinion still

The Competition

Being “right” is more important to many people, subconsciously, than being correct. Many times people really don’t care whether their conclusions are based in truth or not. They are simply expressing emotions and making conversation. When you tell them they are wrong, they begin the competition to see who will end up the winner. In order to win, they have to be “right”. And you know what? It seldom matters who wins. Neither side is likely to change their mind. If you wish to effect any change, you must first determine what motivates people to say things. If you can determine why they actually say what they say, you have a chance of leading them to change their mind…or not.

Pick your battles well. If they are motivated by emotion or simply to show folks how intelligent they are, you are not going to win. The more absurd their argument and evidence, the less likely you are to win. And the more you argue such a point, the more absurd it will become, because people tend to present their best evidence first, and it goes downhill from there. It has little to do with truth, or knowledge, or any other rational matter. It has to do with winning the argument, being “right”, and thereby protecting themselves.

Condescension in Arrogance

I recently read a blog post by my son. In his post, he referenced an article by Sam Harris, entitled The Fireplace Delusion.  I read the Harris article with some interest and thought I’d post my response to it.

Here’s how it begins:

“It seems to me that many nonbelievers have forgotten—or never knew—what it is like to suffer an unhappy collision with scientific rationality. We are open to good evidence and sound argument as a matter of principle, and are generally willing to follow wherever they may lead. Certain of us have made careers out of bemoaning the failure of religious people to adopt this same attitude.”

Harris analogized religious argument to the common perception that a warm fire in the hearth is a comforting and “wholesome” thing, and that people will irrationally argue its merits and benefits, despite the fact that science has proven that fire, in itself, is a harmful, pernicious, and unhealthful thing. He goes so far as to say that, in view of advances in technology, those who burn wood, do so “recreationally”, rather than from any possible benefit or need, and that doing so should be outlawed. He rejects any opposing view as irrational, based on scientific evidence.

I found Harris’ article and analogy interesting, but not compelling. His argument, as I read it, is basically that religious people irrationally defend that which they believe, despite the fact that science proves religion false, and that for this reason non-believers face only irrational argument from believers and must therefore feel disadvantaged (implied in his closing statement). He applies his logic to believers in religion vs. non-believers, apparently equating non-believers to those educated in science, and believers to the close-minded and self-deceived, who defend falsehood in spite of absolute evidence to the contrary.

It is apparent Harris’ intended audience is the body of non-believers who consider religion to be false and irrational. His argument is founded in three assumptions that preexist his argument. The first two are obvious and are set out in the introduction to his article. First, he presupposes that those who are non-believers espouse good evidence and sound reasoning “as a matter of principle” and generally follow wherever it leads. Second, he asserts that those who profess religion do not. He seems to be attempting to console non-believers, who lament the fact that they cannot convince a religious person of the error of their thinking, by explaining that rational arguments are ineffective against them; they do not desire, nor will they accept sound reasoning or good evidence contrary to their beliefs.

The third presumption is not obviously stated, but is as evident as the first two. He presumes, before all, that religion is false, irrational, and not founded in scientific reality. All his rationale simply disintegrates in the face of the possibility that any religion may be true. In fact, if any religion is true, then the same presumptions he applies above can be stated otherwise with equal validity as: Those who disbelieve the true religious principles, do so despite good evidence and sound reasoning, do not desire such, and they will not follow where such leads. Harris’ fireplace analogy can be applied equally in the case of believers in false religious doctrine as in the case of believers in faulty scientific conclusions. However it fails in the case of true religious doctrine and principles.

Harris’ analogy fails to address the fact that there are renowned scientists who have made momentous scientific discoveries, who are also very religious. He also discounts the fact that the same analogy may be applied equally to the non-believing scientific community, who simply disregard any evidence that they have not measured, quantified, labeled, and manipulated. So, he paints non-believers with the broad brush of being open-minded and rational as a matter of principle, while using the same brush to paint believers as being close-minded and irrational, disallowing the possibility that either side might go either direction depending on the topic at hand (for instance, the scientist who is afraid of harmless snakes). Following this logic, one must assume that a scientist, regardless of renown or scientific accomplishments, who is also religious, must not be open-minded and rational “as a matter of principle,” nor willing to follow where open-mindedness and rational thinking leads.

A favorite quote of my son comes to mind: “The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”

One cannot simply state, as Harris has implied, that people believe in religion only because it is comforting, or that believing in religious doctrines is equivalent to being unscientific, uneducated, or irrational, without applying the same parameters to non-believers, whether scientists or not, and still comply with the argument he himself has presented by his analogy.

Mr. Harris’s analogy, contrary to his intent, I’m sure, is effective in showing how all people, including himself, regardless of whether they believe in religion or not, irrespective of their avocation, education, or belief system, feel the same emotional need to defend their beliefs and values; interestingly, that same characteristic demonstrated by his writing the article. We tend to see in others that which we find in ourselves. I’m sure, if he were to read this response, he would find humor in the fact that, as he read, he was developing in his mind arguments to refute it and support his own assertions, despite the fact that his original conclusions are admittedly based upon his “extensive research” at “dinner parties”.

A true scientist does not reject or deny the possibility of evidence he/she has not yet discovered. Neither does a true scientist expect to arrive at valid scientific conclusions without research and experimentation following proper scientific methodology. At the same time, all scientists accept and apply information they receive from sources other than themselves, sources they have vetted and trust, and they recognize the verity that they cannot possibly discover it all for themselves. They must believe somebody. True religionists follow these same principles.

As I would not expect to make any valid scientific discovery without following the prescribed protocols of science, I would neither expect to discover any religious verities without following the prescribed protocols of religion. Neither would I disregard the occasional fortuitous accident, or miracle, by which either scientific or religious knowledge may be obtained. Nor do I regard scientific knowledge as being separate and distinct from my religious beliefs. Harris, judging by the entirety of his article and not just the analogy, seems to discount completely that there may, in the final analysis, be no difference in true religious doctrine and scientific knowledge, or the possibility that in some future day all rational thought must include a knowledge of the existence and workings of God.

The value of faith is the ability to live according to true principles not yet discovered nor explainable by science. Those who can do so benefit by living according to those true principles, while those who disregard faith must wait until a true principle is discovered by science before they or their followers can benefit. Who, then, is close-minded? The believer who lives true principles only by faith, or the non-believer who discounts the existence of true principles not yet discovered and proven by science.

There really is no difference in the rejection of true principles, regardless of whether they are based in faith or scientific knowledge. Both are irrational. Similarly, it is no more rational to disregard the possibility that current scientific knowledge may be faulty or incomplete, than blindly to believe in false religious principles.

The key to true knowledge and wisdom is to seek it on its own terms, regardless of the source, and to follow where it leads…as a matter of principle.

It appears Harris’ mind is closed on the matter.

As he put it, “And that should give you some sense of what we are up against whenever we confront religion.”

I must admit, however, that he convinced me that a wood-burning fireplace is unhealthful.

A close friend recently suffered the death of member of her family. It got me to thinking, once again, about life and death, where we come from, where we are going, and what is our purpose here.  I recalled the often-quoted verses of William Wordsworth:

I had often heard and read this short stanza, but had never read the entire poem.  I took the opportunity this morning and was rewarded with a pleasant few minutes as I contemplated the words of  Ode, Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood. I copy/pasted it at the end of this post from the indicated source. If you have not before read the poem, I highly recommend it.

In my studies of religious doctrines regarding the nature of mortality, I find that anciently, the idea of the spirit of mankind existing before this life was not an unknown or strange doctrine. It was common belief in Judaism as well as spoken of in Greek philosophy.  It seems that Christianity, however, diverged from this view during the 6th century after Christ. During that same period came the rise of Islam, which teaches that the spirits of all mankind were created before mortality at the same time that Adam was created and was given life in the Garden of Eden.

Currently mainstream Christian doctrine teaches that the spirit is created by God at the same time the body is created in the womb and the two are joined by God as one. This doctrine is integral to what is commonly known as “Creationism.” I find it interesting, however, that many who profess belief in Creationism, when asked whether they believe they lived with God before this life, will respond in the affirmative, which was apparently the case with William Wordsworth.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS Church), also known as the Mormon Church, restored this doctrine of a pre-mortal life to Christianity in the early1800s when the Prophet Joseph Smith declared that man is as eternal as is God, his father. This doctrine was later further interpreted by the Prophet Brigham Young, who said that all men and women are literal offspring of a Heavenly Father and Mother, and that family relations created in this life after the pattern established in the eternal realms may also be eternal.

To be totally transparent, I will tell my readers that I am a member of the LDS Church. I am a Mormon. I believe the words of William Wordsworth in that single stanza quoted above were born of exactly the feelings he described in the poem. We, indeed, come to this life “trailing clouds of glory” as our Father in Heaven’s eternal children, and our birth includes a “forgetfulness,” by which we are able to develop faith in Him and in His Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ.  When we die, we go “back to that God who gave [us] life,” (Alma 40:11) to account for what we have done here in mortality with the “talents,” (Matthew 25:14-30) or blessings and gifts, God gave us to work with, and, if we have done well, to live in joy and peace with Him forever.

That doctrine speaks peace to my heart. The Spirit tells me it is true. Were it not true, where would be the purpose in life? Simply to please God? For no other reason than “His good pleasure”? If I was created without a family, how could any relationship endure longer than “till death do us part”? Does it not lift the spirit to know that one literally is a child of God and not simply that in some ethereal sense? To know that there is also a concerned and loving, and eternal, Mother there in Heaven as well, awaiting our return? To then recognize the unavoidable logic that one may also become as they are? What could please God more than to have His children return to Him, to be with Him again and to live with Him throughout eternity, and to be able to inherit all that he has to give?

O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? (1 Cor. 15:55).

After reading my last post, my oldest son, who is about to graduate from medical school with high honors (if not from the school, certainly from his mother and me), sent me an email in which he was quite critical of the information from Dr. Chauncey Crandall, MD, which I so generously believed and repeated to my readers (if I have any besides my son).  After reading it, I decided he was right and that since I posted the information, I should post his revealing information as well. I have cut/pasted the bulk of his email for your benefit.

I’d caution you to be more skeptical of the information you receive from an online publisher.

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!” -Upton Sinclair

I agree wholeheartedly with the intent of the post and the feeling behind it, but I think you’ve had the wool pulled over your eyes by some fancy medical terminology. I haven’t found a copy of Dr. Crandall’s newsletter, but is sounds like either he’s grossly misrepresented the findings of the prayer studies, or you’ve misunderstood. There have been plenty of studies on prayer in medicine, because if it worked, we would do it. We do plenty of things that work – even if we don’t know exactly why or how – based off good evidence that they do. Prayer – when blinded to the intervention – is not one of them. That’s why you need to do much more than just pray, you need to let the people know you are praying for them (meditating, whatever your spiritual moment of choice may be). In fact, telling them you are praying for them and not actually doing it is arguably equally effective, albeit ethically dubious, and certainly more effective than praying for them but not telling them. Most of all, I’d recommend praying *with* them (if they are comfortable with that), as long as there are no ceremonies involving exposure to chemical or potentially infectious agents (ash, oil) and as long as proper hand-washing and infection control procedures take place before and afterward.

As for the post, the 150-person Duke “study” he referenced isn’t a study, it was a “feasibility pilot,” meaning they did a preliminary mini-study to see if doing a real study was practical. Here is the reference:

Krucoff MW, Crater SW, Green CL, Maas AC, Seskevich JE, Lane JD, Loeffler KA, Morris K, Bashore TM, Koenig HG. Integrative noetic therapies as adjuncts to percutaneous intervention during unstable coronary syndromes: Monitoring and Actualization of Noetic Training (MANTRA) feasibility pilot. Am Heart J. 2001 Nov;142(5):760-9. PubMed PMID: 11685160.

Their “Clinical Outcomes” portion of the Results section begins with this: “Rates of post-PCI ischemia, MACE, and ACE over the index hospitalization and 6-month mortality rates are shown in Tables V and VI. There were no significant differences between treatment arms.” In scientific terms, a “significant” difference means one that’s deemed not likely due to chance. This didn’t have any of those.

Saying that “only the patients that were being prayed for had lower complication rates” is downright misleading. Reading further in the study, it says that the prayer group had the lowest mortality *of the arms that got the special therapies* (prayer, imagery, touch therapy, and stress relaxation), but the “standard therapy” group (the ones randomized to receive no prayer or other intervention at all) had *no* deaths at 6 months out – none – whereas the prayer group had a morality rate of 3% (probably just 1 person, with such small sample size). However, none of that really matters, because it didn’t reach statistical significance, meaning, it didn’t reach the threshold for saying it was unlikely to be due to chance. Which makes sense, I don’t think anyone is arguing that praying for patients would make them do worse.

I mentioned it was a preliminary “feasibility” study – well they ended up doing the subsequent “real” study (MANTRA II). The reference for that one is:

Krucoff MW, Crater SW, Gallup D, Blankenship JC, Cuffe M, Guarneri M, Krieger RA, Kshettry VR, Morris K, Oz M, et al. Music, imagery, touch, and prayer as adjuncts to interventional cardiac care: the Monitoring and Actualisation of Noetic Trainings (MANTRA) II randomised study. Lancet. 2005 Jul 16-22;366(9481):211-7. PubMed PMID: 16023511.

This one had 748 patients, an amount estimated to be powered for statistical significance – in other words, enough for statistical methods to reliably suggest whether any difference between groups was “unlikely due to chance” or not. From their discussion section: “In MANTRA II, we studied two noetic strategies in patients undergoing coronary revascularisation: an unmasked bedside combination of music, imagery, and touch, and a double-masked, off-site array of combined congregational prayers. Neither therapy alone or combined showed any measurable treatment effect on the primary composite endpoint of major adverse cardiovascular events at the index hospital, readmission, and 6-month death or readmission.”

At 6 months, there were 11 deaths in the prayer group vs 9 in the no-prayer group… a nonsignificant finding, meaning that there was no “real” difference.

I can’t find any journal named the “Southland Medical Journal,” I’m guessing you meant “Southern.” My best guess is that he’s referring to this famous 1988 paper:

Byrd RC. Positive therapeutic effects of intercessory prayer in a coronary care unit population. South Med J. 1988 Jul;81(7):826-9. PubMed PMID: 3393937.

I hadn’t before read it, but I have to say that it’s probably the worst piece of “academic” writing I’ve ever read, even for a single author 25 years ago. I’m not sure if the author was actually associated with UCSD (reputable), but I would not consider the journal particularly well-known, I don’t know what criteria you used to deem it a “reputable institution.”

The first sentence in the abstract: “The therapeutic effects of intercessory prayer (IP) to the Judeo-Christian God, one of the oldest forms of therapy, has had little attention in the medical literature.” 2 pages later in the discussion: “In reviewing the social and scientific literature  on the efficacy of prayer to the Judeo-Christian God there seems to be no end to articles discussing it…”

The hospital course was graded by his own non-validated scale: “good,

intermediate, or bad.” Here are a few direct quotes from the study that… suggest the author may have had some bias (bolding mine – remember this is supposed to be academic medical literature… I’ve never seen anything like this):

“For the purposes of this study, intercessors were chosen on the following basis. They were “born again” Christians (according to the Gospel of John 3:3) with an active Christian life as manifested by daily devotional prayer and active Christian fellowship with a local church.“

“This may have resulted in smaller differences observed between the two groups. How God acted in this situation is unknown; i.e., were the groups treated by God as a whole or were individual prayers alone answered?“

“I collected the information on each patient in a blinded manner, without knowledge of the spiritual status, condition, or ideas of the entrants during the study.”

“In addition, I thank God for responding to the many prayers made on behalf of the patients.“

Even then, he admits: “Even though for these variables the P values were <.05, they could not be considered statistically significant because of the large number of variables examined.” So he then explains how he rearranged the data to achieve statistical significance. While the endpoints you mentioned may be true (after he manipulated the data), even then only 6 out of 26 outcomes were improved in the “prayer” arm of the trial.

I applaud Utah’s moves to improve work-life balance. More than cardiovascular risk, though, I hope it improves their mental health – and I think the volunteerism has potential to go a long way towards that. While they may have low rates of heart disease, Utah is frequently found to have the highest prescription antidepressant use in the country at about 20% of the population and the fifth highest age-adjusted suicide rate in the country.

I was going to post this as a comment to the blog, but it’s probably more appropriate as an email. The way I look at it is this: I don’t think you really care what science has to say about religion, so I don’t think it really matters to you whether or not science shows prayer to be helpful in healing. I’ll confess that I think it’s intellectually dishonest for you to care only if there are positive results, and claim not to care if no benefit is found. More importantly, I get upset when my family is actively deceived by fraudsters looking to make a buck with sensationalistic articles; your blog post applauding his article and linking to his site contributes (financially and morally) to Dr. Crandall’s misrepresentation of the medical literature.

I receive a monthly newsletter by a doctor named Chauncey Crandall, MD. In his December issue he discussed some things that are religious in nature, but that also have real health benefits.  For example, he cited studies from reputable institutions that show that patients suffering from serious illnesses show better recovery rates when they pray.  More significantly, in my mind, he also cited a study published in the Southland Medical Journal that showed that patients who were prayed for by others “had more favorable outcomes, including fewer complications, fewer cases of pneumonia, and they required less drug treatment,” than those who were not the subjects of “intercessory prayer”.  He supported that further by citing a study by Duke University in which 150 cardiac patients, who were admitted for coronary stenting, were given the following non-medical therapies: guided imagery, stress relaxation, healing touch, or intercessory prayer (people praying for them). “Researchers found that only the patients that were being prayed for had lower complication rates and a quicker recovery” (italics added).

The part of the article that really struck me, however, was a couple paragraphs about “giving.”  Not only with regard to giving things, such as money, but also giving volunteer service.  He said, citing a study conducted by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders, that, “Neurologists found that the act of making a donation activated the mesolimbic pathway, which is the brain’s ‘reward center’, in much the same way as if the person was eating or having sex.”

Further, Dr. Crandall cited another study reported by The Journal of Cardiovascular Nursing, in which former heart patients volunteered to visit current patients at Duke University Heart Center Patient Support Program. It showed that “the volunteers experienced a heightened sense of purpose and a lessening of depression. Those factors translated into a lower mortality rate” among the study population.

That lead my mind to the state of Utah, which instituted a 4-10 work week (four days per week, ten hours per day) for state employees several years ago.  One unanticipated result was a dramatic increase in volunteer service in the state.

I wonder whether, in a few years, they may also see their already lower-than-average heart disease mortality rate, go down further still.

Maybe there is something to this “religion thing” after all, huh? What did the Lord say? Something about losing your life to find it?

It seems that while service and giving is good for your spiritual heart and mind, volunteer work is good for your physical heart and giving is good for your brain, as well.

Interesting.