![\"\"](\"https:\/\/lh3.googleusercontent.com\/-vROiEZYe1WE\/TW3YPl_jeqI\/AAAAAAAABTE\/3r5DEOXSnTI\/s1600\/consent.jpg\")
<\/a><\/div>\nI really want to reply to Alex Knapp, especially since he\u2019s already found the time to respond<\/a> to Rust Belt Philosophy\u2019s critique of both me and Knapp, but I\u2019ve been trying to prep for three exams, and two presentations all occurring in the space of two and a half day, so not so much on my end.<\/p>\n I\u2019m still not up to doing a big post on consequentialism, so I thought I\u2019d share a little of my coursework to tide you over. \u00a0My epidemiology methods class read a well-known paper from 1999 called \u201cA Randomized, Controlled Trial of the Effects of Remote, Intercessory Prayer on Outcomes in Patients Admitted to the Coronary Care Unit<\/a>.\u201d \u00a0And then we had to any problems we had with the study design and what this illustrated about tradeoffs you have to make in research. \u00a0The exercise was instructive and (to punchy, exam-mad me) hilarious, so here are the highlights from my notes for you to read while I keep coding.<\/p>\n Doctors were worried that telling people that people were praying for them, or even that they might be prayed for would cause patients to assume they were seriously ill, even if the doctor explained it was part of a clinical trial. \u00a0And after all, people pray for sick people with or without their consent<\/a>. \u00a0Do doctors need to obtain consent for a procedure that only exposes patients to risks they are already subject to?The researchers decided consent was not required, since there are \u201cno known risks to receiving intercessory prayer.\u201d \u00a0When ever you see a sentence like that, remember that means a grad student in the lab was tasked to spend a day or two on PubMed<\/a> trying to make sure that there\u2019s no contrary result to cite.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n And speaking of that, I\u2019m off to the computer lab.<\/p>\n I really want to reply to Alex Knapp, especially since he\u2019s already found the time to respond to Rust Belt Philosophy\u2019s critique of both me and Knapp, but I\u2019ve been trying to prep for three exams, and two presentations all occurring in the space of two and a half day, so not so much on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[35,178],"class_list":["post-204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bright-college-years","tag-prayer"],"yoast_head":"\n\n
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