Behavioral Ecology Blog

More of the same here, but always good for a laugh.. Anyway, in a news story run in some sort of Croatian newspaper, they ask the question:

Can the power of faith help where medicine gave up on a patient? Miraculous Healings Among Jehovah’s Witnesses.

The story, details a mess of anecdote from various people that claim to have been witness to the “miracle of prayer” In addition to the now debunked story where prayer facilitates healing, the author interviews a couple of pseudo-scientists. 1st on the list- Dr Teru Hirose (whose name when googled results in 0 hits) who is supposedly a world famous cardiac surgeon. He Says:

Actually, out of all (Jehovah’s Witnesses) I operated on – only one died! If someone’s hemoglobin level would drop so low that, medically speaking, they could not even recover, it was only a question of time when would death come in. However, each time they recovered miraculously. I have never noticed the same phenomenon before with any religious or other group. I sought for an interpretation of this occurrence, but the only thing offered to me was a well-known thesis that “faith rescued you”, that is, understanding that Jehovah`s witnesses have such strong faith and determination to give themselves over to God`s hands that they in a way draw strength from a higher intelligence by that hand and get out of apparently unsolvable situations…”.

Well, I’m not so sure about strong faith, but that do seem to be persistent, as evidenced by the number of times they come back to my house, despite my rude treatment… But really, where do you start with something like this- is the world-famous-unable-to-be- googled-surgeon aware of stochasticity?? No, the mechanism for such miraculous events comes from Dr. Slavko Sakoman, neuropsychiatrist and the leading Croatian addiction expert… Hmmm, how would he interpret this kind of resistance and power of survival with Jehovah’s witnesses? Good medical care, luck (of the stochastic nature)… no, obviously not- It was god!!!

“This might not be so strange if it is noted how Jehovah’s witnesses strongly believe in God and give their fate over to His hands in all situations. By doing so they extricate other vital resources in their body, which are otherwise blocked by fear of death or stress. Thus, they enable their body to draw out the maximum of their potential and achieve what medically seems to be impossible. They are very connected as a community as well, which gives the individual a sense of security and family warmth. Perhaps the fact that the entire community is praying for the diseased plays a part. It is difficult to talk of hard scientific evidence, but every now and then some statistics appear, painting this religious groupation in an unusual light…”

PZ has been writing about nut-job medical doctors using their influence over people to perpetuate this ridiculousness for few days now… This guy should join the list..