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only twenty-six percent. It was also found that the women who were prayed for had an implantation rate of

16.3% while the women who were not prayed for had an implantation rate of only eight percent.

The scientists decided that they needed to find another experiment to demonstrate entirely that the

placebo effect was not in place with their methodology. To do this, their next experiment they found consisted

of similar methods, but with nonhuman test subjects. The test subjects were twenty-two bush babies. These

bush babies had wounds from “chronic self-injurious behavior”, making the goal of this experiment to see if

prayer could help heal these wounds. To do this the scientists divided these twenty-two bush babies into two

randomized groups, one control and one of which was going to be prayed for. Both groups of monkeys

received additional treatments of L-tryptophan, which is a chemical that helps our body make proteins and

create serotonin. 2,7 On top of this treatment, the prayer groups prayed for the bush babies for about four weeks.

The results showed that the wounds of the bush babies that had been prayed for had healed more than that of

the bush babies who received more prayer. It was also shown that the hematological parameters of those bush

babies who received more prayer were better than that of the control groups. This study came to show that the

placebo effect was not present in this experiment as bush babies are not going to understand what prayer is or

to as how humans are treating them.

These scientists then concluded their study on prayer and how it affects the human body with two

2
interesting points/questions :

1) If research on intercessory prayer is positive, does it suggest to us ways and means by which we can

manipulate God or make his behavior statistically predictable?

2) Why would any divine entity be willing to submit to experiments that attempt to validate his existence

and constrain his responses?

These two questions that the scientists ask are very valid. The main observation that can be made in
these statements is that the scientists are almost in a way "humanizing" God by providing these questions. In

the first question, it is stating that we can basically industrialize the power of God to work in our favor and
that we could ultimately make his powers something that we moderately understand. In the second question,

they are trying to figure out why God would participate in these science experiments that are attempting to
call him a fraud. The scientists are asking these questions because, with their experiments on distant healing,

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