MixedNuts comments on How to Convince Me That 2 + 2 = 3 - Less Wrong

52 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 27 September 2007 11:00PM

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Comment author: mszegedy 10 December 2012 08:06:57AM 7 points [-]

I once conducted an experiment in which I threw a die 500 times, and then prayed for an hour every day for a week that that die consistently land on a four, and then threw the die 500 more times. Correlation was next to zero, so I concluded that God does not answer prayers about dice from me.

Comment author: MixedNuts 10 December 2012 09:08:16AM 4 points [-]

I wouldn't expect a deity to answer that sort of prayer. You're not being sincere, just trying to test them, which many canonically find annoying because it shows mistrust; you don't need that die to land on a four; it suggests you'd use prayer to lowly ends (e.g. "Let me score a touchdown" rather than "Please solve world hunger"); it gives an easily publishable result, which no deity would characteristically accept - if they didn't want to be discreet they'd still be doing showy miracles. Studies where you pray to cure cancer or something are much stronger evidence.

Comment author: Lethalmud 11 June 2013 01:28:14PM 1 point [-]

Do those studies have a placebo group?

Comment author: Rixie 24 July 2013 12:38:30AM 4 points [-]

I read about a study like that, in which Christians prayed for people to recover from cancer. There was barely any difference between the patients that weren't prayed for, the patients that were prayed for and knee that they were being prayed for, and the patients that didn't know that they were being prayed for.

Comment author: Tintinnabulation 01 December 2014 09:09:41PM 1 point [-]

I recall the same study - and I seem to remember that the patients who knew they were being prayed for did a bit worse.

Comment author: notsonewuser 25 August 2013 03:01:37PM 5 points [-]

You're not being sincere.

Actually, if you run the test, you are. Given that you'd have changed your mind if it had gone the other way, of course.

Comment author: Document 25 August 2013 05:38:57PM 3 points [-]