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gwern comments on Rationality Quotes Thread May 2015 - Less Wrong
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Why, prayer almost certainly has psychological benefits, like being less gloomy and more hopeful about the thing you pray for, such as healing. Placebo effect etc.
So I am not sure what exactly this quote demonstrate? That widespread beliefs can be wrong? I would say, widespread beliefs are often wrong about how things work out in the world, but not wrong about the actual end effect delivered in the mind. A religous fisherman my logic this way I pray -> I get more fish -> I feel better. Instead it works out as I pray -> I feel better. The end effect is still the same. That is because if it would be like I pray -> I still feel the same, sooner or later they would find a way to rationalize stopping wasting time.
Of course it is a bit cynical to claim to that we do everything in the world ultimately only to generate warm fuzzies inside our own minds, but it does seem so, unfortunately.
I take Galton as making the many-religions argument for atheism (often used against miracles): that the mutual inconsistency of religions tends to refute them all. ('If testimony is enough to establish the truth of miracles claimed by the Bible, why do you not admit the truth of Muslim, Hindu, or Buddhist miracles? And if you deny their truth, how can you accept the Christian miracles?' etc etc.) Note his description:
The supernatural justification of all these practices are different and mutually inconsistent, and if there is no divine mechanism behind prayer, then how can it accomplish things like improving the health of someone hundreds of miles away, much less anything like world peace? (The 'self-help' model of prayer predicts only extremely limited placebo effects.)