Another month, another rationality quotes thread. The rules are:
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Though if we take "efficacy" to the include the social effects (say, persuading one's co-religionists to assist after a loss that prompted the prayer), the universality looks quite plausible... Perhaps in the environment of evolutionary adaptation, hunter-gatherer bands were small enough that all prayer was effectively public, and this always applied, while private prayer might be a recent maladaptive generalization?
It could just be that prayer doesn't hurt, and the combination of gratitude generally being useful and anthropomorphization being common results in people tending to pray.