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Bad science, take a closer look.
April 23, 2007 by skeptigirl, 2 years 28 weeks ago
Comment id: 21993
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I went to a lot of trouble to look at that meta-analysis on the effects of prayer. The included studies were either poorly done, not blinded let alone double blinded, sample sizes of 10 give or take a few, claimed conclusions not supported by the evidence, and there was self selected bias in the meta-analysis not addressed. You can read the specific issues in this thread, Meta-Analysis Indicates Prayer Effective, on the JREF forum.
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=77095&highlight=answers+prayers
The thread is short and includes very specific criticisms of each study included in the meta-analysis. Needless to say, it's unfortunate such a poorly done analysis was included in a peer reviewed publication. The authors apparently made no effort to include only valid studies and/or conclusions. Even if any of the studies had revealed true positive results, the reviewers missed the most obvious, science 101, glaring error. If you do the end math and you have 10 studies with no effect and 1 study with an effect, what will your analysis show? A positive effect! They counted "no effect" as zero rather than a negative number.
Here we have more fodder for the cannons of the wishful thinkers who prefer fake/bad science which supports their beliefs rather than looking at what the evidence actually shows. And naturally, a review of this meta-analysis which is critical of it is tagged with the usual false premise, science has a bias against religion.
No, science isn't biased against religion, it is biased against bad science.