quote:
How on earth are you going to control this experiment?
That is doable. Here is what I would suggest. The study supervisor will be the only person to know which plants belong to which groups (prayer and non-prayer). The study coordinators will interact with the participants and will be blinded. All plants should be grown identically, including soil, temperature, planter size, exposure to light, and watering schedule. Also, the plants in the non prayer group should be handled like those of the prayer group, such as moving, touching, breathing on, etc. Plants should be scored on plant height, diameter of main shoot 1 cm above soil height (and a standardized protocol for determining soil level), time to germination, number of leaves, and number of flowers if applicable to plant species. Scores should be compared to prayer/non-prayer as well as the area they were grown in. For example, plants in the northwest corner of the growing area my grow taller regardless of prayer/non-prayer.
This is a rough outline, but I think it hits on all of the main control issues. BTW, this thread is somewhat my doing. I encouraged Stephen to start a thread in order to design a prayer experiment with appropriate controls. I was hoping that we could set something up a solid methodology in order to look at possible affects of prayer, something that Stephen claims the majority of science ignores without reason. But you are right, I doubt a negative result would deter the belief that prayer has an affect on daily life, but it could still be investigated.
[This message has been edited by Loudmouth, 01-26-2004]