Retroactive prayer: lots of history, not much mystery, and no science.

M, et al. Effects of long-term microgravity exposure on cancellous and cortical weight-bearing bones of cosmonauts. Lancet 2000;355:1607-11. 6 Turner RT. What do we know about the effects of space flight on bone? Wood ML. An episode of ventricular tachycardia during long-duration spaceflight. 13 Watenpaugh DE. Fluid volume control during short-term space flight and implications for human performance. Postspaceflight orthostatic hypoten-sion occurs mostly in women and is predicted by low vascular resistance. tilt-translation reinterpretation following prolonged weightlessness: implications for preflight training. Many claims are made for the power of prayer, but the idea that it could work retrospectively has caused considerable controversy. It is also beyond current scientific knowledge Leibocivi first raised the possibility of retroactive prayer in 2001. He reported a study that showed prayer done for patients well after they had left the hospital, had reduced the length of stay in hospital and duration of fever from blood stream infections. 1 In short, prayer somehow seemed to act backward in time to shorten patients' stay in the hospital. The study was intended lightheartedly to illustrate the importance of asking research questions that fit with the scientific model of the world. 2 Olshansky and Dossey subsequently argued that a logical explanation might be found for Leibovi-ci's results. 3 They point to numerous other randomised controlled trails to support their thesis that prayer could work at a distance of space and that it might be plausible that prayer could act retroactively in time. We argue that their claim is built on a confusion and lacks a deep physical model. There is considerable fogginess about what science means in relation to the world of spirituality, and we wish to throw some light on the subject. The latest reported clinical trial of intercessory prayer is a three year study of 750 patients in nine hospitals and 12 prayer groups from around the world, including lay and monastic Christians, Sufi Muslims, and Buddhist monks. 4 Prayers were even emailed to Jerusalem and placed in the Wailing Wall. Patients awaiting angioplasty for coronary artery obstruction were selected at random by computer and sent to the 12 prayer groups. The prayer groups prayed for complete recovery of patients. The clinical trial was double blind; neither the hospital staff nor the patients knew who was being prayed for. The findings were reported at the American College of Cardiology's