All I knew was the last letter I got from her said that she didn't know if she was going to live or die. Is it possible to start by eliminating the theistic hypothesis? Her feet and fingers were suddenly straight and normal again. But we also had the medical documentation. Craig Keener: Greg Spencer is a case of this. James: Keener says simultaneously that there are hundreds of millions of cases but also that none of this can be replicated. At this point anyone with any reasonable familiarity with how to assess the quality of medical studies should see that this is a worthless study. This means that the original measurements were not accurate enough to establish the lengths, and the follow-up that said it grew back are also not enough. Earlier in her career, she served as provost of Ohio State University. An immediate thought is how many times was he prayed over and nothing happened? And Coco [inaudible] prayed and Terese started breathing again and the next day she was fine. it's hard to trust someone who says things like this, when we know that the measurement afterward was 20/100 -- far from perfect. process later this month. ", Scott Rae: Yeah, so you had to, I guess you had to check your own-. Here are two examples from my life where I was skeptical of an extraordinary claim, one where it turned out my perspective was correct and the other not. Despite several operations and treatments, Barbara continued to deteriorate to the point that she was put into respite with doctor's orders not to resuscitate. When I lay out the evidence for the (alleged) miraculous phenomena in the latter half of the episode, I blitz through various case studies, scientific studies, and quotes which I said I would post references too here. We know God worked many and mighty miracles throughout biblical times, but for many Christians, we dont see as much evidence for miracles in our lives as there was in biblical times. Shermer: well the counterfactual what about the christian families who pray for their loved one who's dying from cancer and they just die nothing happens from the prayer that happens all the time. No one in medicine evaluates the effectiveness of a treatment from case studies alone, or even primarily due to case studies. This one actually is, I think this one is not in the book because I came across this afterwards. You need to collect the records, have a medical professional who can actually make sense of that data, and have a medical specialist who is willing to look at the data. And certainly one shouldn't be willing to upend ones knowledge of how the universe works based on one report by one doctor on one patient. partnerships that have drawn national acclaim. You've written a lot of commentaries on the Gospels. We know better now, and we often know what the minimum amount of data is to justify a particular claim. University. This goes a long way of establishing (or not) a causal link. In fact, history is full of bizarre coincidences that get downright creepy . To be charitable to Elijah's point, perhaps he's meaning that if you pray for someone yourself in an impossible situation and there is improvement, you can tell the difference between the fake and real miracle personally. And they said, "Macular degeneration doesn't undegenerate." Craig Keener, Michael Shermer & Elijah Stephens, Case Report of gastroparesis healing: 16 years of a chronic syndrome resolved after proximal intercessory prayer, Case report of instantaneous resolution of juvenile macular degeneration blindness after proximal intercessory prayer, Study of the therapeutic effects of proximal intercessory prayer (STEPP) on auditory and visual impairments in rural Mozambique, Delia Knox healed from being paralyzed after 22 years, Sean George comes back after a heart attack, https://guides.library.stonybrook.edu/evidence-based-medicine/levels_of_evidence, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15166467/, https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/full-moon-does-not-affect-mental-health-emergency-room-study-suggests, first evidence for the accelerating universe, https://seangeorge.com.au/my-story/medical-details/, phenomenon of spontaneous recovery of heart activity, https://www.patheos.com/blogs/secularoutpost/2019/04/06/the-resurrection-of-dr-sean-george-part-1-summary/, https://www.patheos.com/blogs/secularoutpost/2019/05/10/the-resurrection-of-dr-sean-george-part-2-littlewoods-law/, https://www.patheos.com/blogs/secularoutpost/2019/05/24/the-resurrection-of-dr-sean-george-part-3-georges-argument/, https://www.patheos.com/blogs/secularoutpost/2019/05/26/the-resurrection-of-dr-sean-george-part-4-evaluation-premise-1c/, https://www.patheos.com/blogs/secularoutpost/2019/06/26/the-resurrection-of-dr-sean-george-part-5-evaluation-of-premise-a4/, evidence that someone was sick at one time, evidence that they were not sick at a later time, sometime between those two points they claimed that they were prayed for (and don't always demonstrate that they actually were prayed), they used xrays to diagnose it originally, which is not the best for soft tissue. It's not biased to be skeptical. So as you've cataloged these different stories and different accounts, what's been the sort of the breath of the geography that's been involved? As she listened, she said that she heard a male voice coming from the corner of the room a voice she now believes was God. #unbelievable Scott Rae: So tell Give our listeners a story from the U.S. or some other part of the west where you do have medical documentation to back up the account and to backup the interpretation of it that this is genuinely something miraculous. Exactly when this point is depends on considerations around prior probability. I was talking with Antoinette Malumbay with my wife translating for me 'cause my wife knew the story only second hand herself. That is directly below. Thu 03 February 2022 So if I'm dealing with historic, historiographic questions, historical reliability questions, I needed to deal with the issue of whether these kinds of things could happen. "To this day.". Of course, it's possible her sight was perfect and declined in the 2 years between the "healing" and the measurement which would call into question the miraculous nature. Doesn't seem to be anything other than perhaps theology. They were saying "This is all from Congo. I use some basic principles. This is trying to have your cake and eat it too. From Send Proof Elijah StephensI didn't realize how difficult it would be [to find evidence for miracle healings]. At over 2 billion Christians, praying many times, if this was a real effect at the 1% level we'd expect millions of documented cases yearly -- certainly a large enough signal to experimentally verify. maybe we can study this" That's how a lot of science is done, it starts with "oh wow, that's weird" and then we can go and start testing it but theists don't seem to even want to take that next step. Scott Rae: Right. chair James C. Wyant said that Fred DiSantoan alumnus and trustee who begins For example, if you take the population of people who go to Rome on pilgrimage each year, you can calculate the fraction of those with diseases that will go into remission. Only 15 percent according to the polling that I did believe that miracles cannot happen today," Strobel said. It should further be noted that the subjects in the study were not chosen from the random population but from a self-selected group that already believe in the efficacy of the treatment. The conventional wisdom that we hear kind of over and over again is that the prevalence of miraculous activity, is much more the developing world than it is in the west. A particular response has now happened twice in an ongoing discussion about extraordinary claims, and I felt I needed to think about it more deeply. Quoting myself here (from this post). If that agent were doing these kinds of actions we would expect to see a bigger effect, or that agent is being capricious. He was 2200 in one eye and 2400 in the other and had already been through training for the blind. It just really annoys me this is always conflated. She graduated from the University of Chicago School of Law, where she served as executive editor of the law review. The analogy breaks down here because of a difference of information (we have some context for prayer but none in the analogy) and it seems out of place. Lee Strobels Miracles talk (25 minute segment), Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Proximal Intercessory Prayer (STEPP) on Auditory and Visual Impairments in Rural Mozambique, In conversation with Digital Gnosis (Nathan Ormond), Street Epistemology with Eddie (Deep Discussions), Thoughts on the Randal Rauser vs. Couldn't the medical records have been earlier?) I went over her solutions when she did , Skepticism and Dubious Medical Procedures. As James says, "God really needs to up his game.". And then some months later war came to her hometown in [inaudible] and she had to flee again. Now that also put me through some struggles because we were already close friends at that point. Do extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence? So even when, you know it doesn't happen to all of us. But at a time when higher education itself faces In Steven Novella's post at Proximal Intercessory Prayer, he comments (on a different case, but applicable here). public flagship institutions as UCLA, University of Michigan, and the Can you give me some examples? One of the first widely publicized studies was by Dr. Randolph Byrd, published in 1988 in the peer-reviewed Southern Medical Journal, she said. Adding to that, he had some skepticism about some of the charlatans who have been exposed for making false claims about healings and the like. ), This was an instantaneous healing of all of her symptoms and all of her illness to the point where 31 years later she's completely healthy, Strobel said. A bit of Bible, A bit of Life, A bit of Politics, Barbara Snyders healing from MS shockeddoctors, https://openthewordblog.files.wordpress.com/2023/02/98-miraculous-healing-of-3-month-old-baby.mp3, https://openthewordblog.files.wordpress.com/2019/03/forgiving-to-forget-1.mp3, https://openthewordblog.files.wordpress.com/2019/02/13mysteryguard.mp3, https://openthewordblog.files.wordpress.com/2019/01/dreams-and-visions-1.mp3, https://openthewordblog.files.wordpress.com/2019/01/meekinheritanceworking-1.mp3, https://openthewordblog.files.wordpress.com/2019/01/bringing-the-pain-in-prayer-1.mp3, https://openthewordblog.files.wordpress.com/2018/12/whychristmasfellondec25.mp3, https://openthewordblog.files.wordpress.com/2018/12/wjinterview.mp3, https://openthewordblog.files.wordpress.com/2018/12/spiritual-warfare-1.mp3, https://openthewordblog.files.wordpress.com/2018/12/kate-fisherinterview.mp3, https://openthewordblog.files.wordpress.com/2018/11/podcast-5-what-really-sunk-peter-1.mp3, https://openthewordblog.files.wordpress.com/2018/11/4-edited-you-are-not-a-mistakeaud.mp3, https://openthewordblog.files.wordpress.com/2018/11/3authorityopentheword.mp3. Edwin Booth, perhaps unfairly known today as the brother of assassin John Wilkes Booth, was once upon a time . "It got to the point where she was dying. In this case, Shermer's argument is that there is a context (e.g. When I've heard the murderer analogy it is to argue against Hume's uniform human experience against miracles, because someone could argue for the murderer by claiming it is against his uniform experience to murder someone -- he's never murdered anyone before. Sometimes there really isn't enough available evidence to substantiate a claim. That fact alone is strong evidence that miracles are not real. Facebook gives people the power. After his conversion, Lee worked briefly as a pastor before moving into an apologetics ministry focusing on writing and video productions. It involves Barbara Snyder and took place nearly 30 years ago. Nathan's point here is interesting, especially in light of the idea that the murderer example is not being used in the right place, that Elijah has this set of standard "tools" that he pulls out but doesn't seem to understand their use or limitations and is prone to misapply them. Stories of recalled past memories from past lives only occurs within religions that support reincarnation. Since these diseases are genetic, it makes it a lot less likely that she had this condition. This is like the difference between theists asking skeptics to explain how the disciples ate fish with Jesus, when in reality what we have to explain is that we have a text that has a story where the disciples ate fish with Jesus. Synder's miraculous healing , which unfolded more than 30 years ago, was apparently so shocking that even her doctors have written about her seemingly impossible medical . Sure. "But my skepticism didn't go away.". We have seen this with acupuncture after well-controlled trials were negative, some proponents decided that pragmatic (i.e. It's not the consummation. A question also came out that if the scientific standard seems too high for these theists, in which discipline would the standard not be too high? Even for much more modest claims than the ones made in the above discussions, randomized-controlled studies are the gold standard. of the members of the University Athletic Association are part of the AAU. And by teacher time it was 200 pages I decided okay, this needs to be a separate book. And why aren't there miracle claims of people spontaneously generating electricity? Prior to that, she served as president of Case Western Reserve University from 2007 to 2020, where she encouraged interdisciplinary excellence, catalyzed institutional collaboration, and reinvigorated alumni engagement and fundraising. Craig Keener: Thanks. Earlier in her career, she served as provost of Ohio State University . I mean I can explain theologically the already not yet of the Kingdom why it doesn't happen to everybody, but why this one and not that one? Craig Keener: Well I tried to get accounts from all over the world. Snyder, who became president of Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) in July 2007, will join the Association of American Universities (AAU) by the end . Brian: Essentially Shermer's complaint about prayer being done and nothing happening is part what you would have in any kind of controlled study because you would have the case looking at all prayer events and which ones had effects and which ones didn't, that's the basic thing they seem unable to even grasp that idea and it shows a certain unwillingness to actually try to find the truth and to rule out these actual alternatives. But theists show no interest in doing this, they're satisfied with the first bad study that confirms what they already believe. Nathan: I think what we're seeing here are the fruits of apologetics in some ways. Yeah, I think of my friend Nabeel Qureshi. There were plenty of other stories just like it, too. To contact us or to submit an article, click here. Craig Keener: It's my privilege. This is special pleading -- wanting to hold their claims to a lower standard than other claims. UFO sightings happened all the time in the 1970s and 1980s but suddenly drop when we put cameras in everyone's pocket? Moreland: we asked god to give us a really good pool table just like the kind that you find in a pool hall, that isn't a cheap one that if you hit it up it shakes. Given Keener's habits of simplifying and distorting the actual original claims, and the demonstration throughout all of this that his standards for evidence are terribly low, it calls into question is entire 1300 page book on miracles. Being capricious after well-controlled trials were negative, some proponents decided that (... 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