Science, Religion, and the Human Experience
uneasy alliances 303
- For a good biography of Peale, see Carol V. R. George,God’s Salesman: Nor-
man Vincent Peale and the Power of Positive Thinking(New York: Oxford University
Press, 1993). Peale’s original bestseller,The Power of Positive Thinking(he wrote multi-
ple variations on that original formula) has sold some 20 million copies to date, and
continues to sell about 3,000 copies weekly.
- Norman Vincent Peale,The Amazing Results of Positive Thinking(New York:
Prentice Hall, 1959), 214 (in a chapter entitled “Better Health through Positive Think-
ing”).
- Norman Cousins, “Anatomy of an Illness (as Perceived by the Patient),”New
England Journal of Medicine296.26 (December 23, 1976): 1458–1463, quote on
- See O. H. Pepper, “A Note on the Placebo,”American Journal of Pharmacy
117 (1945): 409–412. See also R. P. C. Handfield-Jones, “A Bottle of Medicine from
the Doctor,”The Lancet, October 17, 1953, 823–825. For more on this history, see my
“ ‘Seeing’ the Placebo Effect: Historical Legacies and Present Opportunities,” inThe
Science of the Placebo: Toward an Interdisciplinary Research Agenda, ed. A. Kleinman,
H. Guess, L. Engel, and J. Kusek (London: British Medical Association, 2001).
- P. Petrovic et al., “Placebo and Opioid Analgesia: Imaging a Shared Neuronal
Network,”Science295 (2002): 1737–1740.
- Cf. Andrew Newberg and Eugene Aquili,Why God Won’t Go Away: Brain
Science and the Biology of Belief(New York: Ballantine Books, 2002); Patrick Glynn’s
God: The Evidence(Rocklin, Calif.: Prima Publishing, 1997). Although not specifically
concerned with religion, Nicholas Humphrey’s recent work on the evolution and pos-
sible biological function of the placebo effect makes some of the same kinds of moves
as these other works: see N. Humphrey, “Great Expectations: The Evolutionary Psy-
chology of Faith-Healing and the Placebo Response,” inProceedings of the 27th Interna-
tional Congress of Psychology, ed. Lars Backman and Claes von Hosfsten (Psychology
Press, 2000).
- Ted Porter,Trust in Numbers: The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public
Life(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1997).
- Francis Galton, “Statistical Inquiries into the Efficacy of Prayer,”Fortnightly
Review11 (1872): 125–135.
- Before Byrd, there were one or two other studies—all with negative results—
that have received less attention: C. R. B. Joyce and R. M. C. Welldon, “The Objective
Efficacy of Prayer: A Double-Blind Clinical Trail,”Journal of Chronic Diseases18 (1965):
367–377; P. J. Collipp, “The Efficacy of Prayer: A Triple-Blind Study,”Medical Times
97 (1969): 201–204.
- R. J. Byrd, “Positive Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer in a Coronary
Care Unit Population,”Southern Medical Journal81 (1988): 826–829.
- W. S. Harris, M. Gowda, J. W. Kolb, et al., “A Randomized, Controlled Trial
of the Effects of Remote, Intercessory Prayer on Outcomes in Patients Admitted to
the Coronary Care Unit,”Archive International Medicine159 (1999): 2273–2278. For
the transcript of a March 13, 2001, debate between Harris and a skeptic, Irwin Tess-
man, see http://www.csicop.org/articles/20010810-prayer.
- H. Sides, “The Calibration of Belief,”New York Times Magazine, December 7,
1997, 92–95, reprinted as “Prescription: Prayer,”St. Petersburg Times, December 29,
