Statistics are valid to the extent that they measure something measurable.

Case in point is today’s report, which the media is trumping up to say, as today’s headlines say: Prayer does not heal the sick, study finds

Of course those perusing the headline will draw their conclusions from the headline itself. That’s because we assume science can provide all the answers. Certainly, good science can provide a lot of answers. However, bad science and badly designed studies prove nothing.

To wit, those who read the story will see that the study’s authors report that their study proved nothing (except for the fact that they have some money in their pocket):

But the study “did not move us forward or backward” in understanding the effects of prayer, admitted Dr Charles Bethea, one of the co-authors and a cardiologist at the Integris Baptist Medical Center in Oklahoma City. “Intercessory prayer under our restricted format had a neutral effect,” he said.

From a real simplistic perspective: Were all patients in the study groups equally sick with equal pre-existing lifestyles and habits? Was the prayer genuine? Does God answer prayers to meet our will or to bring about His own will? Hmmmm… gets fuzzier.

If I create a room in which an absolute temperature of zero Celsius is maintained, and I put a glass of pure water in it, it will freeze. I can control the room, the temperature, the water, and all the conditions of the study. As studies become less defined, with fewer and fewer controlled inputs, as this one is, the results become merely speculative.

God is God and faith in Him is our privilege. I continue to pray.

That the Deity is incomprehensible, and that we ought not to pry into and meddle with the things which have not been delivered to us by the holy Prophets, and Apostles, and Evangelists.

No one hath seen God at any time; the Only-begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him. The Deity, therefore, is ineffable and incomprehensible. For no one knoweth the Father, save the Son, nor the Son, save the Father. And the Holy Spirit, too, so knows the things of God as the spirit of the man knows the things that are in him. Moreover, after the first and blessed nature no one, not of men only, but even of supramundane powers, and the Cherubim, I say, and Seraphim themselves, has ever known God, save he to whom He revealed Himself.

God, however, did not leave us in absolute ignorance. For the knowledge of God’s existence has been implanted by Him in all by nature. This creation, too, and its maintenance, and its government, proclaim the majesty of the Divine nature. Moreover, by the Law and the Prophets in former times and afterwards by His Only-begotten Son, our Lord and God and Saviour Jesus Christ, He disclosed to us the knowledge of Himself as that was possible for us. All things, therefore, that have been delivered to us by Law and Prophets and Apostles and Evangelists we receive, and know, and honour, seeking for nothing beyond these. For God, being good, is the cause of all good, subject neither to envy nor to any passion. For envy is far removed from the Divine nature, which is both passionless and only good. As knowing all things, therefore, and providing for what is profitable for each, He revealed that which it was to our profit to know; but what we were unable to bear He kept secret. With these things let us be satisfied, and let us abide by them, not removing everlasting boundaries, nor overpassing the divine tradition.

An Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, John of Damascus, Book I, Chapter I