If "life after death" or prayer were proven true how would it affect nursing care?

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By scientifically proven I mean to a point where "mainstream science" especially medicine understood it to be empirically demonstrated (perhaps in the same way that mainstream science accepts black holes, gravity, and the big band theory). For instance would praying for patients become part of care plans?

I've pondered the conundrum posed by the Second Law of T myself as it relates to the Big Bang, and evolution. Essentially, the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics says that Entropy (think randomness) is always maximized. Your socks don't "spontanieously" organize themselves in your chest of drawers instead they tend to become progressively more disorganized.

This is not exactly true. First note that entropy may either increase (for irreversible processes) or stay the same (for reversible processes). However, it is true that very few processes are actually 'reversible.'

But more importantly, the relationship between "entropy" and "order" in the physical sciences is a vague relationship at best. That is, "order" and "randomness" are only important with respect to the laws of thermo if the order causes a change in the 'useful' energy of the system. For example, if I have a deck of cards randomly stacked, the deck has exactly the same entropy as a deck of cards perfectly ordered. Why? Because if I burn both decks of cards in a calorimeter and measure the heat output across a certain temperature range (this is in fact how the entropy content of a mass is determined), the results will be exactly the same. Thus be careful with the flawed analogy 'entropy' = 'order'. I think this definition became blurred in recent years because the IT field uses its own definition of 'entropy', which has nothing at all to do with the laws of thermo, and in this field it simply defined as a measure of mathematical randomness.

The catch is that you can have a decrease in randomness (Entropy) so long as you have enough work to account for this decrease. In Physics work is often expressed as Enthalpy (heat, think kilocalories for instance). Sciencetists say that the "order" which we see in the Universe (things like rocks, atoms, you and me) was achieved via enourmous amounts of heat energy. Thus, there was more than enough enthalpy to explain the decrease in entropy. I'm not sure that I buy this explanation (because to explain ALL of the order in the universe it would take one heck of alot of Enthalpy).

Be careful here. The net total entropy of the universe is always increasing (or staying the same). However, the entropy of any object within the universe may easily decreased by reordering its structure such that it can produce more useful work. Cooling an object down, for example, generally decreases the entropy of that object. However, the net entropy change in the entire universe *increases*. That is, work was done (via the compressor) to cool down food in your refrigerator. This transfer of energy (burning coal to produce the electricity to run the motor, etc) increased the total entropy beyond that of the localized decrease in entropy of the frozen foods, such that the *net* entropy in the universe increased. Same can be said for biological systems. Some creatures may experience a decrease in entropy via evolution (And is this even true? Do biological systems have any less entropy than non-biological? The question to answer is: what is the fuel potential for living things vs. non-living things) but the use and transfer of energy used in growth and development (ultimately, from the sun) causes a net increase in entropy to the universe.

Cool discussion.

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There have been a good number of double blind, case controlled studies involving prayer which seemed to show effects on patient outcomes.

I believe you are incorrect.

There are only two studies (that I am aware of) published in peer-reviewed scientific (medical) journals that claim to be double-blind and that claim that intercessory prayer has significant beneficial effects. The first is:

"Positive Therapeutic Effects Of Intercessory Prayer in a Coronary Care Unit Population." R.C. Byrd. Southern Medical Journal 1988 Jul; 81(7): 826-9 .

However, investigators later discovered that Byrd (the researcher who conducted the study) himself measured patient outcomes after knowing which patients were in which group (prayer or non-prayer). That is, it actually was not double-blind.

Also, the only benefits found were those when subjective measures were considered, but when objective measures were considered (length of stay in intensive care, stay in the hospital overall, number of medications that were necessary at discharge, etc.), there was no differences found between the groups. This study is thus not taken seriously in the scientific community.

The second study is:

Harris WS, Gowda M, Kolb JW, Strychacz CP, Vacek JL, Jones PG, et al. "A randomized, controlled trial of the effects of remote, intercessory prayer on outcomes in patients admitted to the coronary care unit." Arch Intern Med. 1999;159:2273-8. The study considered three outcomes: "speed of recovery", "overall outcome" and "adverse condition." The former two showed essentially no effect, while the latter showed a small advantage at the boundary of what would be considered chance results. Thus, there is a one possible positive benefit (out of 3 criteria measured), but not at a significant enough level to avoid explanation by chance.

In addition, there have been other studies where colonies of bacteria, plants ect. have also seemed to respond to prayer (even at a distance).

Here I assume you're referring to the information presented in the book by Dr. Larry Dossey? Unfortunately there are two problems with the studies that he presents: 1) many were unpublished in the scientific literature. This is a very bad sign. If a study can't be published in a scientific journal, it likely contains serious flaws. 2) For those that were published, most have confidence levels (p-values) of 0.01; but the 'standard' is generally considered to be 0.0001 (a difference of 2 orders of magnitude) to avoid chance (i.e. false positive) results.

Furthermore, quantum physicists have done a large number of experiments which seem to demonstrate a "non local effect" that cannot be explained with our current understanding of the universe (Superstring theory et al is one possible theoretical explanation). Of course these experiments are preliminary, controversial, and often disputed.

Scientifically, your last sentence is the key. If the results are not repeatable, they are not considered scientifically credible, as repeatability is absolutely necessary for scientific legitimacy. Thus, the negative double-blind studies that report no affect on health from intercessory prayer (such as the most recent negative, which is the largest to date: Krucoff MW, Crater SW, Green CL, et al. Integrative neotic therapies as adjuncts to percutaneous intervention during unstable coronary syndromes: Monitoring and Actualization of Noetic Training (MANTRA) feasibility pilot. Am Heart J. 2001; 142;760-769) fatally damage the credibility of the few positives.

Cool discussion #2.

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There have been a good number of double blind, case controlled studies involving prayer which seemed to show effects on patient outcomes.

I believe you are incorrect.

There are only two studies (that I am aware of) published in peer-reviewed scientific (medical) journals that claim to be double-blind and that claim that intercessory prayer has significant beneficial effects. The first is:

"Positive Therapeutic Effects Of Intercessory Prayer in a Coronary Care Unit Population." R.C. Byrd. Southern Medical Journal 1988 Jul; 81(7): 826-9 .

However, investigators later discovered that Byrd (the researcher who conducted the study) himself measured patient outcomes after knowing which patients were in which group (prayer or non-prayer). That is, it actually was not double-blind.

Also, the only benefits found were those when subjective measures were considered, but when objective measures were considered (length of stay in intensive care, stay in the hospital overall, number of medications that were necessary at discharge, etc.), there was no differences found between the groups. This study is thus not taken seriously in the scientific community.

The second study is:

Harris WS, Gowda M, Kolb JW, Strychacz CP, Vacek JL, Jones PG, et al. "A randomized, controlled trial of the effects of remote, intercessory prayer on outcomes in patients admitted to the coronary care unit." Arch Intern Med. 1999;159:2273-8. The study considered three outcomes: "speed of recovery", "overall outcome" and "adverse condition." The former two showed essentially no effect, while the latter showed a small advantage at the boundary of what would be considered chance results. Thus, there is a one possible positive benefit (out of 3 criteria measured), but not at a significant enough level to avoid explanation by chance.

In addition, there have been other studies where colonies of bacteria, plants ect. have also seemed to respond to prayer (even at a distance).

Here I assume you're referring to the information presented in the book by Dr. Larry Dossey? Unfortunately there are two problems with the studies that he presents: 1) many were unpublished in the scientific literature. This is a very bad sign. If a study can't be published in a scientific journal, it likely contains serious flaws. 2) For those that were published, most have confidence levels (p-values) of 0.01; but the 'standard' is generally considered to be 0.0001 (a difference of 2 orders of magnitude) to avoid chance (i.e. false positive) results.

Furthermore, quantum physicists have done a large number of experiments which seem to demonstrate a "non local effect" that cannot be explained with our current understanding of the universe (Superstring theory et al is one possible theoretical explanation). Of course these experiments are preliminary, controversial, and often disputed.

Scientifically, your last sentence is the key. If the results are not repeatable, they are not considered scientifically credible, as repeatability is absolutely necessary for scientific legitimacy. Thus, the negative double-blind studies that report no affect on health from intercessory prayer (such as the most recent negative, which is the largest to date: Krucoff MW, Crater SW, Green CL, et al. Integrative neotic therapies as adjuncts to percutaneous intervention during unstable coronary syndromes: Monitoring and Actualization of Noetic Training (MANTRA) feasibility pilot. Am Heart J. 2001; 142;760-769) fatally damage the credibility of the few positives.

Cool discussion #2.

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Specializes in Medical/Surgical/Maternal and Child.
the big bang theory is in direct conflict with the second law of thermodynamics, the black holes are indirectly observed....but you have thousands on millions of people who swear that there is a God based on what they have seen, felt or experienced first hand and they are just antedoctal evidence? I don't get the so called scientific community at all....but that isn't the point of this thread either.

I love your photo of Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh...2 of my old time faves!!!

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