WASTE OF BREATH AND MONEY: It looks as though the recent fad of performing scientific studies to prove that people with medical problems improve when other people pray for them is coming to a close. Here’s the NY Times article about a big study that showed that anonymous prayer for patients having heart operations had no effect, and that telling patients beforehand that they would be prayed for possibly made their condition worse! This study was privately funded, and cost $2.4 million. The federal government supposedly has spent $2.3 million for other similar studies. This seems like a royal waste of money, and spending any more money (government or private) after this study would be a downright sin.

I’m all for prayer and belief in God, but the notion that we can control the medical outcomes of another through our prayer (or lack thereof, if you don’t like the person) implies a severe lack of humility. Religion should stick to mystery, and science to the lack thereof. Unfortunately, many in our country have gone back to a snakehandler form of spirituality, a George W. Bush form of religiosity. Dr. Richard Sloan summed it up best: “Studying religion scientifically . . . makes for bad science and bad religion”. Mix religion with politics and the results are that much worse. Let’s hope that this waste of money is over; until we find a cure for cancer and AIDS and a thousand other terrible diseases, there are a lot better things to study.

(However, I am in favor of general research into the role of psychological states on health and illness; those studies do seem to say some valuable things.)

DEMOCRACY MARCHING IN IRAQ: Ah yes, the Iraq campaign; another George W. Bush idea. Mr. Bush’s theory is that democracy cures all. He figured that hurrying Iraqis to the polls would make up for the mess that we let happen after our invasion.

But despite three major elections, Iraq seems to be coming apart at the seams. The NY Times had an article today saying that a lot of Iraqis are leaving the many mixed Shiite – Sunni neighborhoods; the Shiia are heading for Shiite towns, or the Sunnis light out for their own turf. And the many mixed areas are thus becoming polarized, as those who remain are mostly Shiite or mostly Sunni (not both, as before). That’s not a good sign. The Newark Star-Ledger reports that about one-third of all Iraqi medical doctors have left the country since 2003 due to assassinations by the insurgency. The doctor shortage is causing people to die from lack of available care. Again, not good.

(As I’ve said before, I’m not criticizing the excision of Saddam Hussein; I’m criticizing the lousy job we did of filling the vacuum created by his absence.)

Now that the NY Times makes you pay to read Tom Friedman, my favorite overview-man has become John Simpson of the BBC (you can still read him for free!). Simpson has visited Iraq several times since the American occupation began, and he’s not optimistic about the current prospects over there. He makes the point that rushing the common folk to the voting booths before daily life could return to normal probably just made things worse. Here are Simpson’s own words:

“Looking back on the events of the past year, it is clear that the three different popular votes which were held in Iraq, two elections and one referendum, played a big part in whipping up the violence. People who had tended to regard themselves primarily as Iraqis were suddenly forced to focus on the fact that they belonged to a particular group: Sunni, Shia, Kurdish, Christian or whatever. The act of voting was as divisive as it was empowering, and the fact that it happened three times in 11 months added to the intensity of the problem.”

So, if Mr. Simpson turns out to be right, America shot itself in the foot in Iraq by insisting on instant democracy! Yes, democracy is on the march in Iraq; a march towards civil war, that is.