[ExI] Capitalizing on "Life Extension"

[BillK]

On Mon, Nov 3, 2008 at 1:49 AM, Damien Broderick wrote:
> Anyone is free to deny that any such evidence can possibly exist, and refuse
> to look at it. As with cold fusion, I don't have a dog in this fight. If
> anything, I'm biased against the idea, because it could all too easily lend
> itself to a revival of lunatic witch-hunting and repudiation of empirical
> medicine and surgery. That bias acts to deter me from reading much of the
> documentation. But my declared ignorance of it thereby prevents me from
> blanket nay-saying, and meanwhile a whole lot of medicos and nurses do
> attest to such effects as demonstrated in apparently good experimental
> protocols (see the biblio I url'd). Does this mean I'm *frightened* to
> examine the alleged evidence? Maybe so.
>


Prayer studies don't change anything.

If you are a believer, you won't accept that prayer has no effect and
will find lots of reasons that the study doesn't apply to you
personally.

If you are an unbeliever, you won't accept that prayer does work and
will find lots of reasons for the study to be invalid.

See:
<http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/faith.html>

As they note, Christian Scientists kill their children at a higher
rate because they forbid medical care.

I like their final list of recommendations:
*  Laws to protect children from medical neglect in the name of
healing should be passed and enforced. In states that allow religious
exemptions from medical neglect, these exemptions should be revoked.
Maybe the practice of faith healing on minors should be illegal.
* Faith healing should no longer be deductible as a medical expense.
* Reporters should be encouraged to do follow-up studies of people
acclaimed to have been "healed."
* "Healers" who use trickery to raise large sums of money should be
prosecuted for grand larceny.


BillK