

Hearing prayer shuts off believers' brain activity - yanw
http://www.boingboing.net/2010/05/03/hearing-prayer-shuts.html

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cilantro
You can't take that statement at face value. Part of the point of prayer is to
focus your mind and block out irrelevant thoughts and stimuli. (Is it not?)
I'd like to see how brain activity of people praying compares to those in
meditation.

~~~
teilo
Except, that's not what the article is talking about. It was not the person
praying that had their activity shut down, but the person hearing prayers. And
not prayers in general, but only when coming from someone they perceived to be
a "healer", but not prayers by an "ordinary" Christian.

~~~
cilantro
Ah good point. I would just suggest that listening to someone pray and praying
may be quite similar for very religious people.

~~~
oconnor0
Absolutely. Especially in the sense that a religious person listening to
someone pray is probably praying along by agreeing with them in thought.

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jrockway
There is probably a similar effect in Apple fans listening to a Jobs keynote,
and so on. If you like what you are hearing, you are not going to be skeptical
about it.

~~~
jackfoxy
You probably intended this at least half tongue-in-cheek,but I imagine this
study opens a door to scientific verification of determining what constitutes
religous experience, and some very non-religous themed things may qualify for
some people.

~~~
elblanco
The similarities between cults and Apple (with Jobs at the helm) is pretty
well studied and written about. The good news is that people who buy Apple
products actually get something of value for their money -- so it's far less
sinister.

------
aphyr
The comments ask whether physicists at lectures would be susceptible to the
same phenomenon. I'm inclined to doubt that. It's a rare speaker indeed who
makes it through even a five minute session without blistering Q&A.

"Mr. Wilson, ve at za Max Planck Institute for Kernphysic _invented_ zis
field, and you are doing it vrong! You have neglected ze contribution of
higher order terms without grounds, and as results from Bergen, et al show..."

Sometimes, I wonder what a religion would be like with rapid-fire talks anyone
could speak at, poster sessions, and critique for every presenter.

~~~
smokinn
_Sometimes, I wonder what a religion would be like with rapid-fire talks
anyone could speak at, poster sessions, and critique for every presenter._

Science?

EDIT: Figured I should explain myself lest I get voted down for being snarky.
In science, to me at least, a lot seems to be taken on faith. There are many
stories of a wrong result being published and scientists later not publishing
their own research because it didn't agree with that wrong result. Combine
that with the fact that a scientist with lots of published history accumulates
more and more credibility and, from the outside, it starts to look like a
religion with a self-correcting facility.

~~~
aphyr
I don't agree. Science is explicitly concerned with natural phenomena.
Anything supernatural must be the domain of superstition, spirituality, or
religion.

We suffer somewhat from salience bias: cases where the scientific process is
successful are frequent and expected. Cases where the method failed but
eventually corrected itself are spectacular. There are literally hundreds of
thousands of papers published each year. Quick, can you name two researchers
involved in the discovery of the electron's discrete charge? What were their
methods? Now, how about Millikan?

As for religions, I would be more likely to believe in one where challenges
and debate were frequent, as opposed to something more rigid like, say,
Catholicism.

~~~
smokinn
I know that's how it works internally, but I'm not inside. Honestly, I believe
in the scientific method in a way very close to how the religious believe in
their chosen faith. I have no problem admitting that to myself. Science is
basically my religion. The difference between religion and science is what
you've described and more (an objective measurable goal for one) and is why I
believe in it. But I've never done research, never published a paper. So for
me, it's largely faith in the system.

------
teilo
From the article: "The brain activity changed only in response to prayers they
were told came from the healer."

In other words, it's not the perception of prayer. It's the perception of
supernatural intervention. Totally misleading title.

~~~
DrSprout
Actually, it's less than that. It's your perception of the healer. In other
words, people don't think skeptically about people they trust. Essentially a
tautology, only confirming that those are the regions of the brain involved in
skepticism.

~~~
gills
Well I liked your comment but the droid screen isn't as accurate as i'd like
on those tiny voting arrows. Sorry about that.

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baddox
" ... the regions of their brains involved in skeptical thinking and vigilance
appear to shut down."

Believers not being skeptical is a bit redundant.

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eplanit
Or, in other words, the believers become relaxed and content. Never thought of
prayer-time as being a time of needing to having one's guard up. Is the
suggestion that prayer is bad?

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Isamu
I suppose I'm in the believer category, and boy does my mind wander when I
hear prayer. And during sermons, and pretty much when anybody is speaking.
Sometimes I wish I could focus on what somebody else is saying, but usually
it's only in the narrow context of somebody speaking directly to me. How do
normal people manage it? If somebody was praying TO ME, maybe I could focus
better.

~~~
fendrak
Ha, I'm glad I'm not the only one who's mind wanders during those things! I've
come to believe that it's more a function of having an extremely active mind
that prefers to interact over simply receiving information passively. Same
thing happens to me during lectures in class. I try to engage my mind with
what's being said, looking up relevant passages and asking myself questions
about the validity of what's being said.

Also, there's no incompatibility between believing in a higher power and being
able to reason. I'm a Christian in his third year of a Computer Science degree
at a major university, and I like to think I have some capacity for reason :p

------
jamesbressi
There seems to be more to the study that you might find interesting--just wish
there was a way for us "lay people" to access the paper without paying a huge
fee for access =/

Link to study abstract "The power of charisma--perceived charisma inhibits the
frontal executive network of believers in intercessory prayer"
[http://scan.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2010/03/12/scan...](http://scan.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2010/03/12/scan.nsq023)

~~~
a-priori
[http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2779/Schjoedt%20et%20al%2C%202010.pd...](http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2779/Schjoedt%20et%20al%2C%202010.pdf)

~~~
jamesbressi
you devil; you just made my day! Do tell the trick, because I run into this
all the time.

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meelash
The second comment on that page is the first thing I thought of.

Sensational headline, obvious results. Nothing much to see here, folks...

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Sensational[ist] headline - agreed.

Obvious result. Not so sure as I don't agree that the interesting result is
that being spun from the paper (of which I've only read a detailed review and
an abstract as it's paywalled).

The takeaway point for me, that harkened back to Milgram's Experiments and the
like, was that the person running the experiment was able to induce in the
subjects entirely different behaviour simply by saying the level of authority
that the people they were hearing [supposedly] had.

To recapitulate they alter their critical consideration according to the level
of authority claimed for the speaker by a third party. It is the authority of
the scientist that swings the whole thing.

~~~
meelash
But aren't these conclusions already in widespread use 24 hrs of the day, from
infomercial and advertisements, to talking heads in news and media?

------
Luc
> It's not clear whether the results extend beyond religious leaders, but
> Schjødt speculates that brain regions may be deactivated in a similar way in
> response to doctors, parents and politicians.

Could this be how hypnosis works? Patients for whom hypnosis is effective have
a mental model of 'the power of the hypnotist', and effectively anaesthetize
their critical thinking faculties to follow the hypnotists commands?

------
albemuth
Alternate title: Reality distortion field explained

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anigbrowl
If you are interested in the philosophical implications of this, then the
following book is a favorite of mine (and may have indirectly inspired this
research).

[http://www.amazon.com/Origin-Consciousness-Breakdown-
Bicamer...](http://www.amazon.com/Origin-Consciousness-Breakdown-Bicameral-
Mind/dp/0618057072)

------
alanh
Religion installs a backdoor in devout believers' minds that allow advanced-
stage mind-virus hosts to deliver virus upgrades without resistance.

I challenge anyone to find a major problem with this summary of the study.

~~~
pyre
It's politically charged to no apparent reason. You might as well say
"Hierarchal organizations produce figures with perceived/real authority that
cause some people to stop filtering information based on their trust in the
individual transmitting (information) and/or the organization as a whole."

~~~
alanh
Except that overly generalizes the study. It was more specific. Avoiding hurt
feelings doesn’t justify misrepresenting the limited data.

------
jacquesm
They should do a repeat with a bunch of troopers reacting to the voice of
their sergeant to see if it comes up the same.

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Helianthus
Bit of a misleading headline. The article suggests that we are less skeptical
of people we already agree with and in particular of people in positions of
perceived authority.

~~~
gaius
Exactly like a well-known blogger posting an article to pander to his
readership.

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barnaby
What does this have to do with hacking, tech, or startups? Why was this posted
on HN?

~~~
jodrellblank
Please read the guidelines for the answer:

<http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>

~~~
barnaby
Amazing they didn't mention religion as off-topic.

I don't see how this is interesting to a hacker. It's interesting to a
redditor, but that's why I don't go there.

