The differences between people with religious beliefs and those who defend scientific evidence have existed since time immemorial. In fact, there is a widespread belief that believers are individuals who find it less difficult to believe in superstition than in science, unlike non-believers..
However, recent research shows a very different reality in terms of the perception that both groups have about the effectiveness of prayer and medical therapy..
In recent years, specialized professionals with Postgraduate degrees in Psychology have turned their training and experience into studying believers and non-believers..
To date, the results obtained indicated that the religious group required less evidence to be convinced that a person had survived thanks to prayer therapy, unlike the non-religious, who are more demanding to believe this evidence.
However, the research "Religiosity Predicts Evidentiary Standards", directed by Emilio Lobato, shows that, although there are differences regarding the evidentiary standards of believers and non-believers, the reality is that both groups show a similar trend to the time to believe scientific evidence, differing when evaluating supernatural claims.
To carry out the study, the experts took into account the following situation:
A person suffers from a life-threatening illness. For this reason, a group of parishioners gathers around it with the aim of applying a method of prayer therapy to achieve its survival. After a period of one week and, against all odds, the individual survives and recovers.
To date, researchers in this type of study had focused on analyzing the number of cases that are necessary (successful replications) for people, whether they are believers or not, to believe in the effectiveness of a type of therapy (religious or medical).
However, this research has found it convenient to also incorporate failed replications (cases necessary to convince oneself that the therapy does not work), since science does not proceed simply by gathering evidence to support hypotheses, but also looks for evidence that can prove that a claim can become false.
Along the same lines as previous studies, research shows that both religious and non-religious people show similar behavior in terms of the effectiveness of medical therapy.
That is, the believing group did not show prejudice against scientific reasoning, needing the same number of successful replications as the non-believers to be convinced that it worked..
In the same way, the same occurs with failed replications (patients who died despite medical therapy), observing a similar position between the group of believers and non-believers..
When analyzing the perception of the evidence regarding religious therapy, the researchers found surprising behavior. The group of non-believers needed the same number of successful replicas as religious people (a very low limit) to be convinced of their effectiveness..
This result contradicts the general belief that this group is more demanding and incredulous when it comes to convincing themselves of the effectiveness of prayer..
However, this attitude is not repeated in the case of failed replicas. The group of religious people required fewer repetitions to judge it as ineffective, unlike the believers. This behavior is known as the Sagan standard, which suggests that extraordinary claims are evaluated to a higher standard than scientific ones..
In conclusion, both religious and non-religious people seem to evaluate scientific claims similarly. However, they differ in the vision they have when it comes to assessing supernatural claims..
Researchers speculate that, having taken place in the United States, a country where even non-believers have had a faith-based education, the non-religious group is likely to continue to be influenced by childhood experiences, making them sympathetic. of this type of supernatural beliefs.
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