While reading the excerpt, "Nature and God, Wisdom and Will" in The Scientific Revolutions many questions arose for me. It talked a lot about how unexplainable things in nature were deemed as acts of God by mechanical philosophers during this time. This caused me to wonder if these philosophers were just settling with what a highly Christian society had accepted; was deeming miracles a cop out for further thought or backlash? It seemed the standard to answer all questions dealing with why things happen with because God made it so.
The John Templeton Foundation had similar doubts about miracles and believes in thorough methodology through its prayer research studies. They conducted the largest study on prayer in 2006, which featured over 1,800 patients. They stated that "Bypass patients who consented to take part in the experiment were divided randomly into three groups. Some patients received prayers but were not informed of that. In the second group the patients got no prayers, and also were not informed one way or the other. The third group got prayers and were told so. There was virtually no difference in complication rates between patients in the first two groups. But the third group, in which patients knew they were receiving prayers, had a complication rate of 59 percent--significantly more than the rate of 52 percent in the no-prayer group." The Foundation is not trying to disprove whether God exists but rather show that deeming something a miracle is not always the final answer.
Works Cited
Shapin, Steven. The Scientific Revolution. Chicago: The University of Chicago press, 1996.
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