Evidence lacking for support of Medical ‘Miracles’

Via Live Science:

The phrase “medical miracle” is a newsroom cliche. It means a situation in which a person makes an unexpected recovery despite great odds or a pessimistic prognosis.

Yet often the phrase is used much more broadly to describe a seemingly supernatural or paranormal healing or curing event such as faith healing. While to many people it may seem obvious that a miracle has occurred, in reality such miracles are rarely as impressive as they seem.

On the ABC newsmagazine Primetime, a recent segment shows a good example:

A Canadian teenager named Adam Dreamhealer claims to cure cancer, coax the comatose to consciousness, and drive out infection.

…

Many of the miraculous “healings” attributed to Dreamhealer seem to be simply the result of misunderstandings, poor logic, errors in critical thinking, and the common uncertainty of medical knowledge.

…

According to the Primetime segment, “There are physicists who believe there’s something to this,” including astronaut Edgar Mitchell, who says he recognizes the science in Dreamhealer’s work. “It’s about channeling energy and resonating with the person. The principles of quantum physics explain many of these intuitive mystical aspects of attention and intention,” said Mitchell, who (despite being introduced by Primetime as a physicist and a “doctor”) is neither a physicist nor a medical doctor. While Mitchell may recognize the science behind Dreamhealer’s powers, the medical establishment doesn’t. In fact, many such studies have tried to find this effect, and all of them—including those involving prayer—have failed.

This reminds me of a line in the video poem I recently posted regarding medicine:

By definition, alternative medicine has either not been proved to work, or been proved not to work. Do you know what they call alternative medicine that’s been proved to work? Medicine.

Exactly.