God Vs. Black Ice

[Spring Heeled Jack]

I've just read the following news-item:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england...shire-11805752

This seems to me to be a splendid, if poorly controlled scientific experiment to test the efficacy of prayer. Certain areas of the country have had their gritters blessed by a bishop annually for the past 8 years, and this has resulted in a dramatic reduction in Winter road deaths in these areas over that period. That's the easily falsifiable claim - made by a bishop, no less! Is it in fact true? I see an opportunity for an in-depth skeptical investigation here, if somebody who is good at that sort of thing can be bothered.

It also raises some troubling questions about the morality of God. Apparently, if your Local Council is sufficiently pious to arrange for a bishop to bless their gritters, God will reward their devotion by causing fewer innocent motorists unconnected with the decision to die.

Unless of course in those areas whose roads are devoid of sanctified grit, the additional dead drivers include a vastly disproportionate number of civil servants who could have arranged for a bishop to bless the gritters but didn't. If this turns out to be true, I'm afraid we may in all fairness be forced to concede a point to the Christians. But somehow I don't see that happening.

Seriously, is there anybody who's good at this kind of statistical analysis and fancies giving it a whirl?

[tolman]

The idea does seem odd, even trying to get into the mindset of a believer.

Is the blessing supposed to make the grit/salt work better, bending the laws of physics, and altering coefficients of friction or the melting point of water?

I'd have thought that praying for [deity] to subtly influence drivers not to drive like idiots in winter weather would be a more plausible path.

Though why would a deity need praying to in order to do something like that?
Wouldn't it already know that people thought car accidents were a bad thing?

Regarding an experiment, I'd guess there would be any number of confounding factors, either varying over time, or possibly between areas.

As well as variation in weather and general driver behaviour, there are changes in car design (ABS/traction control, accident survivability, etc) changes in grit/salt type, changes in gritter-driver training regarding where to concentrate gritting, changes in weather forecasting accuracy, changes in planning of where to grit and not to grit.

Weather-related changes could be complex.
Do fatal accidents vary closely along with hardness of winter?
Does a hard winter make people warier about driving?
How many accidents are caused by an patch of ice that's unexpected (and possibly un-gritted) due to the weather and roads not being generally bad?
etc.

[Tony Williams]

Too many unknown variables, I suspect. The frequency of gritting, the severity of the ice, the way that affected the roads, the percentage of vehicles with winter tyres, the warnings gven by emergency services...

If indeed it is true that the roads covered by the "blessed" gritters have lower rates than other roads, I suspect it might be something to do with the authority taking gritting more seriously, perhaps in part because of the high profile the gritters have been given by the bish. Or simply that the news coverage reminded drivers that the roads were dangerous so they should be careful.

Another kind of test would be to check whether the bish really does influence events through prayer, by getting him to bless all sorts of other activities with fewer variables and measure the results.

Edit: a simultaneous post with #2!

[tolman]

Or simply that the news coverage reminded drivers that the roads were dangerous so they should be careful.

That's a good point - there can be a combined effect of both awareness-raising and regression to the mean.

If someone noticed that a number of men over 50 had been killed of seriously injured falling off ladders doing DIY, and got a bishop to make a point of publicly praying and getting media coverage, there could be a drop for various reasons
The previously-noted numbers could have been a random upswing, or could have been caused by some transient factor like a particular TV DIY programme.
It could be that the public prayer gets people (or their partners) to be more wary of ladders, and either to use them less, or to pay more attention to correct placement or correct usage, or having someone holding them steady.

When road fatalities are supposed to have drastically declined, is that with reference to a long-term average, or to projections from a long-term trend, or to some brief spike in figures caused by a few bad accidents?

Also, what's the relation between winter road deaths and changes in drink-driving behaviour.

For what it's worth, it does seem that 2003 was a particularly bad year for (annual) road deaths in Lincolnshire (not sure about winter-only figures). Given a general expectation of long-term decline, hoping for/predicting a decent fall would have been a reasonable bet.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8401344.stm

year deaths
99    104    
00    71   
01    84   
02    91   
03    104 
04    77   
05    69   
06    66   
07    79   
08    51

[cjr23]

Sorry chaps I missed the thread somehow and posted in News. Perhaps a mod can erge my post with this one?

http://www.ukskeptics.com/forum/show...3685#post93685

As an Anglican I thought I would check it out, and origianlly posted this on Rational Skepticism forum. As you can see, it actualy tallies pretty well with the decline in my two "control" counties. Hope of interest.

cj x

[Dubious Dick]

Not sure if those stats Tolman quotes are for all Lincs, or just related to this story i.e the evidence for/against the Bish? If they are the figures the bish reise on to prove the power of prayer, then they are of course tosh as evidence.

If the figures in the case of the bish are consistently down, and all other variables removed, then they might have something.

But, my questions as a non-stats expert are:

1. If the figures went up and down (whether trending down or not), then how comes gods powers wax and wane?

2. Why would god maintain any road deaths (as asked in previous post), but if it does depend on specific prayer, does god need more prayer to prevent more deaths i.e is it a proportional thing along lines of x volume of prayer = y fewer deaths? Can we have the formula so we know how much is necessary, otherwise god is asking us to play a guessing game for our lives, and that wouldn't be very friendly of the old codger now, would it?

As usual, when it comes to the divine, it starts getting tangled so quickly that it is amazing really that anyone can believe any of it. Ah well. If it's freezing in hell then the devil now knows how to make his road clearing program more effective. Or is it burning in hell? Now there's a nother topic. Perhaps we can invade loads of religious boards and start off an endless debate on 'Is Hell Hot or Cold?' Might keep them bust for a while.

[tolman]

Not sure if those stats Tolman quotes are for all Lincs, or just related to this story i.e the evidence for/against the Bish?

They're annual fatality figures, so not ice-specific (or even winter-specific).

Mind you, the article only mentioned that the blessings were 'hoping to reduce winter crashes' and that ceremonies had been 'followed by a reduction in road deaths' - it didn't specifically say winter deaths (or winter crashes) or ice-related deaths had reduced.

(PS more confounding factors include changes in ambulance/paramedic skills and equipment, air ambulances, faster accident reporting from mobile phones, etc)

[cjr23]

Hey Tolman,

I see we were thinking along the same lines. I did an analyss (originally on a different forum) when I saw the story - I decided the important factor was not the decline, but the size in relation to a control group, so I chose Norfolk and Suffolk.

http://www.ukskeptics.com/forum/show...3685#post93685

BTW, as you correctly noted the 1993-1998 figures were lower - 104 (atually 103 when one checks the original news stories carefully, because one patient died in the New Year, butbecause the crash was in 99 are included) was for the time an all time high - it was to be repeated about three years later though.

Lincolnshire's figures have indeed declaied, but no more than Suffolks, and rather less than Norfolks. Still keep up the blessing bishop, it can't do any harm! :)

cj x

[wheels5894]

I was juts looking at this and pulled up http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=1208 which shows a continuing downward trend for the whole of the UK since 1965. Plotting the data for the 'blessed' county of Lincolnshire looks to be pretty much the same story.

Of course, we might compare the total causality figures as these might suggest the redced deaths are caused by better paramedic care and so on.

So far, the bishop seems to be like so many of his kind - a stage magician who can't pull off his trick but can somehow convince people he can!

[cjr23]

Yeah i did this, i just posted it in a different thread cos i somehow missed this one - http://www.ukskeptics.com/forum/show...3685#post93685

To be fair the Bishop never actually claimed anything. Well, hardly. H e said

Bishop Saxbee said: "These annual 'Blessing of the Gritters' events have coincided with a dramatic reduction in the number of fatalities on Lincolnshire's roads.
"Perhaps that is not a coincidence, and as I look to my retirement in January I hope and pray that driving carefully and arriving safely will continue to matter to all who use our road network in the years ahead."

Perhaps hardly constitutes a claim :)


j x

[wheels5894]

You could be right, cjr, and the bishop is merely commenting on the predictable fall in road deaths whilst he has been blessing the gritters. After all, his actions can be seen as blessing and wishing well the crews of the gritter fleet - something we all should want to do given the valuable work they do.

The trouble is, though, that whatever the bishop says, it is going to be misused by the theist lobby who will quote it as evidence that prayer works and that their god acts in the world. Once people start making this claim, dry and boring statistics shown that the fall is part of a longer term fall, from 1965 at least, will be in vain.