The team used an audiometer and vision charts to evaluate 14 patients who reported impaired hearing and 11 who reported impaired vision, both before and after members of a local church prayed for their healing. Subjects reported a small but statistically significant improvement in hearing and vision following the prayers.

So is this proof of God’s existence, or that praying to a higher power bestows some benefit?

At first glance the study is interesting, but upon closer examination serious limitations become apparent. First, the sample size is tiny; with only 24 participants the results are very difficult to generalize to a larger population. Second, the measures studied by Brown and her colleagues were inherently subjective, and not objectively measured. Indeed, the authors admit that “auditory and visual impairments are…. not unaffected by psychosomatic factors.”