Medical science rarely says "this will not get better". All it says is "we do not know any way of making it better". The human body is an amazing thing, and variations from person to person mean that some people are naturally protected in some way against diseases. For example, people have been found who are immune to HIV. In contrast, medical science has lots of techniques which have a good chance of making you better, but each one only works in some situations and each one has some kind of probability of success/failure attached.

So in answer to the question about miracles, "what saved them?", I can only answer that that person's body saved them. There is plenty of evidence that positive attitude has an effect on the immune system. As far as the placebo effect goes, there is also evidence of a strong placebo effect on animals which can only be due to the *owner's* belief in a cure, so I'm not surprised that hanging around a group of people (religious, medical or otherwise) who believe in a cure can help.

Regarding scepticism, it *is* creative. If you're unsure that path A is the One True Way, it follows logically that a sceptic (a *true* sceptic) will look around for paths B, C and D which get the same result or better; or vice versa will demonstrate that there is no alternative to the One True Way so that it's placed on a level of knowledge rather than belief. Sounds pretty creative to me.

And for the second guest's comment that you can't create something whilst being sceptical about it, that flies in the face of every principle of science and philosophy. Suppose you give a drug to some lab rats, and it cures their cancer. It's what you were hoping for, and it's the pinnacle of your lifetime's achievement. But you don't immediately shout to the world "I've done it!!!" Instead you double-check that the cancer doesn't recur in the rats, you check that there are no side-effects, you check that the rats you've tested were the same ones that had cancers and that they were the ones that got the drug, you check on some more rats of a different kind to check that it's not some hereditary thing in the rats themselves, etc, etc. In other words, you are sceptical of your own results! If you aren't, you're working on a foundation of sand, and a single mistake can wipe out years of work.

Graham.