Near the end of June I posted a progress report for Rocky Twyman and his “Pray at the Pump” movement. If you recall, Twyman and a small group of supporters are traveling around the country and praying at gas stations for God to help lower gas prices. When I posted my report card in June, the U.S. national average gas price had actually gone up 21.6% since the Pray at the Pumpers began praying this past April. Nevertheless, lo and behold, since the middle of July gas prices have finally started coming back down – as prices that have risen dramatically usually do.

Well, wouldn’t you know it – Rocky Twyman and company are now trying to take credit for this downtrend. From the BBC:

Rocky Twyman, 59, a veteran community campaigner, started Pray At The Pump meetings at petrol stations in April. Since then, the average price of what the US calls gasoline has fallen from more than $4 a gallon to $3.80.

That is not entirely accurate. As I pointed out, the average price of gasoline has not fallen “since” April. It actually soared between April and the middle of July $3.33 a gallon to $4.12 a gallon – 23.72% – before heading back down to around $3.80 where it now stands as of this writing. Keep in mind that $3.80 is still well above the national average of $3.33 as it was in April (14.11%), when the movement began.

To summarize:

(1) The national average gas price did not start coming down until three months after the Pray at the Pump  movement began – a long time for a deity to react – but not before soaring up 23.72% as a part of a ferocious climb.

(2) The Pray at the Pumpers have still not acheived what they set out to do in April – lower gas prices – as the average price of gas is still 14.11% higher than it was when they began!

That certainly seems like a failure to me. But let’s go back to this recent downtrend. Anyone who closely follows economic news understands what market forces have contributed to this decline. But not Twyman. According to the BBC:

Mr Twyman is sceptical that market forces might be responsible for the lower prices. But he and his prayer warriors have changed their motoring habits.

He might be skeptical but he is clearly not putting all of his eggs in the faith basket:

“We believe not just in prayer – because we believe that faith without works is dead. So we’ve encouraged people to car-pool more and organise their days more, because it’s a combination of faith with these other factors.”

Or it might just be these other factors, as the BBC also reported earlier. In particular, as the price of oil is measured in dollars, a stronger dollar relative to other currencies means lower prices. But maybe they were praying for that, too.

Here’s the deal, though. While there clearly doesn’t seem to be any correlation between the price of gasoline and the actions of the prayer groups, even if there was, correlation does not equal causation. In science, claims are tested by controlling for other factors.  And such a test is deemed successful if the results are consistently repeatable. Twyman and company are, at best, indulging in a deluded form of wishful thinking.