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Like other animals, humans are also classically conditioned. So-called "sugar pills' are not the only form in which placebos present themselves. God can also act as a placebo, or rather, it is the ''conditioned belief'' in God than that can generate the placebo effect. In essence, a conditioned belief comes from knowledge. The late physicist and philosopher, Ian Barbour asserted, "Science seems to provide the only reliable path to knowledge."<ref>Ian Barbour, ''Religion and Science: Historical and Contemporary Issues'' (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1997), 77.</ref> Barbour may be correct; however, if knowledge can be defined as answers gained through experience, whether real or imagined, science is not the only answer. Private Estee was not a man of medicine or any other scientific discipline.  At the time he enlisted in the army he was working as a teamster. His recovery, after being told by a man of science that he was sure to die, must have appeared as nothing less than a true miracle that stemmed from divine intervention. Philosopher Michael Ruse very eloquently opines that "A miracle is less something that is a violation of physics, say, and more something that means something to people at the time or later."<ref>Michael Ruse, ''Evolution and Religion: A Dialogue'' (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008), 22.</ref> It can therefore be argued that Estee created his own miracle while Armistead had no such will to live.