C
Chris
Daryl Bem's paper, "Feeling the Future: Experimental Evidence for Anomalous Retroactive Influences on Cognition and Affect", has been criticised on a number of grounds.
http://caps.ucsf.edu/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/bem2011.pdf
Among other things, it's been suggested that instead of fixing beforehand the hypotheses to be tested and the experimental procedure to be used to test them, he modified both in reaction to his findings as he went along, so that the statistical significance of the results can't be taken at face value. In other words, the work was, at least in part, exploratory.
One prominent critic who advanced this view was James Alcock. His criticism, entitled "Back from the Future: Parapsychology and the Bem Affair", can be found here:
http://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/show/back_from_the_future
Bem responded to it here:
http://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/show/response_to_alcocks_back_from_the_future_comments_on_bem
And Alcock responded to Bem's response here:
http://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/show/response_to_bems_comments
What do people think? Did Bem fix his hypotheses in advance of doing the experiments, or did he modify them as he went along? Did he change any of the experimental designs part of the way through? If so, do the changes cast doubt on the validity of the results?
http://caps.ucsf.edu/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/bem2011.pdf
Among other things, it's been suggested that instead of fixing beforehand the hypotheses to be tested and the experimental procedure to be used to test them, he modified both in reaction to his findings as he went along, so that the statistical significance of the results can't be taken at face value. In other words, the work was, at least in part, exploratory.
One prominent critic who advanced this view was James Alcock. His criticism, entitled "Back from the Future: Parapsychology and the Bem Affair", can be found here:
http://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/show/back_from_the_future
Bem responded to it here:
http://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/show/response_to_alcocks_back_from_the_future_comments_on_bem
And Alcock responded to Bem's response here:
http://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/show/response_to_bems_comments
What do people think? Did Bem fix his hypotheses in advance of doing the experiments, or did he modify them as he went along? Did he change any of the experimental designs part of the way through? If so, do the changes cast doubt on the validity of the results?