Daryl Bem and Controversial Research

I was catching up on the television I recorded this week and saw Daryl Bem, famous from both his work at Cornell as a social and personality psychologist and from a research methods segment on Discovering Psychology.   Bem appeared on the Colbert Report on January 27, 2011 to discuss his recent research about psychic phenomena, which Colbert calls, "Time Traveling Porn."  Fascinating ideas that have critics (Ray Hyman of "Secrets of the Psychics" fame).   Check it out to see our field as interpreted by popular culture.  Some aspects of statistics are mentioned and Bem is potentially theorizing that the cause of the results may be quantum mechanics.  Because science is political, one could use this in a variety of ways as a discussion starter.  As usual, I was left wanting more discussion of the ideas.


posted by Chuck Schallhorn