The evidence for precognition is JPSP itself. Just open a random issue. In it, you’ll find countless a priori hypotheses anticipating the findings that eventually occurred. It is patently obvious that one could not possibly have anticipated the results without some form of precognition. Examples:
People walk slower after thinking about moving to Florida?
People are obsessed with thinking about white bears?
People have, don’t have, have, don’t have, have personalities?
Skeptics may think that this evidence is just cherry-picking. Not so. Consider the sheer magnitude of hypothesis confirmation. The Figure presents the proportion of hypotheses by the authors of JPSP articles that were confirmed versus disconfirmed. All hypotheses except for two were confirmed. In one case, Denes-Raj and Epstein (1994) had a secondary hypothesis that their primary hypothesis would be incorrect. In the other case, Zajonc (1969), himself an alien with domination aspirations (Bones, 1996), declared that by 1974 cockroaches would control most of the eastern U.S. because “it would be so easy and they inspire each other so damn well.” Compared to the paltry accuracy rates by Bem’s precognition subjects (less than 60%!), the conclusion is clear: Bem’s effects are startlingly weak compared to the published evidence for precognition in JPSP.
Finally, a skeptic might counter that the JPSP authors could have conducted the studies, found results, dismissed inconsistent data, and then written the paper as if those were the results that they had anticipated all along. However, orchestrating such a large-scale hoax would require the coordination and involvement of thousands of researchers, reviewers, and editors. Researchers would have to selectively report those that “worked.” Reviewers and editors would have to selectively accept positive, confirmatory results and reject any norm violating researchers that submitted negative results. The possibility that an entire field could be perpetrating such a scam is so counterintuitive that only a social psychologist could predict it if it were actually true.
Brilliant.
My favorite part: