Mike Palij wrote of Bem's response to Alcock's critique of the former's ESP experiments: >It is curious that one of Bem's criticism's of Alcock's >review is that it is "too long" (where have I heard such >pointless criticisms before?).
I wondered about the context in which Alcock would make such a curious complaint, but a search on the article failed to bring up the quoted words. Looking through the article, all I could find is this: "Alcock challenges both my experimental procedures and my statistical analyses. His article is quite lengthy, and so I will here focus only on his two most frequently recurring criticisms, one concerning experimental procedures and one concerning statistical analyses." Assuming I haven't erred in some way, this is hardly the same as criticizing the critique for being "too long". Shouldn't quotation marks be reserved for words actually used? (I think that question answers itself. :-) ) Given the immense controversy invoked by his highly controversial experimental claims, Bem is in all likelihood very busy at the moment, so I don't find his focusing at this stage (his article is not yet published!) on a limited number of items in one online critique out of the many challenges he is facing particularly reprehensible. Be that as it may, he evidently did not say that it was "too long". Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London allenester...@compuserve.com http://www.esterson.org --------------------------------------------------------------- From: Mike Palij <m...@nyu.edu> Subject: re: Alcock on Bem Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2011 16:17:39 -0500 On Thu, 13 Jan 2011 08:10:28 -0800, Stephen Black wrote: >Jim Alcock, the noted skeptic and debunker, has a cogent long piece >on the Bem kerfuffle in the current on-line issue of Skeptical >Inquirer. After reading what he has to say, I think the predominant >reaction to Bem's paper would be, as mine was, "What a mess!", >followed by "How did that dreck ever get past peer review to >publication!" > > http://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/show/back_from_the_future NOTE: IMHO, Bem's research is probably problematic for reasons that Alcock presents as well as for other reasons (remember the case of Leo DiCara). That being said, I just want to point out that Bem has responded to some of Alcock's criticisms on the Csicop website: http://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/show/response_to_alcocks_back_from_the_future_comments_on_bem It is curious that one of Bem's criticism's of Alcock's review is that it is "too long" (where have I heard such pointless criticisms before?). Whether the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (JPSP) should have published Bem's article, I leave that judgement to the journal's editor who is competent enough to make that judgment (here is a link to Charles "Chick" Judd webpage at the University of Colorado which also links to his CV: http://psych.colorado.edu/~cjudd/ ). However, I would suggest that Bem and all researchers who publish in APA and other professional journals do the following: (1) Detailed procedural information beyond that presented in the published article. Alcock suggests that Experiment 1 arctually represents two different studies, one that involves 36 trials representing 3 conditions (12 trials of erotic pictures, 12 negative pictures and 12 neutral pictures; the first 40 participants were in this study) and another with 36 trial but with 18 trials of erotic pictures and 18 trials of non-erotic positive pictures (the remaining 60 participants received this treatment). Bem actually reports this on pages 7-8 of his pre-publication manuscript which is available here but passes over this point in his rebuttal: http://dbem.ws/FeelingFuture.pdf I tend to agree with Alcock that such a design makes it more difficult to understand why Bem would claim that a 50% hit rate represents chance performance -- this would appear to be true only for that last 60 participants but Bem uses the entire sample of 100 participants for this claim. I would request that Bem (a) make available the stimulus materials and (b) more detailed information on the procedure actually used in each subject's "session". This should be done for all of the experiments. (2) Because Bem's research did not receive U.S. federal funding for his research, he is under no obligation to make public his raw data. I would argue though that given the nature of the research, making the data available to other researchers would be helpful in understanding what was done and what was found. I would understand Bem's reluctance to do so (it's hard enough to get people who do receive federal funding to make their data public -- they seem to think they own it instead of the taxpayers who funded the research) and would not expect him to do so. Again, I think the issue will eventually be settled through replication or its failure. -Mike Palij New York University m...@nyu.edu --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@jab.org. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=7887 or send a blank email to leave-7887-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
