The State of the Art of a Tough Place in Science and Psychology, Parapsychology. Parapsychology: A Handbook for the 21st Century edited by Etzel Cardeña, John Palmer, and David Marcusson-Clavertz

Abstract

Is it fortunate, fortuitous, or foreboding that this book emerges from the shadows of the publishing world even as the embers of the Daryl Bem “feeling the future” controversy are still aglow? Whatever the case may be, and whatever your view of the data at the center of it, many thanks are due Daryl Bem for opening up the tough and much-needed conversation about the nature of science, methodology, statistics, replication, meta-analysis, and, yes, prejudice, via his now well-known Journal of Personality and Social Psychology article (Bem 2011). Moreover, I am reminded of P. T. Barnum’s wily wisdom, “I don’t care what you say about me, just spell my name right!” During the writing of this review I had a chance encounter with a young man in his third year of Ph.D. studies in psychology at a large (distant) state university. When I mentioned my own special interest in parapsychology, he asked, “What’s that?” But as soon as I started to tell him “ . . . telepathy, clairvoyance, . . . ,” he blurted out, “Oh, the Bem stuff!” Thank you, Daryl Bem! And I for one am looking forward to the rounds still to come (Bem, Tressoldi, Rabeyron, & Duggan 2015).

Thanks also to editors Cardeña, Palmer, and Marcusson-Clavertz for their service in putting together this arguably controversial volume, Parapsychology: A Handbook for the 21^st Century. For those who are brave and confident enough to go to the tough places in science and psychology, with an open mind, this book is just your ticket. All of the issues raised by the Bem-o-versy are here, and much, much, more.