Bem's 'Feeling the Future' (2011) Five Years Later: Its Impact on Scientific Literature
📄 Original study📌 Appears in:
Plain English Summary
When Daryl Bem published his 2011 paper claiming people could sense the future, the scientific world fractured. Silva and Poeschl mapped how by analyzing 162 published responses over five years. Mainstream psychology journals used Bem's paper as a cautionary tale, fueling debates about replication and Bayesian statistics (a different way of weighing evidence). Meanwhile, parapsychology and physics journals engaged with precognition itself, connecting it to quantum theory. The statistics debate spiked in 2011; replication concerns peaked in 2015 -- tracking psychology's broader 'replication crisis.' One paper, two completely different conversations depending on your academic tribe.
Research Notes
Only systematic bibliometric map of the Bem controversy's disciplinary reception, documenting the fracture between psychology's methodological critique and parapsychology/physics engagement with psi content. Note: lead author is Silva, not Bem — catalog ID is a legacy naming artifact.
Bibliometric text analysis of N=162 Scopus-indexed texts citing Bem's (2011) 'Feeling the Future' precognition article, covering 2011-2015. Using Iramuteq's downward hierarchical classification (Alceste method), 622 of 721 text segments (86.3%) were sorted into four impact classes: Replication in Psychology Research (31.4%), Bayesian Statistical Inference (26.9%), Experimental Anomalous Experiences (24.6%), and Quantum Phenomena and Theories (17.2%). Psychology-indexed sources dominate the critical Replication and Bayesian classes (χ²=36.96, 20.74), while non-psychology sources dominate the Anomalous Experiences and Quantum classes (χ²=18.87, 61.84). The Bayesian class peaks in 2011 and the Replication class in 2015, tracking the evolving methodological reform debate.
Related Papers
Cites
- Feeling the Future: Experimental Evidence for Anomalous Retroactive Influences on Cognition and Affect — Bem, Daryl J (2011)
- Feeling the Future: A Meta-Analysis of 90 Experiments on the Anomalous Anticipation of Random Future Events — Bem, Daryl J (2015)
- "Future Telling": A Meta-Analysis of Forced-Choice Precognition Experiments, 1935-1987 — Honorton, Charles (1989)
- Why Psychologists Must Change the Way They Analyze Their Data: The Case of Psi — Wagenmakers, Eric-Jan (2011)
Companion
- Back from the Future: Parapsychology and the Bem Affair — Alcock, James E (2011)
- Results from a Confirmatory Replication Study of Bem (2011): Precognitive Detection of Erotic Stimuli? — Wagenmakers, Eric-Jan (2012)
- Correcting the Past: Failures to Replicate Psi — Galak, Jeff (2012)
- Failing the Future: Three Unsuccessful Attempts to Replicate Bem's 'Retroactive Facilitation of Recall' Effect — Ritchie, Stuart J (2012)
- A Bayes Factor Meta-Analysis of Bem's ESP Claim — Rouder, Jeffrey N (2011)
- Fearing the Future of Empirical Psychology: Bem's (2011) Evidence of Psi as a Case Study of Deficiencies in Modal Research Practice — LeBel, Etienne P (2011)
- Must Psychologists Change the Way They Analyze Their Data? — Bem, Daryl J (2011)
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📋 Cite this paper
Silva, Bruno A, Poeschl, Gabrielle (2017). Bem's 'Feeling the Future' (2011) Five Years Later: Its Impact on Scientific Literature. Journal of Parapsychology.
@article{bem_2017_five_years_later,
title = {Bem's 'Feeling the Future' (2011) Five Years Later: Its Impact on Scientific Literature},
author = {Silva, Bruno A and Poeschl, Gabrielle},
year = {2017},
journal = {Journal of Parapsychology},
}