Contrasting the two papers, Bem's paper sticks very closely to the standard form and 'rules of engagement' (if you will) of published academic research. That's

Contrasting the two papers, Bem's paper sticks very closely to the standard form and 'rules of engagement' (if you will) of published academic research. That's kind of the problem: published academic research is broken in a lot of ways. If you haven't read it yet, the New Yorker's recent article on the decline effect touches on several of the reasons why: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/12/13/101213fa_fact_lehrer?printable=true&currentPage=1 http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/12/13/101213fa_fact_... And some prominent medical journals started fighting against publication bias a few years ago: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/09/09/1094530773888.html http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/09/09/1094530773888.html I think you're holding this response to a much higher burden of proof than it needs to meet to be a proper refutation of Bem's claims. You're right that the response doesn't appear to use the "proper scientific method". But that's because it doesn't use it at all, and it doesn't need to. There's no hypothesis to test and no experiment to run in order to point out flaws in a paper that does claim to be the result of the scientific method.