New experimental evidence for precognition? (America, quote, believe, service)

[Gaylenwoof]

A new study published by a respected researcher (Daryl J. Bem of Cornell University) in a respected scientific journal (the American Psychological Association's "Journal of Personality and Social Psychology") shows evidence for possible psi effects (in this case the effect seems to be precognition). I will give links to the article and related articles below, but here are some of the ideas I would like to discuss:

1) Generally speaking, do you think precognition is possible?
2) Do you think Bem's experimental procedures are valid for detecting precognition?
3) If other experimenters following this procedure are able to confirm Bem's results, do you think you would believe in the reality of precognition?
4) If experimental evidence for precognition turns out to be strong, what effect (if any) do you think this would have on your philosophical and/or religious views? In other words, would the experimental confirmation of precognition tend to support the philosophical/religious views that you already have, or would you have to "go back to the drawing board" and re-think your views about certain things?
5) Are you willing to speculate on possible theories about the nature of mind and matter that might explain precognition?

Here are some links for more information:

For those who don't wish to read the scientific journals, here is a National Public Radio (NPR) article that is easy to read:
Could It Be? Spooky Experiments That 'See' The Future : Krulwich Wonders? : NPR

Here is a non-official pdf version of Bem's article:
Feeling the Future: Experimental Evidence for Anomalous Retroactive Influences on Cognition and Affect by Daryl J. Bem, Cornell University
http://dbem.ws/FeelingFuture.pdf

Here is one failed attempt to confirm Bem's findings:
A Replication of the Procedures from Bem (2010, Study 8) and a Failure to Replicate the Same Results by Jeff Galak
SSRN-A Replication of the Procedures from Bem (2010, Study 8) and a Failure to Replicate the Same Results by Jeff Galak, Leif Nelson
For those who don't want to read the article, I should point out that the researchers who did this study to not see their work as posing a serious challenge to Bem's finding. Here is a quote from their summary: "In every other psychological domain, that should rightfully be identified as a mild challenge to the original hypothesis, but hardly a severe threat. If we knew for certain that precognition did exist, pure randomness would frequently produce a null effect in this experiment, or even the mild reversal we document."

This is a response from the Skeptical Inquirer
Back from the future: Comments on Bem, by James Alcock of the Skeptical Inquirer
CSI | Back from the future: Comments on Bem
The Skeptical Inquirer article is, not surprisingly, far more harsh: "The publication of this set of experiments will serve no one well. Parapsychology is not honoured by having this paper as its representative in a mainstream psychology journal. Neither does it serve the public well, for it only adds to confusion about the scientific case for the existence of psi. And it does no service to the reputation of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology."

[Gaylenwoof]

Here is a quote from the NPR article that gives a good idea of the types of experiments:

In one of Bem's studies, 100 college students were shown a list of 48 common nouns flashed on a computer, one at a time, for three seconds each. The instructions said: Look at the word, try to visualize it (see "tree;" imagine "tree") and then go on to the next word.
Afterward, they were told, Surprise! We're going to give you a quick memory quiz. How many of the words we just showed you can you recall?
Students typed in the words they remembered.
Then a computer went through the same list of words and chose 24 — totally randomly; no human was involved.
Before you leave, the students were told, we still want you to scan and then type the words the computer selected. As they typed, the students were, of course, committing those randomly selected words to memory.
...
Now comes the surprise. When Dr. Bem checked the original surprise recall test, a weird pattern emerged. He noticed the students for some reason turned out to be better at recalling the words they had scanned and retyped after the test.
A second group of 24 words served as a control. The computer never asked students to retype them. Those words weren't recalled as often.
Then Bem drops his bomb: "The results show that practicing a set of words after the recall test does, in fact, reach back in time to facilitate the recall of those words."

[Gaylenwoof]

My own answers to these questions:

1) Generally speaking, do you think precognition is possible? No, but I try to keep an open mind.

2) Do you think Bem's experimental procedures are valid for detecting precognition? Yes, I think the general method is good, although Bem's actual experiments had a couple of problems.

3) If other experimenters following this procedure are able to confirm Bem's results, do you think you would believe in the reality of precognition? Some sort of psi phenomena seems to be required, but I'm not sold on "precognition" as such. Maybe perception of closely parallel time-lines?

4) If experimental evidence for precognition turns out to be strong, what effect (if any) do you think this would have on your philosophical and/or religious views? In other words, would the experimental confirmation of precognition tend to support the philosophical/religious views that you already have, or would you have to "go back to the drawing board" and re-think your views about certain things? I see a variety of extremely good reasons to believe in indeterminism (and possibly free will), so just straight precognition (implying that the future "already exists") seems highly unlikely to me, and if proven, would force me to re-think some things in a radical way. I do think that certain general outlines for the future might exist (a sort of "temporal momentum") so maybe something like this could explain the data?

5) Are you willing to speculate on possible theories about the nature of mind and matter that might explain precognition? Yes, but not at the moment. Maybe in a day or two.