The article doesn't believe he did either: in fact, the whole premise of the story is the reality of ESP is a nonsense result. This is probably a case where the editors rewrote the title; it's mostly a story about how lack of rigor is sabotaging the social sciences.

If the article agreed with the title, I'd just say it's an uninformed article. In my opinion, the clickbait distinction requires the discrepancy.

The article itself is clearly not clickbait --- it's long-form (more than 5000 words) reported narrative journalism. It's an uncharacteristically deep piece for Slate.

That's why I said the title is clickbait.

Also, it's a misleading title. It has a false statement in it. The false statement is intended to get you to click something.

The quality of the article isn't relevant to my point. My point is just that people will click this link expecting a defense of ESP.

Oh, sorry! Yeah, we agree.

Or perhaps Bem believed there were problems with methodology and used ESP to demonstrate the problem. The title seems warranted given the nature of the attack on methodology.

Perhaps, but not in this case. He is a true believer.

Daryl did the science perfectly at a standard beyond what most studies do. Well beyond the accepted rigor and burden of proof, he demonstrated that ESP is real. Therefore, the accepted burden of proof is broken.

While you accuse the title of clickbaiting, you seem to agree entirely with it.

Interesting, can you elaborate or do you have a reference?

This is an entertaining explanation: http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2016/01/15/463237871/episo...