Users in this case were probably wrong; this is a straightforward article about the replication crisis, not a story about ESP.

Unfortunately, the title is so bad that the thread is swamped with people who'd rather discuss ESP.

A better title, synthesized from the last graf of the introduction, might be "Daryl Bem, ESP, and the Replication Crisis".

I agree completely but IMO the topic is still too triggery for HN to discuss it without losing it, and a title change may not be enough. We can send the submitter a repost invite, though, with a different title, and see if starting from scratch would help.

Would it be a good idea for people to have to state a short rationale for flagging? Just clicking a flag button is too cheap . . . I've even done it accidentally a number of times.

It's a toggle, so you can unflag submissions.

When this topic flipped to [flagged] yesterday the top comment thread was the one about racism/sexism. That may have influenced it.