Committee for Skeptical Inquiry

[Barry Karr <SkeptInq@aol.com>]

Psychic Parrot

The Monday, February 12, 2001, edition of USA Today featured a story on page
9D about a Congo African gray parrot named N'kisi. The parrot's owner, Aimee
Morgana, and British parapsychologist Rupert Sheldrake both claim that the
bird is demonstrating psychic abilities.

According to the USA Today article, Morgana first suspected N'kisi's alleged
abilities while she was admiring an "explicit" picture in the Village Voice
personal ads. From the cage across the room, N'kisi crowed "Oh, look at the
pretty naked body." This incident led her to believe that there was
something much more unusual about the parrot than its mere appreciation of
the human form.

Morgana, a 42-year-old production designer who lives in Manhattan, read
Sheldrake's 1999 book, Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home and
Other Unexplained Powers of Animals, which convinced her to contact the
author about her talented pet.

As a result, Sheldrake collaborated with Morgana in a "double-blind" test of
N'kisi. The British researcher's web site (www.sheldrake.org)
has a special "N'kisi Project" section devoted to this investigation,
described as "... a series of controlled experiments and ongoing
research in interspecies communication and telepathy, conducted by
Aimee Morgana and her language-using parrot. With the collaboration
and support of Dr. Rupert Sheldrake."

On the web site Sheldrake states that "The experiments were conducted at
N'kisi's home over 6 weeks, and consisted of Aimee looking at photographs
depicting items from N'kisi's unedited keyword vocabulary that had been
prepared, sealed in envelopes, and randomized by a third party. This was
filmed as it took place in an enclosed room on a different floor, with no
possible line of sight for any 'cueing', while a separate time-synchronized
camera automatically filmed N'kisi in her cage to record her [vocal]
reactions."

A total of 78 images were viewed in 26 test sessions. Sheldrake claims
"hits" ("vocalization of target keywords or accurate descriptive phrases")
for 32 images in these sessions. The other of images elicited "few" misses,
which Sheldrake distinguishes from "no scorable response." Sheldrake also
states that there were "[c]omments omitted in editing these segments for
time [that] consisted of attempts at contact and other mundane remarks
irrelevant for scoring purposes." Both in the USA Today article and on his
site Sheldrake is cited making the assertion that the probability is one in
a BILLION of their results were due to chance.

I have inquired about obtaining a video of these trials (preferably
unedited) or a transcript. We are eagerly anticipating a response.

The USA Today story was disappointing, even disturbing. It was an uncritical
and unbalanced report on Rupert Sheldrake's claims about psychic abilities
in pets. The article states that Sheldrake's work "has been met with
skepticism among some scientists" (italics mine). This statement leads
CSICOP to wonder exactly which scientists comprise the assumed majority
actually convinced by Sheldrake's claims.
Totally lacking in the article is any recognition that mainstream scientists
aren't merely disputing Sheldrake's results because they're controversial.
The fact is that other researchers can't seem to replicate them.
Conspicuously absent from the story was Sheldrake's previous psychic pet
research-namely, his 1994 experiments in England videotaping the behavior of
a terrier named "Jaytee" for Austrian television. He concluded that the dog
could sense when his owner was coming home through a psychic "connection."
Specifically, Sheldrake speculated that animals are guided by "morphic
fields" and telepathic influences from their owners.
However, Richard Wiseman, Senior Research Fellow in psychology at the
University of Hertfordshire in England, tried to reproduce Sheldrake's
results by setting up his own videotaped trials of Jaytee. Wiseman, whose
findings were published in the British Journal of Psychology (1998), failed
to find any evidence that Jaytee had an extrasensory ability to predict his
owner's return.
Contary to the rhetoric floating around, the field of parapsychology is
getting a fair hearing from psychologists like Richard Wiseman and Susan
Blackmore in England, and Ray Hyman in the United States. The fact is that
despite the hype this field of research continually fails to produce
reliable, repeatable results.
I've sent a letter to the editors of USA Today stressing these points and
hope they'll see fit to publish it.

Kevin Christopher
Public Relations Director, Skeptical Inquirer
kchristopher@centerforinquiry.net



Best Kept Secrets

University of Pittsburgh Physics Instructor, David Willey writes to tell us
that he will be featured on the Learning Channel Program "Best Kept Secrets"
(see schedule below).The show was taped here at CSICOP headquarters and will
feature amazing demonstrations and firewalking. For more information on these
demonstrations see the CSICOP website articles:

http://www.csicop.org/si/9911/willey.html
http://www.csicop.org/genx/firewalk/index.html

"Best Kept Secrets of the Paranormal," will air on The Learning
Channel (TLC) on the following dates:

Sunday, 2/18 at 10:00 PM
Monday, 2/19 at 1:00 AM
Saturday, 2/24 at 7:00 PM

Realize that these dates and times can change, but these dates reflect the
latest schedule from TLC.