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Randy
SFN Regular
USA
1990 Posts |
 Posted - 02/11/2007 : 21:24:44
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3430481.stm
An African Grey Parrot is at it again, with up to a 900 word vocabulary.
Maybe should put him in the White House.
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"We are all connected; to each other biologically, to the earth chemically, to the rest of the universe atomically."
"So you're made of detritus [from exploded stars]. Get over it. Or better yet, celebrate it. After all, what nobler thought can one cherish than that the universe lives within us all?"
-Neil DeGrasse Tyson |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 02/11/2007 : 22:05:24 [Permalink]
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Fascinating story, but there was no real information in the article on the "scientists" that are supposedly amazed by this bird. I wonder who is doing the "research" (if any), and how they are doing it.
I don't discount this stuff at all, but would like to see some actual evidence before I begin to count it.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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Randy
SFN Regular
USA
1990 Posts |
Posted - 02/11/2007 : 22:31:17 [Permalink]
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Running a Google search on the parrot's name brings in 40k hits. Should be something in there other than the little BBC half pager.
Here's one link that popped up, from the Skeptic's Dictionary....
http://skepdic.com/nkisi.html |
"We are all connected; to each other biologically, to the earth chemically, to the rest of the universe atomically."
"So you're made of detritus [from exploded stars]. Get over it. Or better yet, celebrate it. After all, what nobler thought can one cherish than that the universe lives within us all?"
-Neil DeGrasse Tyson |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 02/12/2007 : 00:38:54 [Permalink]
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Thanks, Randy! Most elucidating, indeed.
This part answered just about all my questions:quote:
However, sixty of the trials were discarded because in those trials N'kisi either was silent or uttered things that were not key words, i.e., showed no signs of telepathy. A few other trials were discarded because the transcribers did not agree on what N'kisi said. In short, Sheldrake's statistical conclusions are based on the results of 71 of the trials. I'll let the reader decide whether it was proper to omit 40% of the data because the parrot didn't utter a word on the key word list during those trials. Some might argue that those sessions should be counted as misses and that by ignoring so much data where the parrot clearly did not indicate any sign of telepathy is strong evidence that Sheldrake was more interested in confirming his biases than in getting at the truth.
When you throw out all the data you don't like, you've also thrown out science.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
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Topic Locked
