Robert Lyle Morris (July 9, 1942, in

Canonsburg, Pennsylvania Canonsburg is a Borough (Pennsylvania), borough in Washington County, Pennsylvania, southwest of Pittsburgh. Canonsburg was laid out by Colonel John Canon in 1789 and incorporated in 1802. The population was 9,735 at the 2020 census. The town li ...

– August 12, 2004, in

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...

, Scotland) was an American

psychologist A psychologist is a professional who practices psychology and studies mental states, perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and social processes and behavior. Their work often involves the experimentation, observation, and interpretation of how indi ...

, parapsychologist and professor at the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 15 ...

, where he was the first holder of the Koestler Chair of Parapsychology at the

Koestler Parapsychology Unit The Koestler Parapsychology Unit is a research group established in 1985 at the University of Edinburgh, in Scotland, to teach and conduct research concerning various aspects of parapsychology. It hosts the only endowed chair of parapsychology in ...

Education

Morris received his doctorate from

Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...

Career and research

Morris was Koestler Professor of Parapsychology from December 1985 until his death in August 2004. Morris was also known to have cooperated with the skeptic group

Committee for Skeptical Inquiry The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI), formerly known as the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), is a program within the US non-profit organization Center for Inquiry (CFI), which seeks to "prom ...

. Morris co-wrote the book ''Guidelines for Testing Psychic Claimants'' (1995) with Wiseman, published by Prometheus Books. Morris once commented in the ''

New Scientist ''New Scientist'' is a magazine covering all aspects of science and technology. Based in London, it publishes weekly English-language editions in the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia. An editorially separate organisation publishe ...

'' that "parapsychology is still a collection of half-baked explanations in search of phenomena to explain."Michael W. Friedlander. (1998). ''At the Fringes of Science''. Westview Press. p. 118.

Richard Wiseman Richard J. Wiseman (born 17 September 1966) is a Professor of the Public Understanding of Psychology at the University of Hertfordshire in the United Kingdom. He has written several psychology books. He has given keynote addresses to The Royal ...

completed his PhD in psychology under the supervision of Morris in 1992.

Publications

*''Some New Techniques in Animal Psi Research''. Journal of Parapsychology 31 (December 1967). *''Obtaining Non-Random Entry Points: A Complex Psi Process''. In ''Parapsychology Today''. Edited by

J. B. Rhine Joseph Banks Rhine (September 29, 1895 – February 20, 1980), usually known as J. B. Rhine, was an American botanist who founded parapsychology as a branch of psychology, founding the parapsychology lab at Duke University, the ''Journ ...

and R. Brier. New York: Citadel Press, 1968. *''The Psychobiology of Psi''. In ''Psychic Exploration''. Edited by E. D. Mitchell. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1974. *''Biology and Psychical Research''. Edited by Gertrude R. Schmeidler. In ''Parapsychology: Its Relation to Physics, Biology Psychology, and Psychiatry''. N.P. 1976. *''Parapsychology: A Biological Perspective''. Edited by Benjamin Wolman. In ''Handbook of Parapsychology''. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1977. *''Guidelines for Testing Psychic Claimants'' [with

]. Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1995.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Morris, Robert L. 1942 births 2004 deaths Academics of the University of Edinburgh 20th-century American psychologists Duke University alumni Parapsychologists