Talk:N'kisi

It should probably be noted that the telepathy references that keep popping up in this article are not acts of vandalism but indeed show up in the source articles. I put this here in case the next person looking for obvious vandalism thinks to look here before editing the article to remove what appears to be obvious vandalism. -- Strangelv 20:14, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

NPOV
Another, opposite issue here is that several recent edits have removed all mention of skepticism on the part of the scientific community. While I found this story very interesting, and I hope to see further studies on why N'kisi was so successful at "mind reading", the fact is that scientists see these kinds of stories all the time, and they almost often turn out to be a situation where variables were not properly controlled or where deliberate fraud was involved. I'll be the first here to say that some of the mainstream researchers who piled on this one were simply vituperative and mean-spirited, but there are many other cooler heads in the scientific community who understand the difference between skepticism and blind rejection. Their voices must also be heard. Denni  talk 19:56, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

yes, sorry, but surely this article is more than a little biased. there is very little mention of the proper reasons why linguists and psychologists are skeptical of the parrots abilities, and then the very brief mention that IS there is followed immediately by a subtle weasle sentence to the effect of "these critics are just being difficult (i mean, apparently they have no actual reasons for being critical), and are ignoring the vast (apparently all valid) research..."

im not a psychologist or linguist and so don't want to be the one to edit it... but i think that someone really should...

The article's final phrase (as it exists 15 January 2007), "and scientists are now beginning to recognize the intelligence of parrots", is clearly biased with an implication that parrots have intelligence (specifically, human-type intelligence) and that the community of scientists is trending towards agreement on this point, even if as a group they have not yet reached that point. Evidence is not supplied to support the notion that there is a trend within the scientific community towards agreement on the existence of human-type intelligence in parrots.


 * It is your interpretation that this statement implies "human-type" intelligence. As for general levels of intelligence in animals, the jury is still out in the scientific community. I believe there is, at this time, a general consensus that dolphins and the great apes exhibit notable levels of intelligence, and that pigs and dogs are not far behind. My own feeling is that brain size is not the entire story, or elephants and blue whales would be the masters of the universe. I believe the anecdotal evidence for intelligence in parrots requires far more study, which is singularly lacking at present. Denni talk 00:29, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

I have just removed a comment (which I accidentally noted as vandalism because I used the wrong Twinkle too - apologies for that) that made a non-neutral claim about the parrot's supposed telepathic abilities - that the results of tests were "statistically very far beyond the coincidental." I also think that the phrase "and scientists are now beginning to recognize the intelligence of parrots" should be reworded - as it stands, it is stating the conclusion (that parrots possess intelligence) as a premise (ie the premise is that they do and the only undecided factor is whether scientists recognise it), but I haven't thought of a better rewording Oscroft (talk) 07:59, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

I have changed the assertion "The researchers who conducted the study found the results to be statistically significant indication of ability", because the use of "found" means that they were actually statistically significant. All that we can factually say, from a NPOV, is that the researchers *claimed* the results to be statistically significant. Oscroft (talk) 13:19, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Parrot linguistics
N'kisi seems to be conjugating verbs, which would refute Chomsky's claim that these parrots are simply conditioned. Ironically this also suggests an argument in support of Chomskyan theories regarding language acquisition capabilities developed by evolution. Do you know of more information about N'kisi's linguistic ability? 75.75.151.180 22:03, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

==

What constitutes a reliable source? Several articles from Discovery.com talk about anecdotes and experiments on animal intelligence, but do not cite sources. Check out: http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2006/06/30/animalintelligence_ani.html?category=earth&guid=20060630160030 Any thoughts? Thanks. V 24.222.117.35 20:28, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

==

Link for those of you to a BBC News website story of this curious little animal: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3430481.stm

http://www.sheldrake.org/nkisi
 * That's funny, I was just about to put that link there too. Here's another. M rug  2  16:11, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Page move
Unless there's something else notable called N'Kisi, there's no need for the qualifier "(parrot)". I'm moving this article back to N'Kisi. --The Fat Man Who Never Came Back 06:07, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

BBC story retracted
At, which used to link link to a story about N'kisi and is used as a source here, there is now a different story with a note at the bottom reading: "Note: This story about animal communication has replaced an earlier one on this page which contained factual inaccuracies we were unable to correct. As a result, the original story is no longer in our archive. It is still visible elsewhere, via the link below..." Not sure exactly how it should be handled, just wanted to point that out. Recury 14:11, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Oh dear. I reckon it was the "telepathy" rubbish. --LiamE 14:35, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't know, half a sentence doesn't strike me as particularly uncorrectable. Recury 18:44, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

That Last Sentence
The source provided for "scientists are now beginning to recognize the intelligence of parrots" doesn't seem to exist anymore. --Bozwaldo (talk) 02:49, 2 June 2009 (UTC)