MORRIS, Robert (Lyle) 1942-2004

OBITUARY NOTICE—

See index for CA sketch: Born July 9, 1942, in Canonsburg, PA; died of a heart attack, August 12, 2004, in Edinburgh, Scotland. Psychologist, parapsychologist, educator, and author. Prominent in a field that typically gets little respect from other scientists, Morris was a highly regarded researcher of parapsychology and held the Koestler Chair of Parapsychology at Edinburgh University. With a B.S. from the University of Pittsburgh, where he graduated in 1963, and a Ph.D. in biological psychology from Duke University in 1969, Morris started off studying comparative psychology and did research in animal behavior. However, while still a doctoral student, he started to get interested in parapsychology and worked part-time at the Foundation for Research on the Nature of Man, located in Durham, North Carolina. He subsequently became research coordinator at the Psychical Research Foundation before moving west to join the University of California faculty at Santa Barbara in 1974. Here, Morris taught conventional courses in psychology, complemented by classes in parapsychology; then, from 1978 to 1980, he taught at the University of California at Irvine in the School of Social Sciences. During the early 1980s, Morris was at Syracuse University as a senior research scientist in the School of Computer and Information Science. His solid background in psychology and his professional scientific methods gained him a respect among his colleagues that few others interested in parapsychology enjoyed. While never discounting the possibility for unusual interactions between the human mind and other minds or the physical world, Morris believed that good parapsychology involved a healthy dose of skepticism; he also helped the field gain credibility by applying his knowledge of other scientific disciplines. It was this approach that made him an ideal candidate to chair the parapsychology department at Edinburgh, the only such academic position in the United Kingdom. Morris served as Koestler Chair there until his untimely death. He was the coauthor of two books, including Guidelines for Testing Psychic Claimants (1995), coedited the annual Research in Parapsychology, and edited the "Perspectives in Psychical Research" series published by the Ayer Co.

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Independent (London, England), September 9, 2004, p. 43.

ONLINE

Parapsychology Foundation,http://www.parapsychology.org/ (September 10, 2004).