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			{{short description\|Russian woman\|bot=PearBOT 5}}
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	'''Natasha Demkina''' (Наталья Демкина), called "The Girl with X-ray Eyes," is a teenage, alleged medical ] from ], ]. Demkina claims to possess a special vision that allows her to look inside of peoples' bodies and make medical diagnoses that her supporters claim are often more accurate than those of doctors. She has demonstrated her readings on television shows in the ] and, more recently, in a ] program broadcast in Europe, Asia, and the United States.
			{{Infobox person
			\| name = Natasha Demkina
			\| native_name = Ната́лья Никола́евна Де́мкина
			\| image =
			\| alt =
			\| caption =
			\| birth_name = Natalya Nikolayevna Demkina
			\| birth_date = {{birth year and age\|1987}}
			\| birth_place = ], ], Russia, USSR
			\| death_date =
			\| death_place =
			\| nationality = Russian
			\| other_names =
			\| occupation = Alleged medical marvel
			\| years_active =
			\| known_for =
			\| notable_works =
			}}
			'''Natalya''' "'''Natasha'''" '''Nikolayevna Demkina''' ({{langx\|ru\|Ната́лья Никола́евна Де́мкина}}; born 1987) is a Russian woman who claims to possess a special vision that allows her to look inside human bodies and see organs and tissues, and thereby make medical ]. Since the age of ten, she has performed readings in Russia. She is widely known by the ] of her given name, ''Natasha''.
			In 2004 she appeared on television shows in the ], on the ] and in Japan. Since 2004 Demkina has been a full-time student of the ], ]. Since January 2006, Demkina has worked for the Center of Special Diagnostics of the Natalya Demkina (TSSD), whose stated purpose is to diagnose and treat illness in cooperation with "experts possessing unusual abilities, folk healers and professionals of traditional medicine".<ref name="NDWeb1">{{cite web\|title=Special Diagnostic Center of Natalya Demkina \|url=http://demkina.ru/ \|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071224182520/http://www.demkina.ru/ \|archive-date=24 December 2007 \|url-status=dead }}</ref> Many experts are skeptical of her claims.

			== History ==
	On ], ], she was tested under partially ] at the City College of New York, in ]. Based on the outcome of the test and aditional observations, the researchers concluded that she failed to demonstrate evidence that she can see ] and ] inside a human body. The test was documented in the Discovery Channel program, "The Girl with X-ray Eyes," and is described in two reports in the May/June 2005 issue of ] and in several online reports by the researchers. It has also been strongly criticized online by Nobel laureate Brian Josephson and other defenders of ] research.
			According to her mother, Tatyana Vladimovna, Demkina was a fast learner, but was otherwise a normal child until she was ten years old, at which time her ability began to manifest itself.<ref name="Discovery" />

			:"I was at home with my mother and suddenly I had a vision. I could see inside my mother's body and I started telling her about the organs I could see. Now, I have to switch from my regular vision to what I call medical vision. For a fraction of a second, I see a colorful picture inside the person and then I start to analyze it." says Demkina<ref name="Guardian">'']'', 25 September 2004, </ref>
	== The CSMMH-CSICOP test==
	The test was designed and conducted by ], ]., Professor of ] at the ]; ], ], Professor of Psychology at the ], in the United Kingdom; and ,], a medical journalist and executive director of the Center for Inquiry's (CSMMH). Hyman and Wiseman are research fellows of ] (CSICOP), have extensive experience in testing people who claim to possess ] powers. Their work in this field has drawn much criticism from ] invesigators and the subjects they study. Skolnick was an associate editor for the '']'' for more than nine years.

			After describing her mother's internal organs to her, Demkina's story began to spread by word of mouth among the local population and people began gathering outside her door seeking medical consultations. Her story was picked up by a local newspaper in spring 2003 and a local television station followed suit in November that year. This led to interest from a British tabloid newspaper which invited her to give demonstrations in London, as well as further invitations from groups in New York and Tokyo.<ref name="NDWeb1" /><ref name="Discovery" />
	The rules for the preliminary testing and interpretation of the outcome were agreed upon by the researchers, Natasha Demkina, her mother, and her agent. According to the researchers, the test was designed to be easy for someone with the abilities Demkina reportedly possesses. For the test, Demkina was given six test cards , each of which described a different target medical condition. She was given the cards one at a time so she only had to look for one target condition at a time. The conditions included a large metal plate covering a missing section of ]; a removed ]; an artificial ]; a removed section of the left ]; a removed portion of the ]; and metal surgical staples in the chest. All these conditions are visible by ]. Her task then was to examine seven volunteer subjects and match the six previously confirmed medical conditions to the subject who had the condition. One subject, a control subject, had none of the target medical conditions.

			=== Russia ===
	Although Demkina normally takes about 10 minutes to provide her clients with a complete medical reading from head to toe, she took one hour just to find (correctly) the subject who is missing a large part of her left lung. Despite being told exactly what to look for and where in the body to look, she took more than three additional hours to match the remaining five target conditions.
			After stories about Demkina had begun to spread, doctors at a children's hospital in her home town asked her to perform a number of tasks to see if her abilities were genuine. Demkina is reported to have drawn a picture of what she saw inside a doctor's stomach, marking where he had an ]. She also disagreed with the diagnosis of a cancer patient, saying all she could see was a small ].<ref name="NDWeb1" /><ref name="Discovery" />

			=== United Kingdom ===
	The CSMMH-CSICOP test was a preliminary exam. According to the written protocols of the test, for the results to warrant further study, Demkina, her mother, her agent, and the researchers, agreed that she would have to get five or more correct matches. She only matched four correctly, thereby failing the test according to the agreed-upon rules. Although the odds of blindly guessing four or more matches correctly are approximately one in fifty, Demkina had not been guessing blindly, the researchers say. Demkina would not agree to a blinded study with the subjects behind a fabric screen, despite her claim to be able to see through clothing fabric. As a result, she was able to study the subjects for more than four hours, during which she had the opportunity to pick up many clues about their health problems just using her normal eyes and ears. The subjects wore sunglasses with opaque tape on the lenses so they would not know when Demkina was looking at them and accidentally give hints through unintentional eye movements or pupil dilations. Demkina was also not allowed to see them move when she wanted them to stand or sit, and had to turn her back while they complied so she could not look for irregularities that might give things away like which subject had the artificial hip (see the section below for one exception). To further guard against the subjects unintentionally giving things away, the subjects were not told which condition she was looking for each time (see the section below for one exception).
			In January 2004, British tabloid newspaper '']'' brought Demkina to England. She gave a number of demonstrations and her diagnoses were then compared to professional medical diagnosis. A Discovery Channel documentary on Demkina mentions reports of Demkina having successfully identified all the ] and ] in a woman who had recently been a victim in a car crash. '']'' reported that she impressed the host of daytime television program ] by spotting that she had a sore ankle during an interview.<ref name ="Guardian" /><ref name ="skolnick" />

			Initially, Demkina's demonstrations were well received. However, after she had left the United Kingdom, it emerged that she had made errors among her diagnoses. In one incident she told television-physician ] that he was suffering from a number of medical conditions, including ], an ailment of the ], and an enlarged ] and ]. Later medical evaluation determined that he was in good health and was not suffering from any of the ailments she had identified.<ref name="NDWeb1" /><ref name="Discovery" /><ref name="Guardian" />
	==Natasha's hits and misses==

			=== New York City ===
	Demkina's mother claimed that her daughter never made an incorrect diagnoses in the thousands of readings she has provided people. However, during the test, Demkina made three ] and three ] "diagnoses." Her most dramatic failure was her inability to "see" the large metal plate in a subject's forehead that could easily be felt and even seen upon close examination. Instead, she indicated that the metal plate and missing skull section was in a subject, who had a normal skull, but was missing his appendix, which she also failed to see.
			In May 2004 she was brought to ] by the ] to appear on a documentary titled ''The Girl with X-Ray Eyes'',<ref name="Discovery">The Discovery Channel, 2004, ; ''The Girl with X-Ray Eyes'', </ref> and to be tested by skeptical researchers from the ] (CSI) under partially controlled conditions.

			As a demonstration for the documentary, Demkina was shown wearing her vision-hat and giving diagnoses to people who had previously given descriptions of their specific medical conditions. Most of the people given these readings felt that Demkina had accurately identified their conditions. The researchers, however, were not similarly impressed. CSI researcher ] said, "When I saw her do her usual readings, I couldn't believe the discrepancy between what I was hearing and how impressed the individuals were... I thought they were going to walk away saying it was embarrassing, but time and again, they said it was amazing. Before each reading, I asked the people what was the main medical problem and Natasha never got one of those right". Wiseman compared the belief of people in Demkina's diagnoses to the belief of people in fortune tellers, and said that people focus only on those portions of Demkina's comments that they believe.<ref name ="Guardian" />
	Despite the measures taken to guard against Demkina basing her determinations on criteria other than her alleged supernatural vision, there is reason to believe that several of her correct and incorrect answers might have been gleaned through wholly natural vision:
	* Demkina correctly identified the first subject, who was missing part of a lung. During the first trial, however, the previously agreed upon rules for the test were broken when a question she asked was interpreted in English in front of the subjects. When the subjects heard what she was looking for, the one with that condition may have made some form of involuntary movement that gave her away.
	* Demkina correctly identified the subject with the artificial hip. However, because of a misunderstanding, she was allowed to wait outside the testing site, where at least two of the subjects reported that she watched them arrive and climb a flight of stairs, the researchers noted. Such an observation may have revealed information that could have helped her identify the subject who has an artificial hip.
	* Demkina correctly identified the control subject. This subject was also the youngest and looked healthier than the other subjects. This may have helped Demkina to figure out that he was the subject who had none of the conditions she was looking for.
	* Demkina correctly identified the subject who has surgical staples in his chest. This subject was the oldest, looked less healthy than the other subjects, and was male. These factors may have helped Demkina to figure out that he was likely to have had open heart surgery.
	* Demkina incorrectly identified the subject with a metal plate in his head. She chose the only subject who was wearing a hat. She may have assumed that he was using the hat to cover a scar or other visual clue. That subject, however, had a intact skull. He was one of the two subjects who has no appendix.

			Then CSI researchers ], Richard Wiseman, and ] conducted their test of Demkina. In the test, Demkina was asked to correctly match six specified anatomical anomalies to seven volunteer subjects.<ref name="skolnick" /><ref name ="hyman-SI">Hyman R, '']'', May 2005, </ref> The cases in question included six specified anatomical anomalies resulting from surgery and one "normal" control subject. The researchers said that, because of limitation in time and resources, the preliminary test was designed to look only for a strongly demonstrated ability.<ref name ="hyman-SI" /> The researchers explained that while evidence of a weak or erratic ability may be of theoretical interest, it would be useless for providing medical diagnoses. In addition, the researchers said that the influence of non-paranormal observations could not be ruled out under the lax conditions of the test.<ref name ="hyman-SI" /> Demkina and the investigators had agreed that in order to warrant further testing, she needed to correctly match at least five of the seven conditions.<ref name ="hyman-SI" /> In the 4-hour-long test, Demkina correctly matched conditions to four volunteers, including the control subject. The researchers concluded that she had not demonstrated evidence of an ability that would warrant their further study.<ref name="skolnick">Skolnick AA, '']'', May 2005, </ref><ref name="hyman">Hyman R, ] (CSICOP), </ref>
	As reported by Skolnick, Demkina offered him a medical reading following the test, which was both incorrect and likely were guesses based on normal, non-paranormal observations :
	* She said that he had phlegm in his bronchial tubes, which were causing a cough. What she did not know was that the loud coughing spasm she had heard earlier resulted when he accidentally inhaled some water while drinking.
	* She said his vertebrae were too close together. She might have based this on his poor posture due to tired and sore shoulders from carrying heavy bags earler that day.
	* Demkina also said he has headaches caused by narrow blood vessels in his neck. Earlier that day, Skolnick told the translator that he had a headache, which may have been passed on to Natasha. The headache, he reported, was the result of stress and inadequate sleep and is not a recurrent problem caused by narrow blood vessels in his neck.
	* Demkina failed to see nasal polyps, a narrow pharynx that is causing sleep apnea, signs of recent colon surgery, or any of his other confirmed medical conditions.
	These diagnoses were not part of the official test, so her failure to correctly diagnose the researcher was not counted against her in the test results.

			Subsequently, the design and conclusions of this experiment were subjects of considerable dispute between Demkina's supporters and those of the investigators.
	The CSMMH-CSICOP researchers concluded that they saw no evidence of an ability that would warrant further study. They propose that the "success" of Demkina's readings should be attributed to use of the ] technique that is widely used by ]s, ]s, and other ] -- with the help of the ] of believers. She also appears to be helped by external clues from the person she is reading, including clues that are subtle and unintentional (see the "]"), the researchers reported.

			=== Demkina's criticism ===
	Natasha Demkina and her supporters have rejected the researchers' conclusion and are accusing them of having changed the rules at the last minute and of deliberately setting her up to fail. They also claim that Demkina was not allowed to ask questions during the test, that her mother was barred from the test room to cause her stress, and that the researchers had unethically raised the test bar. Those allegations are not supported by the facts, the researchers say.
			After completing experiments in New York, Demkina made several complaints in regard to the conditions under which they were conducted, and about the way in which she and her diagnoses were treated. She argued that she had required more time to see a metal plate in one subject's skull, that surgical scars interfered with her ability to see the resected ] in another, and that she had been presented with two study subjects who had undergone abdominal procedure, but that she had only one abdominal condition on her list of potential diagnoses, leaving her confused as to which one matched the listed condition.

			Later, she also complained that she could not see that one volunteer had had their appendix removed because she said appendixes sometimes grow back. She said she was not able to compare her own diagnosis to an independent medical diagnosis after key experiments had been conducted, preventing her from being able to see if she was diagnosing genuine conditions that were unknown to those conducting the experiments, and which were thus being listed against her in the overall results despite them being valid (due to this complaint, all volunteers in subsequent experiments, in Tokyo, were required to bring medical certificates with them before diagnosis).
	==Criticism of the test==

			In response to these complaints, the research team stated that Demkina should have been able to find the plate without extrasensory abilities, because its outline could be seen beneath the subject's scalp, and questioned why the presence of scar tissue in a subject's throat had not alerted her to them having an esophagal condition. Additionally, they noted that it remains clinically impossible for an appendix to spontaneously regrow.<ref name="NDWeb1" /><ref name="Discovery" /><ref name="skolnick" />
	===Controversy regarding the appendectomy subject===

			==== Brian Josephson's criticism ====
	Critics point to the appendectomy subject in particular when trying to invalidate the study. They claim that the subject she chose also had an abdominal scar, so her determination should be counted as correct rather than incorrect. However, she was not asked to look for a scar, the researchers reported. She was asked to look for a subject with no appendix, and had been given a diagram (see links below) and a description so she knew what to look for and where to look. This may be where critics of the study got the idea the Demkina chose correctly, just not the subject the researchers had been expecting. Demkina did not, however, choose either of the two subjects who in fact had appendectomies. Some critics argue that this might have been very confusing to her if she saw two people with the same intestine features and concluded that that pattern did not indicate a removed appendix. However, that would not explain why she wrongly reported seeing a missing appendix in a subject who still had hers. At the beginning of the test, Demkina protested that she could have trouble identifying the subject with a removed appendix, because, she said, post-operative scars can be confusing to her. She also said that an appendix can grow back after it is surgically removed. When told that an appendix cannot grow back, Demkina insisted that appendixes sometimes do grow back in Russia. Curiously, Demkina herself had had an appendectomy at age 10, soon before her ability allegedly appeared. She says she had to have another operation to remove swabs that were left inside her during the appendectomy. Her own experience may have contributed to her misconception regarding appendix regrowth, or may be completely unrelated. Demkina also complained that scar tissue could block her view of the missing appendix. However, however, Skolnick told her, that should be no problem because, if she had the ability she claims, she easily would be able to see the appendixes in the people who still have theirs, since they would have no scar tissue. Eliminating those who have an appendix would reveal one who has none, scars or no scars. Nevertheless, her supporters claim that the researchers unfairly ignored her protest about the test's target conditions.
			In a self-published commentary regarding the New York testing performed by the ] (CSICOP) and CSMMH, Nobel prize winning physicist and parapsychology supporter ] criticized the test and evaluation methods used by Hyman and questioned the researchers' motives, leveling the accusation that the experiment had the appearance of being "some kind of plot to discredit the teenage claimed psychic".

			Stating that the results should have been deemed "inconclusive", Josephson argued the odds of Demkina achieving four matches out of seven by chance alone were 1 in 50, or 2% – making her success rate a statistically significant result. He also argued that Hyman used a ] that was statistically unjustifiable because it greatly increased the risk of the experiment falsely recording a moderate correlation as being no correlation.<ref name="josephson">
	In regards to another one of her misses, Demkina says she should have looked more carefully and deeply to see the subject's missing skull section and large metal plate. However, she had studied the seven subjects for over four hours and the metal plate in the subject's forehead was just beneath the skin. It is so shallow that it can be easily felt by running a finger over his skin.
			{{cite web \|last = Josephson \|first = Brian \|author-link = Brian Josephson \|title = Scientists' unethical use of media for propaganda purposes \|url = http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/%7Ebdj10/propaganda/ \|access-date=2006-08-31 }}</ref><ref name="thes">{{cite web \|url=http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/%7Ebdj10/propaganda/THES1.html \|title=Scientists fail to see eye to eye over girl's 'X-ray vision' \|author-link=Phil Baty \|publisher=] \|date=2004-12-10 }}</ref>

			Hyman responded that the high benchmark used in the testing was necessary due to the higher levels of statistical significance which he says is necessary when testing paranormal claims,<ref name="hyman" /><ref name="hyman2">
	===Errors in the Discovery Channel program===
			{{cite web \|last = Hyman \|first = Ray \|author-link = Ray Hyman \|title = Statistics and the Test of Natasha \|date =2005-06-07 \|publisher = CSICOP \|url=http://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/show/statistics_and_the_test_of_natasha/ \|access-date=2010-02-05}}</ref> and that a high Bayes factor was necessary to compensate for the fact that "Demkina was not blindly guessing", but instead "had a great number of ] that could have helped increase her number of correct matches".<ref>Commission for Scientific Medicine and Mental Health (CSMMH), </ref>

			Bayes factors are used to compensate for variables that cannot be calculated through conventional statistics;<ref name="bayesian">] </ref><ref>{{cite web \|url=http://www.abelard.org/briefings/bayes.htm#testing_for_rare_conditions \|title = Cause, Chance and Bayesian Statistics: A Briefing Document \|access-date =2006-09-11 }}</ref> in this case, the variable created by the visual clues that Demkina might gather from observing a subject.<ref name="hyman2" /> The Bayes factors used by Hyman were calculated by professors ] and ] of the Department of Statistics at ].<ref name="hyman2" /><ref name="hyman-stat-response">{{cite web \|last=Hyman \|first=Ray \|author-link=Ray Hyman \|title=Statistics of the Natasha test: response to concerns and questions \|publisher=Skeptical Inquirer \|year=2005 \|url=http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2843/is_5_29/ai_n15622949 \|access-date=2007-02-02}}</ref>
	Unfortunately, the Discovery Channel program is marred by a number of factual errors, which Discovery Channel has not corrected despite a written request from CSMMH. Although the Commission led the design of the test, neither the Commission nor its role is even mentioned. Instead, Skolnick, the Commission's executive director, is incorrectly identified as a "medical doctor," there only to answer medical questions. Skolnick is a medical journalist, not a medical doctor. Another error has led people to wrongly accuse the researchers of changing the rules at the last moment, to put stress on Demkina so that she would fail. The program's narrator claims that Demkina's mother was barred from the test room at the last moment. Although there was this initial confusion over whether her mother and young sister could remain in the test room, Skolnick clear it up. However, according to a statement by Demkina's agent, Will Stewart, the mother chose to wait outside the room with her 11-year-old daughter, where the child wouldn't have to sit still and remain quiet for four hours. According to the researchers, the narrator also mispoke when she said the researchers had reassured Demkina that the section of esophagus surgically removed from one subject was "substantial." They say they told Demkina that they did not know how much of the woman's esophagus was removed, and instructed her not to choose by the length of the esophagus, but to look instead for the resulting surgical scars, including the scar that completely circles the esophagus where the resected ends were surgically rejoined.

			=== Tokyo ===
	Perhaps the most troubling error is the program's repeated misrepresentation of the test as definitive rather than preliminary, the researchers note. For example, the narrator states, "Success has been set at five or more correct diagnoses out of seven with blind odds of one in 250. With such a result, the scientists would admit that Natasha had significant abilities." This statement violates one of the more important , which required that the audience be told that the test was only a preliminary examination to see if Demkina's claims warranted further study: "It is imperative that the Test Proctor be allowed to explain in the Discovery Channel program that the CSICOP-CSMMH test is not in any way a definitive test. It is too simple and brief to determine the truth of Natasha's claims with comfortable certainty."
			After visiting New York, Demkina traveled to ] (東京電機大学) in Japan, at the invitation of Professor ], who studies claims of unusual human abilities.<ref name="NDWeb1" />

			According to accounts on her personal website, after her experiences in London and New York, Demkina set several conditions for the tests, including that the subjects bring with them a medical certificate stating their health status, and that the diagnosis be restricted to a single specific part of the body – the head, the torso, or extremities – which she was to be informed of in advance.<ref name="NDWeb1" />
	==References==
	* Hyman, R. (2005) "Testing Natasha". ''The Skeptical Inquirer'' 29 (3),28-33
	* Skolnick, A. (2005) "Natasha Demkina: the girl with normal eyes". ''The Skeptical Inquirer'' 29 (3),34-37
	* (2004) "The Girl with X-ray Eyes". The Discovery Channel

			Demkina's website claims that she was able to see that one of the subjects had a ] knee, and that another had asymmetrically placed internal organs. She also claims to have detected the early stages of pregnancy in a female subject, and an undulating ] in another subject.<ref name="NDWeb1" />
	==See also==
	*]

			Machi also arranged for a test to take place in a veterinary clinic, where Demkina was asked to diagnose an anomaly in a dog. Natasha claims to have correctly identified that the dog had an artificial device in its back right leg after being specifically directed to look at the animal's paws.<ref name="NDWeb1" />
	==External links==

			The Tokyo test was reviewed by three Japanese experts: the occult critic Hajime Yuumu, the psychologist Hiroyuki Ishii, and the ] Society skeptic Hiroshi Yamamoto. The results of Dr. Machi's tests and a panel discussion by the three critics aired on ] on 12 May 2005. It is noted that Demkina refused to participate in any test where the patients stood behind a cloth screen, despite the cloth being see-through with x-rays in the same way skin is.<ref>{{cite web \|url=http://www.h5.dion.ne.jp/~hirorin/xlaygirl.htm \|archive-date=2006-05-07 \|title=２００５年５月１２日奇跡体験アンビリバボー \|website=h5.dion.ne.jp \|language=ja \|access-date=2017-05-09\|url-status=live \|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060507152400/http://www.h5.dion.ne.jp/~hirorin/xlaygirl.htm}}</ref>
	*

	*
			==References==
	*
			{{reflist}}
	*
	*
	*
	*
	*
	*
	*
	*
	*
	*
	*
	*

			== External links ==
	]
			* at ]
			* at ] Forum, 5 October 2005, retrieved 5 April 2013
			* at the website of the Association for Skeptical Investigations

			{{DEFAULTSORT:Demkina, Natasha}}
	]
			]
			]
			]
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Latest revision as of 22:37, 12 November 2024

Russian woman

Natasha Demkina
Ната́лья Никола́евна Де́мкина
Born	Natalya Nikolayevna Demkina 1987 (age 36–37) Saransk, Mordovia, Russia, USSR
Nationality	Russian
Occupation	Alleged medical marvel

Natalya "Natasha" Nikolayevna Demkina (Russian: Ната́лья Никола́евна Де́мкина; born 1987) is a Russian woman who claims to possess a special vision that allows her to look inside human bodies and see organs and tissues, and thereby make medical diagnoses. Since the age of ten, she has performed readings in Russia. She is widely known by the childhood variant of her given name, Natasha. In 2004 she appeared on television shows in the United Kingdom, on the Discovery Channel and in Japan. Since 2004 Demkina has been a full-time student of the Semashko State Stomatological University, Moscow. Since January 2006, Demkina has worked for the Center of Special Diagnostics of the Natalya Demkina (TSSD), whose stated purpose is to diagnose and treat illness in cooperation with "experts possessing unusual abilities, folk healers and professionals of traditional medicine". Many experts are skeptical of her claims.

History

According to her mother, Tatyana Vladimovna, Demkina was a fast learner, but was otherwise a normal child until she was ten years old, at which time her ability began to manifest itself.

"I was at home with my mother and suddenly I had a vision. I could see inside my mother's body and I started telling her about the organs I could see. Now, I have to switch from my regular vision to what I call medical vision. For a fraction of a second, I see a colorful picture inside the person and then I start to analyze it." says Demkina

After describing her mother's internal organs to her, Demkina's story began to spread by word of mouth among the local population and people began gathering outside her door seeking medical consultations. Her story was picked up by a local newspaper in spring 2003 and a local television station followed suit in November that year. This led to interest from a British tabloid newspaper which invited her to give demonstrations in London, as well as further invitations from groups in New York and Tokyo.

Russia

After stories about Demkina had begun to spread, doctors at a children's hospital in her home town asked her to perform a number of tasks to see if her abilities were genuine. Demkina is reported to have drawn a picture of what she saw inside a doctor's stomach, marking where he had an ulcer. She also disagreed with the diagnosis of a cancer patient, saying all she could see was a small cyst.

United Kingdom

In January 2004, British tabloid newspaper The Sun brought Demkina to England. She gave a number of demonstrations and her diagnoses were then compared to professional medical diagnosis. A Discovery Channel documentary on Demkina mentions reports of Demkina having successfully identified all the fractures and metal pins in a woman who had recently been a victim in a car crash. The Guardian reported that she impressed the host of daytime television program This Morning by spotting that she had a sore ankle during an interview.

Initially, Demkina's demonstrations were well received. However, after she had left the United Kingdom, it emerged that she had made errors among her diagnoses. In one incident she told television-physician Chris Steele that he was suffering from a number of medical conditions, including kidney stones, an ailment of the gall bladder, and an enlarged liver and pancreas. Later medical evaluation determined that he was in good health and was not suffering from any of the ailments she had identified.

New York City

In May 2004 she was brought to New York City by the Discovery Channel to appear on a documentary titled The Girl with X-Ray Eyes, and to be tested by skeptical researchers from the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI) under partially controlled conditions.

As a demonstration for the documentary, Demkina was shown wearing her vision-hat and giving diagnoses to people who had previously given descriptions of their specific medical conditions. Most of the people given these readings felt that Demkina had accurately identified their conditions. The researchers, however, were not similarly impressed. CSI researcher Richard Wiseman said, "When I saw her do her usual readings, I couldn't believe the discrepancy between what I was hearing and how impressed the individuals were... I thought they were going to walk away saying it was embarrassing, but time and again, they said it was amazing. Before each reading, I asked the people what was the main medical problem and Natasha never got one of those right". Wiseman compared the belief of people in Demkina's diagnoses to the belief of people in fortune tellers, and said that people focus only on those portions of Demkina's comments that they believe.

Then CSI researchers Ray Hyman, Richard Wiseman, and Andrew Skolnick conducted their test of Demkina. In the test, Demkina was asked to correctly match six specified anatomical anomalies to seven volunteer subjects. The cases in question included six specified anatomical anomalies resulting from surgery and one "normal" control subject. The researchers said that, because of limitation in time and resources, the preliminary test was designed to look only for a strongly demonstrated ability. The researchers explained that while evidence of a weak or erratic ability may be of theoretical interest, it would be useless for providing medical diagnoses. In addition, the researchers said that the influence of non-paranormal observations could not be ruled out under the lax conditions of the test. Demkina and the investigators had agreed that in order to warrant further testing, she needed to correctly match at least five of the seven conditions. In the 4-hour-long test, Demkina correctly matched conditions to four volunteers, including the control subject. The researchers concluded that she had not demonstrated evidence of an ability that would warrant their further study.

Subsequently, the design and conclusions of this experiment were subjects of considerable dispute between Demkina's supporters and those of the investigators.

Demkina's criticism

After completing experiments in New York, Demkina made several complaints in regard to the conditions under which they were conducted, and about the way in which she and her diagnoses were treated. She argued that she had required more time to see a metal plate in one subject's skull, that surgical scars interfered with her ability to see the resected esophagus in another, and that she had been presented with two study subjects who had undergone abdominal procedure, but that she had only one abdominal condition on her list of potential diagnoses, leaving her confused as to which one matched the listed condition.

Later, she also complained that she could not see that one volunteer had had their appendix removed because she said appendixes sometimes grow back. She said she was not able to compare her own diagnosis to an independent medical diagnosis after key experiments had been conducted, preventing her from being able to see if she was diagnosing genuine conditions that were unknown to those conducting the experiments, and which were thus being listed against her in the overall results despite them being valid (due to this complaint, all volunteers in subsequent experiments, in Tokyo, were required to bring medical certificates with them before diagnosis).

In response to these complaints, the research team stated that Demkina should have been able to find the plate without extrasensory abilities, because its outline could be seen beneath the subject's scalp, and questioned why the presence of scar tissue in a subject's throat had not alerted her to them having an esophagal condition. Additionally, they noted that it remains clinically impossible for an appendix to spontaneously regrow.

Brian Josephson's criticism

In a self-published commentary regarding the New York testing performed by the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP) and CSMMH, Nobel prize winning physicist and parapsychology supporter Brian Josephson criticized the test and evaluation methods used by Hyman and questioned the researchers' motives, leveling the accusation that the experiment had the appearance of being "some kind of plot to discredit the teenage claimed psychic".

Stating that the results should have been deemed "inconclusive", Josephson argued the odds of Demkina achieving four matches out of seven by chance alone were 1 in 50, or 2% – making her success rate a statistically significant result. He also argued that Hyman used a Bayes factor that was statistically unjustifiable because it greatly increased the risk of the experiment falsely recording a moderate correlation as being no correlation.

Hyman responded that the high benchmark used in the testing was necessary due to the higher levels of statistical significance which he says is necessary when testing paranormal claims, and that a high Bayes factor was necessary to compensate for the fact that "Demkina was not blindly guessing", but instead "had a great number of normal sensory clues that could have helped increase her number of correct matches".

Bayes factors are used to compensate for variables that cannot be calculated through conventional statistics; in this case, the variable created by the visual clues that Demkina might gather from observing a subject. The Bayes factors used by Hyman were calculated by professors Persi Diaconis and Susan Holmes of the Department of Statistics at Stanford University.

Tokyo

After visiting New York, Demkina traveled to Tokyo Electrical University (東京電機大学) in Japan, at the invitation of Professor Yoshio Machi, who studies claims of unusual human abilities.

According to accounts on her personal website, after her experiences in London and New York, Demkina set several conditions for the tests, including that the subjects bring with them a medical certificate stating their health status, and that the diagnosis be restricted to a single specific part of the body – the head, the torso, or extremities – which she was to be informed of in advance.

Demkina's website claims that she was able to see that one of the subjects had a prosthetic knee, and that another had asymmetrically placed internal organs. She also claims to have detected the early stages of pregnancy in a female subject, and an undulating spinal curvature in another subject.

Machi also arranged for a test to take place in a veterinary clinic, where Demkina was asked to diagnose an anomaly in a dog. Natasha claims to have correctly identified that the dog had an artificial device in its back right leg after being specifically directed to look at the animal's paws.

The Tokyo test was reviewed by three Japanese experts: the occult critic Hajime Yuumu, the psychologist Hiroyuki Ishii, and the Tondemo-bon Society skeptic Hiroshi Yamamoto. The results of Dr. Machi's tests and a panel discussion by the three critics aired on Fuji Television on 12 May 2005. It is noted that Demkina refused to participate in any test where the patients stood behind a cloth screen, despite the cloth being see-through with x-rays in the same way skin is.

References

^ "Special Diagnostic Center of Natalya Demkina". Archived from the original on 24 December 2007.
^ The Discovery Channel, 2004, discoverychannel.co.in; The Girl with X-Ray Eyes, (Wayback Machine)
^ The Guardian, 25 September 2004, "Visionary or fortune teller? Why scientists find diagnoses of 'x-ray' girl hard to stomach"
^ Skolnick AA, Skeptical Inquirer, May 2005, "Testing Natasha: The Girl with Normal Eyes"
^ Hyman R, Skeptical Inquirer, May 2005, "Testing Natasha"
^ Hyman R, Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), "Statistics and the Test of Natasha"
Josephson, Brian. "Scientists' unethical use of media for propaganda purposes". Retrieved 31 August 2006.
"Scientists fail to see eye to eye over girl's 'X-ray vision'". Times Higher Education Supplement. 10 December 2004.
^ Hyman, Ray (7 June 2005). "Statistics and the Test of Natasha". CSICOP. Retrieved 5 February 2010.
Commission for Scientific Medicine and Mental Health (CSMMH), "Answer to Critics"
Mathworld Bayesian Analysis
"Cause, Chance and Bayesian Statistics: A Briefing Document". Retrieved 11 September 2006.
Hyman, Ray (2005). "Statistics of the Natasha test: response to concerns and questions". Skeptical Inquirer. Retrieved 2 February 2007.
"２００５年５月１２日奇跡体験アンビリバボー". h5.dion.ne.jp (in Japanese). Archived from the original on 7 May 2006. Retrieved 9 May 2017.

External links

The Girl With X-Ray Eyes at Museum of Hoaxes
The Girl with "X-Ray" Vision at James Randi Educational Foundation Forum, 5 October 2005, retrieved 5 April 2013
The Demkina File at the website of the Association for Skeptical Investigations

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