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Natasha Demkina (Наталья Демкина), called "The Girl with X-ray Eyes," is a teenage alleged medical psychic from Saransk, Russia. Demkina claims to possess a special vision that allows her to look inside human bodies and see organs and tissues, and thereby make medical diagnoses. Believers of her power claim these diagnoses are often more accurate than those of doctors. She has demonstrated her readings on television shows in the United Kingdom and, more recently, in a documentary for the Discovery Channel titled "The Girl with X-Ray Eyes". After the latter demonstration, researchers rejected the likelihood of her having such an ability.

The CSMMH-CSICOP test

On May 1, 2004, she was tested under partially controlled conditions at the City College of New York, in New York City. This 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 The Skeptical Inquirer and in several online reports by the researchers. The parameters and conclusions of the test have been criticized by believers of paranormal abilities, and the prior bias of the research team has been questioned.

The test was designed and conducted by Ray Hyman, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology at the University of Oregon; Richard Wiseman, Ph.D.; and Andrew Skolnick, M.S., a medical journalist and executive director of the Center for Inquiry's Commission for Scientific Medicine and Mental Health (CSMMH). Hyman and Wiseman are research fellows of Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), have extensive experience in testing people who claim to possess paranormal powers. Their work in this field has drawn much criticism from paranormal invesigators and the subjects they study. Skolnick was an associate editor for the Journal of the American Medical Association for more than nine years.

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 skull; a removed appendix; an artificial hip; a removed section of the left lung; a removed portion of the esophagus; and metal surgical staples in the chest. All these conditions are visible by radiology. 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.

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.

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).

Natasha's hits and misses

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 false negative and three false positive "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.

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.

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.

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 cold reading technique that is widely used by psychics, astrologers, and other fortune tellers -- with the help of the selection bias 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 "Clever Hans effect"), the researchers reported.

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.

Criticism of the test

Controversy regarding the appendectomy subject

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 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.

Errors in the Discovery Channel program

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.

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 written test rules, 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."

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

External links

Category:

Paranormal phenomena