Home > Investigating Skeptics > The Demkina File
The Case of the Girl with X-Ray Eyes
On 14th February 2005, the UK television Channel 4 broadcast a programme entitled
The Girl With X-Ray Eyes.
The programme related the examination by CSICOP scientists of the 17 year-old Russian clairvoyant, Natasha Demkina.
Claims had been made that Natasha was able to diagnose the medical condition of her patients simply by observing them. The examination was conducted by the well-known media skeptics, Ray Hyman and Richard Wiseman. After a series of somewhat perfunctory tests the scientists announced that Demkina's claims were negated.
The result was a flood of adverse comment. The conditions under which the tests were conducted and the criterion of failure applied by CSICOP have been severely criticised.
What was intended to be a victory for dogmatic skepticism has turned into something else. Here we present some of the criticism levelled at the investigators.
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