The Girl With X-Ray Eyes

[Touring Mars]

Wondered if anyone had any views about last night's 'Bodyshock', called 'The Girl With X-Ray Eyes'... about a 17 y.o. Russian girl who claims to be able to diagnose illness by 'looking inside' the bodies of her 'patients'. She has a large and devoted following, including many folk who claim that her (early) diagnosis of their illnesses, previously missed by doctors, have ultimately saved their lives...

Unlike many people who claim to have such 'paranormal' abilities, this girl was keen to allow scientists/skeptics put her to the test, demonstrating that she seemingly genuinely believed in her own ability. Although she did not 'pass' the tests, the programme raised important issues regarding the testing of such phenomena, and how skeptical investigators can appear to be fair in their selection of testing methods and criteria for what constitutes a 'positive' result...

Any thoughts...?

 

[G.T]

Yeah I saw this last night. The last test the scientists done to her was amazing really. She got 4 out of 7 questions right so thats 1 in 50. I don't really know weather it's luck or she really has phycic powers.

Honestly I think she was under too much pressure in that test so she couldn't concerntrate properly. Anyone agree?

 

[Touring Mars]

Yeah I saw this last night. The last test the scientists done to her was amazing really. She got 4 out of 7 questions right so thats 1 in 50. I don't really know weather it's luck or she really has phycic powers.

Honestly I think she was under too much pressure in that test so she couldn't concerntrate properly. Anyone agree?

I would have been impressed with 4/7 if she had also not been told what the illnesses were... basically all she had to do was to match a person to an ailment... still, 4/7 appears to be more than blind luck, but therefore the test should have been repeated several times... 1 in 50 people picked off the street at random could have got that result too...

She certainly was under more pressure than normal, but the object of the test was to elucidate the origin of her ability/skill, if indeed she has one... she demonstrated that she is far more successful/confident/quick when she was able to interact (i.e. receive feedback, either visually or verbally) from her subjects... when this source of information was removed, her 'skill' basically boils down to pure guesswork.. in other words, it seems that her accuracy depends alot on how her information is perceived by the patient, and also how much information they provide her while she is doing the exam...

Still, for me, the important thing to remember is that she subjected herself to scrutiny at all... something that most so-called psychics will never do (the reasons being obvious)...

 

[G.T]

You're right there that they should have done the test several times. I learnt at school that experiments should be done at least 3 times to make sure the first one isn't false.

Well American scientists may not be convinced but the Russians and I are. Sounds like you are as well Touring Mars.

 

[Anderton Prime]

She got 4 out of 7 questions right so thats 1 in 50. I don't really know weather it's luck or she really has phycic powers.

How exactly does 4/7 = 1/50? It's more like 20/50 I would say. Maybe I don't know what I'm talking about, but please explain your logic!

 

[G.T]

How exactly does 4/7 = 1/50? It's more like 20/50 I would say. Maybe I don't know what I'm talking about, but please explain your logic!

It said in the programme...

 

[LoudMusic]

If I had X-Ray vision I sure wouldn't be looking for illness ...

 

[G.T]

If I had X-Ray vision I sure wouldn't be looking for illness ...

I know what you mean...

 

[Touring Mars]

How exactly does 4/7 = 1/50? It's more like 20/50 I would say. Maybe I don't know what I'm talking about, but please explain your logic!

The programme stated that the statistical probability of matching 4 ailments correctly out of a possible 7, were 1 in 50... most people seem to think that the chances of doing this are actually much lower than 1 in 50 (or 2%), since (1/7) * (1/6) * (1/5) * (1/4) is (1/840) But infact the way to calculate the 'real' odds of this are much more complicated and is known as the matching problem (apparently)... you have to take into account the total number of possible correct matches for a given system... for 4 matches in a system with 7 possible matches, the chances are approx. 1 in 50, not 1/840. The 'pass' rate (set by the testers) was 5/7, which has odds of 1 in 250...

Even though she failed, she still managed to pull off something that appears quite remarkable, whichever way you look at it, since even 50-1 odds are quite long, but I don't believe she is for real... I think that the fact that she is less able to guess correctly if the feedback she receives is restricted, is a clear demonstration of the fact that her 'insight' into these people is nothing magical at all...

 

[G.T]

The programme stated that the statistical probability of matching 4 ailments correctly out of a possible 7, were 1 in 50... most people seem to think that the chances of doing this are actually much lower than 1 in 50 (or 2%), since (1/7) * (1/6) * (1/5) * (1/4) is (1/840) But infact the way to calculate the 'real' odds of this are much more complicated and is known as the matching problem (apparently)... you have to take into account the total number of possible correct matches for a given system... for 4 matches in a system with 7 possible matches, the chances are approx. 1 in 50, not 1/840. The 'pass' rate (set by the testers) was 5/7, which has odds of 1 in 250...

Even though she failed, she still managed to pull off something that appears quite remarkable, whichever way you look at it, since even 50-1 odds are quite long, but I don't believe she is for real... I think that the fact that she is less able to guess correctly if the feedback she receives is restricted, is a clear demonstration of the fact that her 'insight' into these people is nothing magical at all...

Thanks for explaning the odds.