Natasha Demkina, a young girl living in Saransk, Russia, began to receive a lot of media attention around the middle of last month. It started with an article in Pravda, which hailed her as the 'Girl with X-ray vision'. You see, Natasha possesses the unusual ability to peer through human flesh and spot diseases and injuries that are lurking unseen within people's bodies. Or, at least, this is what Pravda claimed. It didn't take long for more newspapers to catch onto the story. The British Sun has been the most relentless about pursuing it. They've actually flown Natasha to London and are now parading her around like some kind of weird curiosity. Does Natasha really have x-ray eyes? Well, I doubt it. But I'm sure The Sun is going to milk this for all it's worth.
Comments
"All we know about Natasha comes from the media, there's no serious 'scientific' interest on her. As I wrote, it's just too silly. Even the CSICOP-CSMMH test was conducted because a TV show asked for it, and from all I know this is responsible for much of its problems."
And:
"And this is much more than such a silly, stupid, illogical, contradictory, irresponsible nonsense deserved."
The great problem in all this attitude is that Natasha is not claiming to bend metal rods (like Uri Geller). She is claiming to be able to diagnose clinical problems inside people, and she is acting indeed as such (maybe successfully so, or maybe not). If she is consciously and deliberately engaged in fraude, then this attitude from Mori (and from Skolnick, Hyman, and Wiseman as well, because they too have been treating Natasha as a dishonest person, or at best as a deluded person) is harmless and fair. If Natasha, instead, is indeed a super paranormal (even though not able to perform well in tests designed by Skolnick...), then this attitude from the skeptics is not fair, but again it is almost harmless; because after the test, Natasha would just resume her usual successful readings. However, if Natasha is indeed honest, and perhaps she is just deluded or perhaps she indeed has some mild paranormal power (weak and erratic), then we really have a most serious problem in this skeptics' attitude; because, first, they are making her justifiedly reject skeptics, and, second, they are failing to educate her about the limits of her power.
Now, I just had some brief email exchange with Dr. Barrie Cassileth, who recuited four of the subjets to CSICOP's test with Natasha. Skolnick said recently, in his "forbidden letters" to the Wikipedia mediator Keith, that Dr. Cassileth told the researchers that Natasha and her mother and her agent and her friend indeed saw some of the subjects before the test outside the building. Further, they said something like "These must be the subjects", in Russian, and one of the subjects happened to know Russian and understood what they said (unfortunatelly, Skolnick does not present this information in his article; that is, not all of it...). I checked it out with Dr. Cassileth. She confirmed the veridicality of Skolnick's report. Now, of course this is very interesting and relevant information, especially because, as I told Skolnick (and friends...) more than a year ago, Natasha's agent said in an email to Richard Wiseman that they did not see anyone... This being true (that is, Dr. Cassileth's report, and I truly believe it is), the next important piece of information to get in this line of investigation is: did the woman with the artificial hip joint display any abnormality in the way she walked? Did the woman with the resected upper third of a lung breathe abnormally in any recognizable way?
The most curious thing in my email exchange with Dr. Cassileth, though, is her own attitude towards this whole issue. Yes, I greatly thank her for going out of her way to answer my emails, especially because she is engaged in a most serious and priceless activity (treating and helping those with cancer - I lost both my mother and my mother in law to cancer, in 2001 and this year). But she, too, thinks (it seems) that this issue is only silly and illogical... I tried, in my last email to her, to call her attention to the fact that Natasha may be doing harm to people, and that is the main reason why we all should care for this. It is strange that a doctor engaged in such a terrifying field of work (cancer treatment) does not realize the relevance of it... I can say the same about Skolnick.
Deplorable, to say the least.
Julio Siqueira
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LOL!
I'd also like to know what those seven "unrelated" orangish "cards" were on the table in front of Natasha from the photo Julio posted. Parking tickets for validation? Fanmail from some flounder?
Signed,
"Archie the Troll"
You meathead.
LOL!
:coolsmirk:
This surely has to be about Archangel:
From a Wiki poster in response to some comment by Skolnick:
"In any case, it seems to me there is a point where the ramblings of (someone you see as) an anonymous online troll on (what you seem to think is a website of poor refute) should cease to worry you. I hope for your sake you never reach a higher level of fame, because you will be very, very busy fretting over the negative words of others. It would rather seem to me in the realm of parapsychology or counter-parapsychology that those sorts of attacks from (what you presumably see as) the nutjob fringe would be part and parcel of the territory.
(I feel compelled to justify the above paragraph as an attempt to relate to Mr. Skolnick's perspective in order to make my point. It is clear that he does not hold Mr. Siqueira, the Museum of Hoaxes, or Natasha Demkina's supporters in high regard.)"
I have to agree with the hope that you never reach a higher level of fame. You can't handle the fame.
Arf, arf...
LOL!
(I get such a kick out of you, Skol-boy...😉
Then Skolnick comes in and contributes absolutely nothing but his venom and vitriol - as usual - nothing but insults, misleading remarks and useless commentary from the master
Skolnick really loves me 😊
See what I found by him from just six days ago...
At the http://www.amazon.com site, his "review" of the book from Victor Stenger "Has Science Found God?":
"Take deceptive review with grain of salt"
"Well, I just want to warn the possible readers of this book of some problems with some of the 'information' that" the reviewer Julio Siqueira posted. Siqueira falsely identified himself as a microbiologist. He is not. He's a grade school English teacher in Brazil. Although he says he has a master's degree in clinical bacteriology, he admits that he's never held a job in any field of science. On other web sies, he identifies himself as a "antiskeptic activist," and that certainly is more truthful. He uses the Internet to personally attack and to try to discredit leading skeptics of the paranormal. Readers should weigh his comments against the reviews provided here by others. "
Curious points to raise in Skolnick's "book review":
1- Deceptively qualifies my meticulous and hard studied book review as a "deceptive review"...
2- It is not a book review, and it goes against amazon guidelines for it (just like his lunatic behaviour at Wikipedia)
3- He did not read Stenger's book (nor would he have any expertice in evaluating it for that matter...); yet, he gave it "four stars out of five"... (what an apple polisher!).
4- He does not discuss simply ANY of the content of my critical review, and insists on attacks to my MA...
5- He mispelled the word "site"... (shame, shame, shame,...)
6- He did all that prior to Christmas Eve... So our porcupine is not only a porcupine, but a lonely and sad one too :down:
What can we do in such a situation? I recommend that we love him with all the strength of our hearts, for this man is clearly at the verge of a mental collapse (after his utter defeat at the two Wikipedia entries: Natasha Demkina and Commission for Scientific Medicine and Mental Health).
Bye to all,
Julio Siqueira
Link to Skolnick's "review":
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1591020182/qid=1135892329/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/002-5500728-3371208?s=books&v=glance&n=283155
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:down:
I really would love to discuss with you the content of Stenger's book, even though I do think that it was much much more important the fact that I did discuss the content of this book with Stenger himself BEFORE I published my book review. If, by any chance, you have just any piece of information (no matter how microscopic 😊) that might counter the arguments that I have presented there, your contribution will be most valuable.
(You keep behaving like a phoney MS...)
Julio Siqueira
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Amazon-Review-Guidelines
<u>What to Include:</u>
Your review should focus on the book's content and context.
<u>What Not to Include:</u>
Commenting on other reviews visible on the page.
Profanity, obscenities, or spiteful remarks.
Skolnick breaks three different rules on amazon.com! Following in his own footsteps when he broke the rules on Wikipedia!
Skolnick's "review" is simply a personal attack that defames Julio Siqueira and has nothing to do with a book review!
Skolnick, have you completely lost your mind?
Was this girl shown to be in error regarding how she described her abilities and the extent of accuracy to which she claimed? Absolutely. She claimed to be more accurate than a physician, 100% accurate, and see at the cellular level. This is not the case. Period. She agreed to the circumstances of the testing, hence she did not have great concern (that she voiced in any case) that she would fail, regardless of the circumstances. She was wrong.
Okay, that being said. She did have a 1 in 50 chance of getting correct what she did get correct. When you add to this a change in circumstances for her, plus her past history of accuracy in many instances, you have to ask a sincere question. If this were any other experiment, would such a statistically improbable result not determine that future inquiry would be valuable? Of course it would! The fact is that she DID demonstrate some substantial ability. She did NOT demonstrate ability to the extent that she claimed.
Were the experimenters unfair? No, not unfair, since she agreed to the terms. At 17 (trust me, as a high school educator), kids are not idiots. However, the experiments did NOT in ANY way prove that this girl had NO ability. In fact, they proved she had substantial ability, if below what she had professed, and they continue to prove this until further study is done.
Why is this an all-or-nothing topic?
For myself, I'm a self-disgusted psychic. I say this because I've experienced totally unexplained psychic experiences that can be supported by others and that do not fall under any of the traditional "models" by which psychics are self-deluded. I've experienced psychic experiences that would only be considered by investigators to be purposeful fraud/cheating, because otherwise they would have to prove that psychic ability exists. I don't care either way.
The fact is that my abilities are something I have totally no control over. I don't claim to control them, and I don't claim that they are there when I need them or that they are always there. I know for a fact that this is possible, and the knowledge is totally useless to me except that I am aware of it.
So, in my humble opinion, the girl probably has significant ability. Her ability is not as perfect as she claims or thinks, however, and she has fallen into the trap of "guessing" when she doesn't truly know, rather than admit that she is clueless on that occasion. If all psychics were truly honest about how elusive their skills can be, we might be able to have a more honest and friendly discourse on the topic as a whole.
Again, it seems, the pseudo-skeptic element have usurped skepticism in order to make proclamations which are simply not true.
Why, when it was evidently NOT the case,was it published that the girl had 'notmal' vision, when nothing of the sort was either measured, recorded or replicated? Why do these people do it? Are they deliberetly being dishonest? The more I look into organised skeptic movement, the more I see this sort of thing replicated. I am reminded of Randi's treatment of the Lulova girl, )who even passed his prepared controls - he just ramped the 'controls' by sticking duct tape over her face ( adults in the room raised concern over her ability to breath) until the girl became upset and started crying). I am reminded of sTarbaby incident ( http://lucianarchy.proboards21.com/index.cgi?board=scepticism&action=display&thread=1097085655 ) when CSICOP founder Rawlins was forced to not present data he had uncovered which supported a hypothesis CSICOP were trying to dubunk. I now see this fellow skolnick resorting to personal attacks against people insead of admitting it was wrong for the publication of 'the girl with normal vision' to go ahead and remain unchallenged or retracted. Why? All this sort of thing does is misinform people. Why would anyone want to do that? Let's be sceptical, but above all, let's be honest.
good luck to you! i can tell yuo from personal experience that they will not discuss anything with you at all, they will, however, play games of sophistry, wave 'lists' and demand you answer them, attack you personaly,and failing that, they will simply ban you on whatever trumped up charge they can muster! they do not do 'dicsussion'. i think you know quite well by now that you are dealing with fanatics, dogmatics and zealots, NOT sceptics. but as i say, good luck to you and best wishes anyway.
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=29251
Anarchy was repeatedly warned not to violate copyright law by posting entire copyrighted articles and he was repeatedly warned not to post obscenities. He kept breaking those rules and he was eventually kicked off.
It's obvious why he's chosen the screen name "Lucianarchy."
That's the only honest part of his entire tirade -- as you can see for yourselves:
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=29251
Good to see more people around here. I took a brief look at the posts above, and I think we have many good comments in these recent messages. For those who do not know it, I have some texts online analyzing the issue. The main link is below:
http://geocities.yahoo.com.br/criticandokardec/criticizingskepticism.htm
And the main link for the "researchers' " point of view is below:
http://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/natasha.html
Best Regards,
Julio Siqueira
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"As Admin. I posted a proactive cautionary comment to both askolnick and Julio Siqueira, neither of which so far have been judged to be in breach of their Membership Agreement. To state that either of them (at this point) has broken their Membership Agreement is incorrect."
http://206.225.95.123/forumlive/showpost.php?p=1372121&postcount=536
Judy, Judy, Judy, why do you lie, lie lie?
"And now some concluding comments. The fact that Wiseman's main reaction to the critique of his work on my web pages was to suggest that, since it has not been refereed, it "does not carry much weight", may suggest to some (a) that there is little he can find to say in defence of his position, and (b) the name of the game is indeed propaganda (action directed primarily at putting the other side in a bad light), as opposed to proper science. Admittedly, these web pages here are also propaganda, but I hope that the science and the logic are sounder.
In an email, Wiseman explained that he thought it important that the public should understand about peer-review. I equally think (as noted) that it is important that people understand CSICOP better. Seeing how Wiseman chooses to respond to my critique may help them do this.
Notice the comment "I don't see how you could argue there's something wrong with having to get five out of seven when she agrees with the target in advance." I have already indicated on the web page what is wrong with this, thus: 'real science does not work on a basis of getting someone to sign their agreement to a long list of conditions, then later coming back saying "this is what you signed; the challenge goes to us!" '. How pleasant just to be able to ignore such arguments, on the basis of an assertion to the effect that the web page they were brought up on had not been subjected to peer-review!" http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~bdj10/
Well, no, actually. The experimental protocol, to which Natasha and her agent had been asked to agree, rather curiously states:
"If Natasha correctly matches fewer than 5 target medical conditions, then the Test Proctor will declare that results are more consistent with chance guessing and does not support any belief in her claimed abilities."
Accordingly, it was announced that Natasha had 'failed the test'. In the article about the programme in the Guardian, Richard Wiseman, one of the investigators, emphasised this conclusion, declaring "a failure is a failure".
(added November 11th., 2004) The investigators' own account is now available on the web: observe that the 50 to 1 statistic does not feature anywhere in it. The fact that "everyone [had] agreed to the written protocols" (including the above italicised condition) is given as sufficient justification for asserting "[the] test, as preliminary as it was, will likely close the chapter in this case". I think not: real science does not work on a basis of getting someone to sign their agreement to a long list of conditions, then later coming back saying "this is what you signed; the challenge goes to us!". http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~bdj10/propaganda/
A warning was clearly given to you by the JREF moderator with more
Posting from far far away...
Skolnick said:
"What professional credentials? I never attacked Siqueira's professional credentials. As far as I know, he's an excellent elementary school English teacher. You never, ever speak the truth."
Archangel, Skolnick repeatedly said lies and offenses about my professional credentials (here, at Wikipedia, at Amazon.com and at JREF). Even though he now admits that I am a good English teacher (in his own words, an "excellent" one) after I pointed out several of his incredibly silly mistakes in the English language at James Randi's forum (that would be acceptable to anyone but to those that claim to be journalists...; so far as we have been able to attest, Skolnick is only a supreb photographer and nothing more than that, which is a nice and honest thing to be), he still keeps saying lies and offenses regarding my other professional credentials, that is, my professional specialization as a biologist and as a clinical bacteriologist.
Believe it or not, he didn't even know (ex-JAMA-associate-editor...) that every clinical bacteriologist is a microbiologist, and that every microbiologist is a biologist, so he expressed his "amazement" at the fact that I call myself a biologist and a microbiologist and a clinical bacteriologist. The man thought these three categories belonged to three different graduation courses (Mama Mia)!!!
Perhaps we should start to be just a little more understanding towards Skolnick, because it seems that not all of his offenses come out of malice, but rather out of ignorance.
And he has shown us some wonders that we must cherish. Like the extremely rare phenomenon (rarest than comet Halley's appearance) of a top skeptic being reprimended at James Randi's forum... That one goes to the History of the Gretest Fiascos of the Skeptic Movement.
Thank you so very much, MS Skolnick, for Making Our Days Simply Unforgettable.
😊 😊 😊 😊
Julio Siqueira
P.S.: use your Magister Scientiae to teach Troll Larsen about molecules that will grow.
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For example, you keep referring to your "professional" credentials as a "biologist" and "clinical bacteriologist." If you had a clue what these words mean, I doubt you would utter them -- unless of course if you're a totally shameless liar.
"Professional" describes activities that are done to make money or earn a living, as opposed to "amateur" activities. You have no "professional" standing in science. You've never held a job in any field of science.
You claim to have some academic credentials in science. If true, that's not a professional credential. I think we all know insurance agents or businessmen who earned a masters degree in subjects like English Poetry or French History. Unlike you, they don't lie about their profession. They don't claim to be professional poets or historians. They have something you don't: Honesty.
I am so tempted to leave you with your mistaken identity identification, which is another in a long line of them. It would be fascinating to see if you started treating Lumiere on Wikipedia as if he were me. With your lack of emotional control, I can only imagine the escalating arguments you would engage in over there.
Your analytical skills are just pathetic. Stick to insults and misleading remarks, at least you have some talent with those.
You
Definitely not me, Skolupine! Wrong again! How does he do it, folks?
Skolnick not only is a failure in his understanding of the meaning of English words. Topmost, he seems to be a man that never fought for the job positions that he got. He does not understand how the real professional world works. He is the boy in the bubble. Most likelly, he always got all his professional positions as free gifts from relatives and friends. And I bet is is quite a big apple polisher: very brave when afar and when above, but totally submissive when below...
Julio Siqueira
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Hello Darat,
I have been refraining from reading Skolnick's posts for obvious reasons; therefore, only some minutes ago did I come to see the following piece, followed by your swift reply:
"Siqueira likes to attack and abuse people. Let's say that sometime in the future, he abuses his children. And just imagine that in some deranged state he puts his bad fingers on them. No, I do not believe that Siqueira would do such a terrible deed. But people sometimes surprises us. Both for the good, and for the bad (and what Siquieria did at the Museum of Hoaxes and Wikipedia sites was very inappropriate, to put it mildly)."
askolnick - please read your Membership Agreement you are in danger of doing nothing more then continuing a personal feud you have with another Member.
When we are brutally hit by the unthinkable, it is recomforting to see that we are indeed in a serious forum with rationally balanced moderators, where at least the family of the forum members will not be offended without due corrective measures.
Thank you enormously.
Julio Siqueira
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i am sure skolnick is proud of the sort of 'skeptics' he has run to.
i just wrote this on another forum i am involved with, and it made me think about the similarities in pseudo-skepticism, ranging from clear inherent bias flaws with randi's challenge, to personal attack (skolnick) and internet terrorism (claus Larsen), when you genuinely have to fear for the personal safety of loved ones.
about the jref 1m$ challenge "[...]adjudication and arbitration has be be present throughout the whole process of the challenge - from application onwards, the test comes alongway down the line. and the fact that not even one single test has gone ahead supports the bias hypothesis about impartiality at the early stages of the challenge.
and it is to the jref's shame that no one with any psi proof will take the challenge seriously, as all it does is raise serious, rational doubts about the agenda of some professional skeptics.
don't get me wrong, and i've said it before, randi is the greatest show man ever. the greatest. but he is no true skeptic and imo only damages the public perception of skepticism in general. in the long run, which is worse, i believe such coa*se skepticism actually hinders the true progression of science, rather than advance it. and that is a shame."
http://badpsychic.proboards53.com/index.cgi?board=OtherPsychics&action=display&thread=1133368546&page=12
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------------BREAKING NEWS---------------
Skolnick got expelled from http://www.amazon.com. His phoney book review can be found no more in the link below:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1591020182/sr=1-1/qid=1137164932/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-5688544-4080651?%5Fencoding=UTF8
It has been sent to the trash area, where it belongs 😊:-):-)
Julio Siqueira
Dear Everybody,
In the James Randi forum (JREF), the member BillC has recently posted a piece of information that, to my eyes, seem like the first preliminar evidence of some sort of fraudulent conduct from the part of Natasha Demkina. He found a site which seems to be her official site in Russia, in the Russian language. There, they detail her claims, and indeed say that she has many special powers of vision, including cellular level vision, the ability to see biochemical processes and physiological ones, etc. This is particularly suspicious (to me - IMHO) especially because these extended and detailed powers WERE NOT mentioned by the Discovery Channel producer (Monica Garnsey) to the researchers back in the beginning of 2004 (when they were designing the test). The impression that I got is that, to a more demanding audience (i.e. the Discovery Channel personnel), Natasha made her claims more "humble"...
These things have to be checked with care. But I cannot help saying that the impression that I got from this report was not a good one.
Best Regards,
Julio Siqueira
_________________
For more than a year, he's been accusing me of lying about Natasha's claims. Just look through this forum and see how many times he called me a liar for saying that we know what Natasha claims to be able to do.
Now, he happears to be backtracking. Could there be hope that Siqueira is turning from the Dark Side?
Nope. He just got a serioius group ass-kicking over on the JREF forum about this lie and his other mendacious conduct. So he's now pretending that Natasha only recently began claim that she can on the cellular and molecular level. The Everlying Bunny just keeps going, and going, and going...
As all the records show, he was told the truth well over a year ago, but he didn't accept it because it didn't fit his dishonest agenda, which is to discredit skeptical investigators.
Siqueira, if you keep posting your dishonest nonsense on the JREF forum, they will make Everlying Bunny stew out of you. Your main tactic is to wear out a skeptic with your inexhaustable willingness to post lie after lie. On the JREF forum, there are many skeptics who are willing to share the duty of exposing your outrageous deceits. You're not going to like their stew pot.