Anita Ikonen and James Underdown

If there’s one thing more frustrating than trying to get paranormal claimants to prove their abilities, it’s getting them to admit they failed after flunking a legitimate test.

Such is the case of Anita Ikonen, a Swedish student in North Carolina who claimed to be able to see or feel her way into a person’s body and tell if that person is missing an organ or not. The Independent Investigations Group (IIG) at the Center for Inquiry-Los Angeles has been in contact with Anita for over two years trying to get a handle on what she claims to be able to do, and how she might be tested.

After much communication, Anita and the IIG agreed on a demonstration protocol where she would be presented with 3 different groups of 6 people. In each group of six, one person would be missing a kidney and Anita would have to determine which person that was, and choose which kidney was missing. Anita agreed that she’d have to get all three choices correct in order to succeed and move on to try for the IIG’s $50,000 Paranormal Prize.

(It should be noted that setting up this demonstration is probably one of the most elaborate efforts ever to give a claimant an opportunity to show her stuff. We had to find, house, feed, and entertain 18-20 volunteers (4 of whom were missing kidneys – preferably right kidneys), secure a very expensive ultrasound machine (and a technician to run it), videotape and live stream the entire proceedings – all while monitoring a claimant who may or may not be trying to burn us out of $50,000. If Anita hadn’t flown herself to L.A. and sent a $750 deposit to cover our out-of-pocket expenses, all this would not have happened. IIG members Jim Newman and Steve Muscarella shouldered the bulk of this effort, with big kudos to Spencer Marks and several other IIG investigators.)

Anita flew to Los Angeles, and attempted to demonstrate her ability on Saturday, November 21st, 2009. That afternoon, she reconfirmed that our demonstration protocol was perfect, and told us that her ability to perform was intact. Just to make sure, we brought out a man before we began the demonstration whom we identified as missing a left kidney. Anita quickly (remember that) verified that she could see that his kidney was absent.

It was time for her to show her ability.

All things being equal, the odds to accurately pick all three missing kidneys were 1728 to 1. The probability equation for the 3 groups of six people (12 possible kidneys per group to choose from) looks like this:

(1/12) x (1/12) x (1/12) = 1/1728

These odds were a lot easier than what she’d have to beat if she were testing for the $50,000. But this was only a demonstration, so we gave her a fighting chance – something like hitting two numbers in a row on a roulette wheel – not impossible by luck alone, but not easily won either.

Anita looks for missing kidneys

So how did she do? She failed. Unequivocally she failed the demonstration.

(See the whole test here: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/vision-from-feeling-demonstration )

But even though she clearly failed the test, I have a problem. She got one right.

That’s a problem because instead of admitting that her alleged ability is disproved, she still thinks there is something special about herself and wants to set up another test. I’m sure she’ll convince others that she was at least somewhat successful too. That’s simply not true.

But wait. Is getting one right special? How extraordinary is such a feat?

Not a bit extraordinary! Let’s look at the odds.

The probability of her getting one of her 3 choices right is surprisingly high. Without getting into the statistical minutia about the odds, she had about a 1 in 4 chance (about 23%) of getting at least one choice right. Put in perspective, would you be amazed if someone asked you to guess a number from 1 to 4 and you got it right? Would that suggest paranormal ability? Hell no. It means nothing.

She had another advantage that helped her with the original odds. For certain medical reasons, most of the people by far who donate kidneys donate a left kidney. So a clear majority of the one-kidneyed people out there are missing their left kidney. Anita knew that before the demonstration.

So which kidney do you suppose she chose every time? The left! Every time.

Hmmm… sounds like someone was trying to shrink that 1728 to 1 down a bit. A smart gambler would bet left each time under the assumption that we could only find “lefties” for our test subjects. Had we been unaware of such a statistic, we might have accidentally shrunk her odds down to 216 to 1 – a far sight easier. (1/6) x (1/6) x (1/6) = 1/216

Score Sheet for Group #1

Her consistent choosing “left” at least suggests that she’s playing the numbers and not really looking into the bodies. It looks like someone using math skills over paranormal skills.

Here’s another bit of food for thought. After seeing the missing kidney immediately that we told her about, she took almost a half hour studying each of the six-person groups. These volunteers were asked to sit still and quietly in front of a small crowd under stage lights while Anita shuffled back and forth behind them making notes. One of our IIG members who was monitoring the volunteers as they sat noticed a bit of fidgeting. It turned out that two of the most active fidgeters were missing kidneys. Were the one-kidneyed subjects anxious about being discovered? Was Anita looking for outward signs that might distinguish bi-kidneyed from uni-kidneyed volunteers? Makes you wonder…

Yet another complication that convinced her that she did better than she actually did was that one of the choices she made was the right person, but the wrong kidney. Should we give her credit for getting close? Let’s put it this way:

Would you give your dentist credit for pulling a tooth close to the bad tooth?

Would you want Anita deciding which lung should be removed if one were diseased?

Would you want your airline pilot to be close to landing the plane safely?

Close is the distance between impressive and meaningless.

Anita Ikonen’s degree of accuracy is completely consistent with that of a guesser. If she really had this ability, you’d think her results would stand apart from what probability would predict. They do not.

Anita failed the test clear and simple. She was and is no closer to winning the IIG $50,000 Paranormal Challenge or James Randi’s $1 Million Challenge than anyone else. The skeptical community should spend no more time on her.

One last thought. We asked 9 audience members who observed the demonstration to guess which kidney they thought was missing in each group. Someone who signed a worksheet KB scored as highly as Anita did and got one right.

Let’s hope KB goes on with her life as if nothing happened – which is the truth.

See more about this test at: http://iigwest.org/anitaikonen.html