What the Results Mean

What do these results from Anita's test with the IIG actually mean? Here's a quick look inside the numbers.

Each trial had six people, one of whom was missing a kidney. Anita's job was to detect which person was missing a kidney and which one was missing. That means 12 possible kidney locations for 11 kidneys. If you start thinking about this in terms of individuals, you shouldn't. Think 12 slots and 11 kidneys, period. Anita knew exactly where each slot was and was to simply look for the presence of a kidney. This is something she could practice on every person she ever met.

The table below shows the chances for each possible outcome with three trials of 1 in 12 chance:

So, what Anita accomplished at the IIG test would be expected to happen about once every four times such a demonstration is conducted. Ever guessed two coin tosses in a row? Same thing. Well, almost the same thing - coins are not living, breathing creatures show might accidentally leak some information.The odds given above are for the worst case scenario for Anita. The reality is that being able to stare at people for 27 minutes bettered her odds to an incalculable degree.

But She Detected Two People Missing a Kidney!

Yeh, so? That wasn't the test. In each trial she was given 12 possible locations for 11 kidneys. If you think about it, her goal was to detect the locations of the 11 kidneys and by doing so "know" in what position was the missing kidney. Still, I'm sure you are wondering what the odds were of her picking two people with missing kidneys. She had a 7.35% chance, which is about 1 in 13.6, of guessing two people in three tries. Again, that's the worst case scenario.

Remember, she could see everyone for nearly half an hour. She got to move around behind them, and they could hear her moving above and could quite possibly see shadows. We cannot assume there was no information leakage one way or another. If we figure that she was able to eliminate two people per trial due to astute observational skills (who knows if she could?), then it's a 15.6% chance or 1 in 6.4.

Hedging Her Bets Hurt Her

Though I have not yet seen the forms she filled out, I know Anita hedged her bets. In the first trial she noted that she could not detect a kidney in two different people, both of whom had both kidneys. In a third person she detected a kidney, which was in fact not there. She was hoping, of course, that at least one of the two guesses was right.

What's fascinating is what happened when she was sharing this information with the audience. She seemed to believe that the actual target was one of the two she thought was missing a kidney. She was all prepared to show us how she really, really did detect it. It was her bad luck that neither of the two people she marked as missing a kidney was the target.

This one exchange pretty much tells the whole story about Anita's claims of accuracy in the past. She also guessed "left" three times, which is statistically the most likely kidney to be missing. Coincidence? I don't think so.

So, What's It Mean?

The meaning of these tests should be determined in advance. Anita refused to do that. She wanted to see what happened and find a way to spin it. The fact remains, however, that what she accomplished could be done by 1 in 4 people pulled off the street at random. Once again, every single time Anita has undergone some type of experiment with just rudimentary documentation, she has failed to perform beyond chance. I doubt that will mean much to her.

You know who impressed me? The lady running the sonogram machine. She examined a total of 8 locations for kidneys and did so with 100% accuracy. She had a 0.39% chance of guessing randomly, which is about 1 in 256. She totally blew Anita out of water, yet she only claims to be able to see down to a few millimeters while Anita claims to be able to see down to the atomic level. She also took a lot less time.