If the mysterious claims that Natasha, a little Russian girl, has the extraordinary ability to see through the human body, prove to be well-founded, I'm afraid we shall have to rethink our approach to what we label "pseudo-science".
In any case, no sooner had she become an overnight celebrity than her house was bursting with visitors wanting her to examine them, using eyes which it was said could match the performance of an ultrasound scanner.
As a matter of fact, it was not the first time that children in the former Soviet Union have been discovered to possess the rare ability to see through solid objects. What made it different this time was that instead of being gagged to stop the pseudo-science from spreading, a series of tests was given to investigate the credibility of the claim.
People in their 40s and upwards may probably call to mind the news reports to the effect that somewhere in our country a girl had been found who was able to perceive things concealed from her using only her ears or skin. This far-fetched story at once aroused great interest nationwide, with a good number of scientists becoming mystified. When confronted with something beyond our reasoning, normally there are two options: one is to assign a team of scientists to look into it and, if possible, put the record straight, and the other is to put paid to the esoteric phenomenon by ascribing it to sheer lies.
Unfortunately, we opted for the latter. As a result, the discovery of something mysterious, which may possibly provide a new dimension to science, was smothered in the cradle.
Given the complexities of the human body, it is safe to conclude that there are certain grey areas that so far have baffled scientists in general, and in some realms scientists are still groping in the dark. After all, science is not yet omniscient in the present world.
It is now encouraging to see, however, that we have become far more tolerant of supernatural feats than we were decades ago.
We have seen on TV displays of miraculous masculine prowess. A man could swallow a dozen blades or shivers of broken glass without causing any damage to his stomach or intestines; another could pull a truck with his teeth, eyelid or even earlobe; a third person could smash concrete columns several centimetres thick with his bare arm; still another, standing on his head, rested his whole weight on merely two fingers, and so on.
That one's physique could be stretched to such a horrendous degree must be way beyond our comprehension. Yet all of these feats were nothing when compared with Natasha, who was said to have acquired this bizarre power after the removal of her appendix, and not through, as with those afore-mentioned, adhering to a strict regimen and long periods of severe training.
It is hoped, therefore, that we could practise the same tolerance if there should pop up a small girl elsewhere in our country claiming to possess the unique power of perceiving things hidden, say, in a safe, which might well provide a window through which we might be ushered into a totally alien world.
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