Boffin, puffin, what the heck - does this look like the face of a liar to you?
Posted on 03/26/2007 6:12:09 PM PDT by xjcsa
Lie detectors might work in the movies, but a US congressional report says that when it comes to screening nuclear scientists, you might as well reinstitute the ducking stool.
The US Congressional Research Service last month updated a report looking into the use of polygraphs or "lie detectors" in the US government.
The report specifically focuses on use of polygraph screening in the Department of Energy (DOE), which runs some of America's most sensitive nuclear labs and research programmes.
Large numbers of DOE personnel have been made to take routine polygraph tests since some embarrassing security breaches in the late '90s. These personnel are often highly qualified scientists, which causes some difficulties.
"Scientists do, in fact, represent a particular problem with regard to the administration of polygraphs," says the report. "They are most comfortable when dealing with techniques that are scientifically precise and reliable. The polygraph...does not meet this standard."
The American boffins seemingly don't much care for being examined using a technique they regard as little better than witchcraft.
"The attitude toward polygraphs at the laboratories...runs the gamut from cautiously and rationally negative, to emotionally and irrationally negative," according to the report's author, Alfred Cumming, a specialist in intelligence and security. "Many scientists...are skeptical of its utility."
Cumming frequently cites a highly-critical investigation into polygraph screening by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). The NAS polygraph-bashers did acknowledge that screening could have some deterrent effect, perhaps putting off the nefariously-inclined from applying for sensitive jobs.
However, they said this deterrent effect would only occur if people believed that polygraphs worked. As most scientists appear not to believe this, there would seem little point in using polygraphs to screen them for employment in the US nuclear programme.
However, polygraphs do have some advocates. Unsurprisingly, these include the American Polygraph Association (APA), "the country's largest association of polygraphers". Strangely enough, the APA says the lack of scientific evidence supporting lie-detector tests is down to limited funding.
Another friend to the polygraph, apparently, is the CIA. The spook agency "cited classified research to support its use of polygraph testing but declined to share its research". Well, it was secret.
"What is not subject to debate and appears to be beyond dispute is that the polygraph does not detect lies," writes Cumming.
Apart from the possibility of doing some serious research, the report concluded that Congress might consider two options for the future of polygraph screening at the DOE. Option one: use the polygraph less. Option two: stop using it altogether. ®
If memory serves the Russians were scared to death of them.
Danger, Warning, Will Robinson!
This is the same rubbish we hear from the Global Warming advocates.
The proof that it's mumbo-jumbo comes when the administrator gives you the big speech about how you can't beat it, it's all scientifically proven, blah blah. Tell him, ok, if the chart tells all, then you give me the test, and have another guy interpret the results without knowing the questions. Oops, sorry, no that's not the procedure. Busted.
It's said to be fairly easy for an intelligent person to fool a lie detector. I haven't studied the matter, but I would imagine it would be largely a matter of practice, of repeating a sensitive question to yourself until its shock value was defused, and of meditating on something calming, like imagining yourself lying on a green hill in the shade by a lake, or that sort of thing. Same thing you might do to control pain at the dentist.
Would this work? I don't know, but I suspect it would.
You done good.
US nuke boffins rubbish polygraph testing
If memory serves the Russians were scared to death of them.
Boffin, puffin, what the heck - does this look like the face of a liar to you?
As in "Everybody accepts that the science behind the lie-detector is accurate. (Except a few skeptics, and they are nutjobs)"
Sorry the polygraph is a voodoo interrogation device. If few of it gets the subject to confess, OK. But you can't rely on the results it generates.
Lie detectors only work if the person being examined BELIEVES they work.
Thus they're beatable by people that understand this, and people that are just flat out nervous and scared of the machine will be recorded as lying when they're telling the truth.
There's a growing trend on FR for people just to dogmatically believe whatever they want to believe without the slightest consideration of actual evidence, or that they might ever be wrong about something.
In the proper setting with a good operator, and the right questions, etc. etc., a "lie detector" is going to provide some interesting info. Where it might not be of benefit is testing lie detector operators or experienced individuals. Some people are much better at lying than others.
And that's the danger in using them for employment screening. Honest people who get distressed at the thought of lying can fail and be rejected, while sociopaths breeze through the test.
I know a tack in the shoe screws it up. That's why they make you take off your shoes during testing.
If they’d lie to children they’d lie to anyone.
Everyone elst is hear: Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments
They wouldn't publish my Ron Jeremy pop-up book either. Those people have no imagination.
One of my favorite cases -- a number of years ago a couple of enterprising cops created a "lie detector" machine out of a colander, a bunch of wire, a battery, a buzzer, and a doorbell button. They set the colander on the suspect's head, asked him questions, and every so often one of them would push the doorbell button with his foot and the buzzer would go BZZZZZZZT! and the cops would yell, "YOU'RE LYING!" The guy confessed -- but the appellate court threw out the confession. I always thought trickery was AOK . . . but I guess that one just went too far.
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