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"More Polygraph Nonsense"

At best, Rodney, it sounds like you're quibbling over the meaning of the word "detect".

If polygraph testing flags a lot of people as being suspicious (possibly lying or covering up something), and the ensuing investigations of those people turns up evidence of espionage in one case, can you really say that the polygraph detected the espionage?

I think not.
 
JoeTheJuggler said:
At best, Rodney, it sounds like you're quibbling over the meaning of the word "detect".

If polygraph testing flags a lot of people as being suspicious (possibly lying or covering up something), and the ensuing investigations of those people turns up evidence of espionage in one case, can you really say that the polygraph detected the espionage?

I think not.
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First of all, you're ignoring what Dr. Park said, which was: "The polygraph, in fact, has ruined careers, but never uncovered a single spy." Was that statement accurate or inaccurate? Second, according to New Jersey polygraph expert Jerry Lewis: "The polygraph is geared to helping the innocent person more than catching the liar. The real value of the polygraph is to clear the truthful people. It is much worse to call a truthful person a liar than it is to let a liar go. Therefore the test is weighted so that every once in a while, when a mistake is made, it will hopefully be made where a liar is not caught rather than a truthful person being branded a liar." If you believe Mr. Lewis is in error, please supply evidence of truthful individuals being branded liars by the polygraph.
 
Rodney said:
First of all, you're ignoring what Dr. Park said, which was: "The polygraph, in fact, has ruined careers, but never uncovered a single spy." Was that statement accurate or inaccurate? Second, according to New Jersey polygraph expert Jerry Lewis: "The polygraph is geared to helping the innocent person more than catching the liar. The real value of the polygraph is to clear the truthful people. It is much worse to call a truthful person a liar than it is to let a liar go. Therefore the test is weighted so that every once in a while, when a mistake is made, it will hopefully be made where a liar is not caught rather than a truthful person being branded a liar." If you believe Mr. Lewis is in error, please supply evidence of truthful individuals being branded liars by the polygraph.
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Mr. Lewis' own biography contradicts this: "Due to his success in obtaining confessions, in 1988 he developed a five-day Interview and Interrogation Course, which is presented several times per year at the New Jersey State Police Academy." His great professional success wasn't clearing people's names. It was getting them to confess. Just because someone confesses to a crime does not mean they are guilty.

Also, Mr. Lewis isn't exactly an unbiased, critical source, either:
Jerry Lewis said:
Because every human being’s brain works the same way as it processes information and makes decisions. We can tap into that if we know what to look and listen for. If you understand how you lie, when you lie, or why you lie, then you can understand everyone else. Whether it is a basically honest person just padding his insurance claim a little or a serial killer denying his guilt, the signs are the same.

Even if you know nothing about the case, the person you are talking to knows whether he/she is lying – so should you! No experience is needed. These techniques are so simple, you can even use them over the phone!

Jerry will use examples from New Jersey cases, personal experiences, and nationally recognized cases to illustrate his points. Forget about fidgeting fingers, poor eye contact, or signs of nervousness. Come and see if this common sense approach doesn’t help you solve some of the mysteries in your life.
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His website advertises "The Tactical Interviewing Program® with Psycho Logic® ". "Psycho Logic reveals what one factor must be present before anyone will confess. In fact, this is probably what is missing each time an investigator knows he/she has the right person but can not get them to admit the truth. Once this major tenet of interviewing is explained, students will understand that there is only one way to conduct any interview, be it a road stop, a field interview, or a pre-planned interrogation."

He claims he "He identified the killer of Megan Kanka (Megan’s Law) after being read a witness's statement over the phone."

That is not the prose of a cautious scientific mind.
 
Rodney said:
The June 22, 2007 Swift has an article with this title, and quotes a reader as follows: "Dr. [Robert] Park states that '[t]he polygraph, in fact, has ruined careers, but never uncovered a single spy.'"

However, according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygraphs -- "The polygraph is more often used as a deterrant to espionage rather than detection. One exception to this was the case of Harold James Nicholson, a CIA employee later convicted of spying for Russia. In 1995, Nicholson had undergone his periodic five year reinvestigation where he showed a strong probability of deception on questions regarding relationships with a foreign intelligence unit. This polygraph test later launched an investigation which resulted in his eventual arrest and conviction."

I wrote Dr. Park about this apparent discrepancy five days ago, but he hasn't responded.
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Deterrence rather than detection - that reminds me of the old tribal customs where you put heads from enemy tribes at a stake outside your village. Horrorshow but not really saying anything about which tribe who's the strongest.

As seen in Ocean's 13, polygraphs can be manipulated. But you don't have to put a thumbtack in your shoe. You can rise the blood pressure by squeezing your anal sphincter really hard. And you can always train the muscle to be stronger by just squeezing regulary. I guess that if you use a butt plug, the squeezing effect will be even greater. But if you use it as the manufactures intended, it could easily be detected during a frisking. And tampons has every fertile woman in her handbag without anyone batting an eye, they could be used as a improvised butt plug and are harder to detect if the frisking is not. Or why not if she inserts something in her vagina? And finally there's the most natural option - eating a lot of green peas so that you have a really big log in the rectum.

So a research project about the use of polygraphs should include these two questions:
  • Was the interrogated throughoutly frisked for pain instruments and/or foreing objects in orifices?
  • Did the interrogated defecate before the polygraph test?
 
delphi_ote said:
Mr. Lewis' own biography contradicts this: "Due to his success in obtaining confessions, in 1988 he developed a five-day Interview and Interrogation Course, which is presented several times per year at the New Jersey State Police Academy." His great professional success wasn't clearing people's names. It was getting them to confess. Just because someone confesses to a crime does not mean they are guilty.
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True, but the question is how many people have falsely confessed to a crime because they failed a polygraph?

delphi_ote said:
Also, Mr. Lewis isn't exactly an unbiased, critical source, either:

His website advertises "The Tactical Interviewing Program® with Psycho Logic® ". "Psycho Logic reveals what one factor must be present before anyone will confess. In fact, this is probably what is missing each time an investigator knows he/she has the right person but can not get them to admit the truth. Once this major tenet of interviewing is explained, students will understand that there is only one way to conduct any interview, be it a road stop, a field interview, or a pre-planned interrogation."

He claims he "He identified the killer of Megan Kanka (Megan’s Law) after being read a witness's statement over the phone."

That is not the prose of a cautious scientific mind.
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Mr. Lewis clearly wants to sell his service, but that doesn't mean that polygraphs are not a useful tool in determining veracity.
 
Father Dagon said:
Deterrence rather than detection - that reminds me of the old tribal customs where you put heads from enemy tribes at a stake outside your village. Horrorshow but not really saying anything about which tribe who's the strongest.

As seen in Ocean's 13, polygraphs can be manipulated. But you don't have to put a thumbtack in your shoe. You can rise the blood pressure by squeezing your anal sphincter really hard. And you can always train the muscle to be stronger by just squeezing regulary. I guess that if you use a butt plug, the squeezing effect will be even greater. But if you use it as the manufactures intended, it could easily be detected during a frisking. And tampons has every fertile woman in her handbag without anyone batting an eye, they could be used as a improvised butt plug and are harder to detect if the frisking is not. Or why not if she inserts something in her vagina? And finally there's the most natural option - eating a lot of green peas so that you have a really big log in the rectum.

So a research project about the use of polygraphs should include these two questions:
  • Was the interrogated throughoutly frisked for pain instruments and/or foreing objects in orifices?
  • Did the interrogated defecate before the polygraph test?
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No, the research project should be about determining the accuracy of polygraphs. Someone writing to Randi and claiming that his career was ruined because a polygraph produced erroneous results doesn't mean anything unless an investigation reveals that the results were, in fact, erroneous.
 
Diogenes said:
WTF ?

Now you are saying a polygraph can detect the truth ...

What is the difference between detecting lies or the truth ?
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First of all, the quote you referenced was from polygraph expert Jerry Lewis, as I noted in post #43 of this thread. It is Lewis's opinion that the polygraph "is weighted so that every once in a while, when a mistake is made, it will hopefully be made where a liar is not caught rather than a truthful person being branded a liar."

Second, no one that I am aware of believes the polygraph is infallible in either direction. However, there seems to be a perception among civil libertarians that countless careers have been ruined by erroneous polygraph tests. I'm still looking for evidence that this perception is accurate.
 
Rodney said:
Of course failing a polygraph should raise suspicions -- otherwise, what would be the point of giving one? However, it should not be treated as more than one piece of the puzzle. To the extent that someone's life is torn apart by a false positive, the investigation was not properly done. But how many times have lives actually been torn apart by false positives? Can you document any cases?
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Wen Ho Lee.
 
Rodney said:
First of all, the quote you referenced was from polygraph expert Jerry Lewis, as I noted in post #43 of this thread. It is Lewis's opinion that the polygraph "is weighted so that every once in a while, when a mistake is made, it will hopefully be made where a liar is not caught rather than a truthful person being branded a liar."
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Hopefully ? That makes me feel better ...

Second, no one that I am aware of believes the polygraph is infallible in either direction. However, there seems to be a perception among civil libertarians that countless careers have been ruined by erroneous polygraph tests. I'm still looking for evidence that this perception is accurate.
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If it's not infallible then it is useless in the obtaining of evidence..

Why would it be O.K. if just one career was ruined ?

There remains the problem of ' refusing to take a polygraph ' being an indication of guilt ...
 
Vorticity said:
Wen Ho Lee.
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The Lee case is complex, but it doesn't prove your point. According to Wikipedia:

"Lee was polygraphed by the Department of Energy, and gave indicators of deception regarding questions about providing individuals with classified information. Lee was then polygraphed by the FBI, and gave indicators of deception regarding providing classified information to individuals, as well as providing information regarding the W-88 to individuals not authorized to receive it.

"The examination of Lee's computer determined that he had taken classified work documents, deleted the security classification headers, and then transferred these files from a system used for processing classified data onto another protected but unclassified network. After the FBI discovered Lee's transfer, they revoked his badge access and clearance, including his ability to access the data from the unclassified but secure network. Lee then requested from a colleague in another part of Los Alamos that he be allowed to use his computer, at which time he transferred the data to a third unclassified computer network. FBI analysts later examined the unclassified computer and noted that the files that Lee had transferred had been accessed from a computer at the Student Union of the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) on over forty occasions. Because of the vast number of users who used the computers at the UCLA Student Union and the lack of logs of users, the FBI was unable to determine which entity gained access to the Los Alamos data. A damage assessment by the FBI later determined that Lee's actions had caused the U.S. government to lose control over classified information regarding every single missile in the U.S. nuclear arsenal, including the highly advanced W-88.

"Lee was arrested in December 1999 and held without bail in solitary confinement for 278 days until September 13, 2000, when he accepted a plea bargain from the federal government.

"Wen Ho Lee pleaded guilty to one felony count of improperly downloading Restricted Data. In return, the government released him from jail and dropped the other 58 counts of illegally downloading classified data from the computers at the Los Alamos weapons lab, of which 39 counts would have carried a life sentence for violating the Atomic Energy Act and for stealing nuclear secrets with the intent of harming the U.S. Judge James A. Parker offered an apology to Lee for what he called 'abuse of power' by the federal government in its prosecution of its case, while reiterating that Lee did plead guilty to a 'serious crime.'" See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wen_ho_lee

Further, according to the January 8, 2000 Washington Post:

"FBI agents misled physicist Wen Ho Lee into believing that he had failed a Department of Energy polygraph test as they pressed him during a lengthy interrogation last March to confess to passing nuclear weapons secrets to China.

"Lee insisted throughout the tape-recorded session that he was telling the truth, unaware that polygraph examiners actually had given him an extremely high score for honesty." See http://www.crimelynx.com/fbilie.html
 
Diogenes said:
Hopefully ? That makes me feel better ...

If it's not infallible then it is useless in the obtaining of evidence..

Why would it be O.K. if just one career was ruined ?

There remains the problem of ' refusing to take a polygraph ' being an indication of guilt ...
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The salient point is that polygraphs are just one tool, and no one's career should be ruined solely because he failed a polygraph. However, abandoning use of that tool would likely lead to increased duplicity and -- in at least one documented case -- the failure to expose a double agent. So, why abandon it simply because some individuals claim that it produced erroneous results with respect to them?
 
Rodney said:
So, why abandon it simply because some individuals claim that it produced erroneous results with respect to them?
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"If we look at laboratory-based studies, false-positive errors occur somewhat more often than false-negative errors." - Dr. Frank Horvath

"We have people in the scientific community who look at the same research that I look at and they reach a conclusion that is quite different," Horvath said. "From their point of view, they allege that polygraph testing is probably only around 70 percent accurate, and it has a great bias against truthful people. Then, what the proponents say, looking at the same research, they reach a quite different conclusion, and that is that polygraph testing is around 90 percent accurate." - Dr. Frank Horvath

"In settings in which large numbers of employees are screened to determine whether they are spies, the polygraph produces results that are extremely problematic, according to a comprehensive 2002 review by a federal panel of distinguished scientists. The study found that if polygraphs were administered to a group of 10,000 people that included 10 spies, nearly 1,600 innocent people would fail the test -- and two of the spies would pass.

"Its accuracy in distinguishing actual or potential security violators from innocent test takers is insufficient to justify reliance on its use in employee security screening in federal agencies," the panel concluded." - NY Times
 
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delphi_ote said:
"If we look at laboratory-based studies, false-positive errors occur somewhat more often than false-negative errors." - Dr. Frank Horvath

"We have people in the scientific community who look at the same research that I look at and they reach a conclusion that is quite different," Horvath said. "From their point of view, they allege that polygraph testing is probably only around 70 percent accurate, and it has a great bias against truthful people. Then, what the proponents say, looking at the same research, they reach a quite different conclusion, and that is that polygraph testing is around 90 percent accurate." - Dr. Frank Horvath

"In settings in which large numbers of employees are screened to determine whether they are spies, the polygraph produces results that are extremely problematic, according to a comprehensive 2002 review by a federal panel of distinguished scientists. The study found that if polygraphs were administered to a group of 10,000 people that included 10 spies, nearly 1,600 innocent people would fail the test -- and two of the spies would pass.

"Its accuracy in distinguishing actual or potential security violators from innocent test takers is insufficient to justify reliance on its use in employee security screening in federal agencies," the panel concluded." - NY Times
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First, according to polygraph expert Jerry Lewis, there was only one clear error in the more than 1,000 polygraph exams in which he was involved. Second, why are false positives such a big deal, if the polygraph is used properly as just one tool in assessing truthfulness, rather than as an infallible indicator?

To put this issue in better perspective, consider breast cancer screening in the United States. According to the Wikipedia article: "One consequence of the high false positive rate in the US is that, in any 10 year period, half of the American women screened receive a false positive mammogram. False positive mammograms are costly, with over $100 million spent annually in the US on follow-up testing and treatment. They also cause women unneeded anxiety. As a result of the high false positive rate in the US, as many as 90-95% of women who get a positive mammogram do not have the condition." See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_positive

So, should we eliminate breast cancer screening, as well as polygraph exams?
 
Rodney said:
No, the research project should be about determining the accuracy of polygraphs. Someone writing to Randi and claiming that his career was ruined because a polygraph produced erroneous results doesn't mean anything unless an investigation reveals that the results were, in fact, erroneous.
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But isn't science about eliminating sources of faulty data?
 
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Rodney said:
If you believe Mr. Lewis is in error, please supply evidence of truthful individuals being branded liars by the polygraph.
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In 1986, the CBS television program 60 Minutes carried out the following experiment:

The editor of the CBS-owned magazine Popular Photography contacted four professional polygraph examiners, chosen at random from the phone book, and told them that more than $500 worth of camera equipment had been stolen from the magazine's office, almost certainly by an employee. The examiners did not know that other companies had also been contacted and conducted their examinations separately. Each examiner was told that four employees had access to the room from which the equipment was supposedly stolen, but that one of them was the most likely suspect. A different "most likely suspect" was pointed out to each examiner. In fact, there had been no theft and the four "suspects" were all innocent.

In each case, the person who'd been previously named the most likely suspect "failed" the polygraph test and was found to be deceptive. Each polygrapher tried to intimidate his* chosen suspect into confessing to a crime that hadn't even been committed. No one confessed, since the four "suspects" were in on the sting and knew nothing had actually been stolen.


*I don't recall, but I'm pretty sure they were all men.
 
Steven Howard said:
In 1986, the CBS television program 60 Minutes carried out the following experiment:

The editor of the CBS-owned magazine Popular Photography contacted four professional polygraph examiners, chosen at random from the phone book, and told them that more than $500 worth of camera equipment had been stolen from the magazine's office, almost certainly by an employee. The examiners did not know that other companies had also been contacted and conducted their examinations separately. Each examiner was told that four employees had access to the room from which the equipment was supposedly stolen, but that one of them was the most likely suspect. A different "most likely suspect" was pointed out to each examiner. In fact, there had been no theft and the four "suspects" were all innocent.

In each case, the person who'd been previously named the most likely suspect "failed" the polygraph test and was found to be deceptive. Each polygrapher tried to intimidate his* chosen suspect into confessing to a crime that hadn't even been committed. No one confessed, since the four "suspects" were in on the sting and knew nothing had actually been stolen.


*I don't recall, but I'm pretty sure they were all men.
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Expected Woo Answers:

If they'd chosen a fifth polygraph guy, it would have worked!

The cheating vibrations and/or auras threw the tests off.

Polygraphs don't work near skeptics.
 
Rodney said:
Second, why are false positives such a big deal?
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Read this again:
"In settings in which large numbers of employees are screened to determine whether they are spies, the polygraph produces results that are extremely problematic, according to a comprehensive 2002 review by a federal panel of distinguished scientists. The study found that if polygraphs were administered to a group of 10,000 people that included 10 spies, nearly 1,600 innocent people would fail the test -- and two of the spies would pass.

"Its accuracy in distinguishing actual or potential security violators from innocent test takers is insufficient to justify reliance on its use in employee security screening in federal agencies," the panel concluded." - NY Times
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How can that NOT be a big deal?
 
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