That the polygraph is merely "an investigative tool" is an oft-heard refrain of the law enforcement and intelligence communities in general and the polygraph community in particular when confronted with the argument that polygraphy is unreliable.
Polygraphy is not "just a tool": it is quackery. Undereducated decision-makers in our law enforcement and intelligence agencies attach to it a diagnostic value that it does not have.
I'll re-post here comments I made in an earlier message thread (
Consequences of "Failed" Polygraph):
...The argument that the polygraph is only one factor in security clearance determinations is indeed disingenous. At the same
p ublic meeting of the National Academy of Sciences at which Mr. Renzelman spoke, Dr. Alan P. Zelicoff of Sandia National Laboratories also gave a talk on polygraphy, and in response to a question by one of the panel members provided the following anecdote:
Quote:A positive polygraph is simply very very hard to live down [words indistinct]. In the few cases, historically, at Sandia -- I've followed three cases that I know of over the past ten years where people have failed their polygraph. These all happened to people -- happened to be people -- that were working in the intelligence section of the national laboratory. They all lost their jobs at the intelligence section. They were moved out to work elsewhere that they considered to be less satisfying. Now the reason was not because they were a spy. Certainly the reason was not because they were being deceptive or in any way trying to fool the polygrapher, but rather because the perception was that they were simply no longer trustworthy.
...
There is a level of suspicion that is generated among decision makers that is just simply hard to live down.
Dr. Zelicoff's entire presentation may be listened to in RealPlayer format begining at about 23 minutes into the following file:
http://video.nationalacademies.org/ramgen/dbasse/012601_4b.rm and continuing at:
http://video.nationalacademies.org/ramgen/dbasse/012601_5.rm The undue significance attached to polygraph chart readings in security clearance (as well as hiring) determinations is explained in part by Lykken's Law, regarding which see pp. 74-75 of the 2nd edition of
A Tremor in the Blood. The following passage sums it up:
Quote:Uncertainty is painful to the decision maker. Complicated evidence can only be evaluated subjectively and subjectivity leads to doubt and disagreement. One longs for some straightforward, definitive datum that will resolve the conflict and impel a conclusion. This longing not infrequently leads one to invest any simple, quantitative, or otherwise specific bit of evidence with a greater weight than it deserves, with a predictive power it does not really possess. In decision making, the objective dominates the subjective, the simple squeezes out the complicated, the quantitative gets more weight than the nonmetrical, and dichotomous (yes/no, pass/fail) evidence supersedes the many-valued. This is Lykken's Law
Aldrich H. Ames also provided an insightful commentary on this phenomenon in his
letter dated 28 November 2000 to Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists' Secrecy in Government Project:
Quote: Most people in the intelligence and CI business are well aware of the theoretical and practical failings of the polygraph, but are equally alert to its value in institutional, bureaucratic terms and treasure its use accordingly. This same logic applies to its use in screening potential and current employees, whether of the CIA, NSA, DOE or even of private organizations.
Deciding whether to trust or credit a person is always an uncertain task, and in a variety of situations a bad, lazy or just unlucky decision about a person can result not only in serious problems for the organization and its purposes, but in career-damaging blame for the unfortunate decision-maker. Here, the polygraph is a scientific godsend: the bureaucrat accounting for a bad decision, or sometimes for a missed opportunity (the latter is much less often questioned in a bureaucracy) can point to what is considered an unassailably objective, though occasionally and unavoidably fallible, polygraph judgment. All that was at fault was some practical application of a "scientific" technique, like those frozen O-rings, or the sandstorms between the Gulf and Desert One in 1980.
By publicly exposing polygraph "testing" for the fraud that it is (as we are doing here on AntiPolygraph.org) we can nullify the utility of the polygraph as a responsibility-avoidance mechanism for decision makers.
