Ed Gelb has been the "poster boy" for the APA, irregardless of him having a doctorate or not.  With his private investigation and polygraph firm, he is perhaps the most famous polygraph examiner in the entire world.  So the APA is very unlikely to censor Ed Gelb in any way.  If anything he is what makes the the APA "legitimate" .  Back when employment polygraphs were legitimate, I was examined by him at least once a year, and Larry West, on the alternate 6 months.  So with or without the "Ph.D." at the end of his name, nobody is going to touch him.  If the APA has any integrity it is entirely Ed Gelb that gives it to him.  So I do not think there is a chance at all to get Ed Gelb sensored in any way.  You can keep trying, but I think it is easier to go after the "small fries" first, before you go after the "Emperor of all Polygraph Examiners"  <BR><BR>Just a few thoughts,  <BR><BR>Benjamin

meangino wrote on Oct 23^rd, 2006 at 3:05pm:


No. But CAPE's silence speaks volumes.

Quote:


Mr. Maschke, after more than four months do you expect CAPE to actually respond?

meangino wrote on Aug 5^th, 2006 at 11:52pm:


I don't know. It has been almost two months now...

Mr. Maschke, when do you expect CAPE to respond?

Skeeters is a fraudster as well.

He conducted an interview of a suspect in the Holloway case, led the kid on that he would get him into  college in California, promised him the moon, etc. and then turned the tape over to the Dr. Phil show who ALTERED it to make it sound like the man incriminated himself. 

Both the NIH and FBI reviewed the tape and determined it was manipulated. Although Skeeters probably did not alter the tape, he was part of this fraud and his interview with all the sleaziness is well documented.

What is it with California Polygraph Presidents.....

George,

Your exposure of the Edward Gelb contract to the City of Long Beach is alarming. Long Beach has a great PD and provides great service to the City. Intercept may prevent this fine City from getting quality officers added to the force because of "issues" raised by the polygraph.

Since you sent that letter, City elections have taken place. Long Beach has a new mayor, Bob Foster, who was formerly the CEO of Southern California Edison. You may want to resend this letter to the incoming City Council to reiterate this critical information.  I feel confident that Mayor Foster and the new members of the City Council will find this information worth acting on.

I also suggest you send a copy of to Anthony W. Batts, the Chief of Police for Long Beach. Chief Batts is a highly educated person who would be appalled to see someone like Gelb who claims to have a doctorial degree that simply cannot be verified getting a contract to provide services for his agency

As always keep up the fantastic effort George.


Fred F.

Dr Furedy,

It is indeed an honor to have such a noted scientist as yourself on this board. There isn't a polygrapher even worthy of disputing you. Your comments and observations on the APA I am sure are going cause some heartburn for them. I do believe like you that somewhere there has to be an accounting for the deception and denial they broadcast. Your observations are by far some of the best I have seen. As a scientist and engineer myself, I applaud your insights.  Your website is also well done.


Regards  .....

gelbpost

FOCUS ON PROFESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE APA RATHER THAN THE ETHICS OF “DR” GELB

        In its official reply to George, the APA was acting as if it were primarily or even exclusively a research oriented society like the Society for Psychophysiological Research (SPR).  If it were like SPR, then the position that it will act only for advertisements and articles in APA's journal, the Polygraph, would be defensible.  And to a neutral reader like my wife, the APA’s letter seems justifiable at least content, if not in tone.

So, at first glance  (and assuming, as I of course do not, that there is any scientific basis to the polygraph, and that it, therefore, is possible to do research on it), this seems a reasonable defence.  As a parallel, if someone were to complain to SPR that a former president of SPR, in his separate  practice as a clinical psychologist,  misrepresented himself as having obtained a D.Sc. (higher than a Phd) when he had not, SPR would probably only act to make sure that in its journal this individual did not advertise himself as a D.Sc., nor claim this title in any of his publications in the journal.

        However, the APA is predominantly a professional organization of practitioners that offer scientifically-based services of a psychological sort to the community.  It purports to tell the community whether someone is telling the truth or lying, or is innocent or guilty.  It is much more like the real APA (the American Psychological Association—here I’ll use rAPA to distinguish it from the polygraphic APA) than SPR.  In fact it is further from SPR than APA, which does contain a significant scientific, non-practitioner component, and still retains the highest research-impact psychology journals, whereas the APA’s journal, Polygraph, doesn’t even make it into the low-impact, peer-reviewed scientific journals category).

     Now if the rAPA were notified that one of its former presidents who was also a practitioner, did not hold a PhD from a recognized institution (and, in particular, there was no record of the abstract of his PhD thesis being published in dissertation abstracts), the rAPA would be obligated to investigate if this charge was true.  If it was, the rAPA would bound in terms of its professional obligations of protecting the public, to act against this former president, and to expel him formally from rAPA.  A similar case occurred some years ago with the (in)famous psychologist, Joyce Davidson, who was expelled from the rAPA for what is essentially professional misconduct.  By the way, I recall Joyce, because on the “Lie Detector”, the show which starred Gelb as the polygrapher, she averred that the only danger with the polygraph was one that was given by someone who was not a member of the APA.  The video where she said this can be viewed on http://www.psych.utoronto.ca/~furedy/polygraph.htm, see 1st section, item 29 (also somewhere on antipolygraph archives).

     A more minor, but still significant, point is Gelb’s apparent claim that he holds a PhD in psychology, which is certainly the most relevant academic discipline to the purportedly science-based practice of polygraphy as endorsed by the APA. To the extent that he has claimed psychology as a discipline in which he did his PhD (or other degrees), and this claim is false, the APA should have the same problem with him as the rAPA would have if an ex president claimed he had a degree in psychology, whereas he really only had the degree in some other discipline like theology.  This false claim should be of interest to any professional organization, because it is a danger to the public to pretend that one has a degree in a profession-related discipline, whereas the degree is really in a discipline that is not related to the profession.  

     So while George’s pursuit of an individual charlatan may be more suitable for legal suits, I think that anti-polygraph should give at least equal attention to the unprofessional conduct of the APA.  This attention is independent of the other basic issue to which academics like me have given most attention: the lack of any scientific rationale for the practice of polygraphy as conducted by APA members.  To return to my entrails-reading parallel, this is as if an individual entrails-reading priest allegedly  lied about his background in disciplines that are purported to underlie entrails reading, and the temple of priests, when confronted with these allegations, were as casual about them as the APA is, rather than how bodies like the rAPA or the AMA would handle such matters.

     Also, perhaps a follow-up letter to the APA may be in order, so it can more clearly be seen whether it continues to be so casual about its professional obligations.

All the best, John

George,

Thanks for taking the time to file the complaints and make efforts to advance a change in attitude and policy.  Taking a stand for what is right is important, regardless of the results.

George,

I agree that your complaint and their subsequent response gives you something else to point to when discussing the polygraph with the press and consumers.

But your point of the APA needing to set ethical standards doesn't hold because polygraphy, as a pseudocscience, is unethical to begin with because it doesn't work. Why would the APA excommunicate a member from its ranks because he is a fraud when its membership is based on fraud?

Kevin Trudeau makes millions selling a book on natural cures that don't work. People know that he's a convicted thief but it hasn't made one iota of difference to his bottom line. I don't think Gelb is any different, especially since the polygraph is so ingrained into the police psyche.

I'm not trying to belabor the point here, I'm with you in believing that the polygraph should be tossed on the trash heap with all the junk that used to be used in criminal justice such as phrenology, lead bullet content analysis (a victory for the NAS, I might add), and repressed memory syndrome. But we, meaning academics and scientists, need to be more vocal in our oppositions to overcome the lure of wishful thinking that the polygraph provides. 

Your site provides a basis for people to find out the truth behind the polygraph and it is a great bullhorn for the cause of those who have been harmed by these junk-peddlers. But everytime I see a show like Gelb's or on psychic detectives, I realize that getting rid of pseudoscience is harder that it looks. Pardon the pun but I wish that reality sold as well as wishful thinking.

Regards,

-digithead

In light of the American Polygraph Association's unwillingness to hold Mr. Gelb accountable for his unethical conduct, I today filed a second ethics complaint against him with the California Association of Polygraph Examiners, of which Gelb is also a member:

Quote:


A PDF version of this letter may be downloaded here:

http://antipolygraph.org/documents/gelb-complaint-cape-15-06-2006.pdf

CAPE President Jamie Skeeters promptly acknowledged receipt, mentioning that he has forwarded it to CAPE's ethics committee, which will investigate and advise both me and Gelb of its findings.

digithead,

In view of the egregiousness of Gelb's unethical conduct, I think it would have been appropriate for the American Polygraph Association to expel him. As an alternative, it might have censured him and admonished him to cease and desist from falsely representing himself as a Ph.D. or face expulsion.

While the APA cannot revoke someone's ability to be a practicing polygrapher, it can set ethical standards for its membership. But it appears that the APA is unwilling to do so.

Despite the APA's unwillingness to take any disciplinary action against Mr. Gelb, I think the ethics complaint I filed has served a valuable purpose: that of showcasing the APA's fecklessness when it comes to setting ethical standards for its members. This is not something that the APA will be able to sweep under the rug. I'll be mentioning it to every journalist with whom I speak about polygraphy, and it will be prominently emphasized on AntiPolygraph.org for a long time to come, where it will be seen by potential purchasers of polygraph services.

George,

I'm wondering what sort of result you hoping for from the APA? 

Certainly Gelb is a phony PhD, but no accreditation is needed to be a polygrapher. The APA may be the "accrediting" board for polygraphers but it by no means has any administrative or legal authority to revoke someone's ability to be a polygrapher. It merely provides a way of fooling consumers into thinking there is a true accrediting board. I could become a homeopathic doctor in mere minutes by filling out the "proper paperwork" and fool people into thinking that because I've been certified by a homeopathic governing board that I'm somehow practicing a viable alternative medicine rather than a dangerous pseudoscience.

If anything, Gelb should be sanctioned by the courts and other adminstrative bodies that he has testified in front of for perjury and/or false representation.

Unlike MDs, nurses, psychologists, and social workers who are licensed through the state, polygraphers do not have a true governing legal body which is enabled to revoke licenses or begin legal proceedings for fraud and misrepresentation.

Getting the APA to admit that one of their own is fraud will never happen. I still think the best course of action against this pseudoscience is to convince consumers (rather than practitioners) of this flapdoodle through research and science that it is a useless procedure that poses a tremendous risk to public safety.

In that regard, the NAS, Feinberg, yourself, Iacono, Furedy, Saxe, Crosse, and others are certainly providing enough evidence that the polygraph is useless. It's now time to challenge and convince the consumers of this junk that they need to stop using it because it causes more harm than good.

Trying to convince the APA that they're wrong is about as useful as talking to the taxman about poetry.

-digithead

I guess every organization has it's problem child but for some reason or another has decided to put up with or ingnore the problem. Even worse, in many cases the problem child is rewarded. Strange phenomenon isn't it?

JunkMan,

Very few members of the American Polygraph Association -- and none of its directors -- hold Ph.D. degrees. I can think of four members who hold doctoral degrees: Gordon Barland, Louis Rovner, Frank Horvath, and Stuart Senter, who currently edits the APA journal -- all well-known figures in the polygraph community. I wonder what they think about the APA's decision that Gelb's fakery merits no disciplinary action?

I do not understand why folks who actaully hold credible degrees, that "MR" Gelb purports to having attained, do not hold him accountable themselves.

If I were a Medical Doctor I certainly would be angry having a phoney co-worker who hold fictitious paper. 
There are laws that protect US citizens in this regard. 

Why not with this issue?

George, 

By there own admissions on the documents they fully intend to pull in ranks and support this phoney baloney PHD. So as I said  before it is now:

"Dedicated to Truth, As we see it !!!! "

What is especially grotesque is the loyalty they show to Gelb and his long and faithful service. There lack of inaction shows the true color of the APA. For BS Artists, of BS Artists.   

Regards ...

Quote:


It is awful kind of them to go ahead and respond to your complaint, even though you are an opponent.  Apparently, only exponents of the polygraph can make legitimate complaints.  I wonder how many complaints they ignore completely?

The American Polygraph Association (APA) has replied to my ethics complaint against Edward I. Gelb of Los Angeles. APA General Counsel Gordon L. Vaughan, in a letter dated 9 June 2006, writes that Gelb will face no disciplinary action for falsely holding himself out to the public as a Ph.D. Vaughan writes that "the APA does not attempt nor does it presume to govern the designation of titles or degrees conferred upon members."

As of the date of Vaughan's letter, the APA had apparently neither confirmed or disconfirmed the allegations in my complaint. However, Vaughan does report that the APA has requested that Gelb document his "Ph.D." degree. If he is unable to show that it is from an accredited institution, then the only sanction he will face is that the APA will not accept "advertisements, publications, or directory listings" that refer to him as a Ph.D. But as far as the APA is concerned, Gelb is free to continue deceiving the public.

The full text of the APA's reply follows:

Quote:


A scanned PDF file of the original two-page letter, on APA letterhead bearing the motto "DEDICATED TO TRUTH" may be downloaded here:

http://antipolygraph.org/documents/gelb-complaint-reply-09-06-2006.pdf

A couple observations on Vaughan's letter:

1) I do not allege that Gelb has explicitly stated that his "Ph.D." degree is from an accredited university or institution. Rather, through his resume provided to a U.S. court, his public representations, and his advertising of his polygraph services, Gelb has striven to create the false and misleading impression that he holds a legitimate Ph.D. degree.

2) As for Vaughan's footnote impugning my motivation for filing this complaint, I would think that an organization "dedicated to truth" should be happy to receive information on unethical conduct from any member of the public with knowledge thereof. Indeed, the APA website clearly states, "The Ethics and Grievance Committee receives and expeditiously, fairly and impartially investigates all allegations of misconduct against members of this Association." If this is true, then a complainant's status as a polygraph supporter or opponent should be completely irrelevant.

If it's okay for a member of the American Polygraph Association to falsely pass himself off as a Ph.D., what other frauds are permissible?

May an APA member falsely claim to be an M.D.?

May an APA member falsely claim to be a former Army Green Beret/Navy SEAL?

May an APA member falsely claim to be a Medal of Honor recipient?

May an APA member falsely claim to have worked for the CIA/NSA/FBI or other federal agency?

George,

If they don't take action, then the motto will be, (DRUM ROLL PLEASE), wait for it, wait for it,

"Dedicated to truth, as we polygraphers see it"

Couldn't resist  

Regards ...

Indeed, should the APA fail to take disciplinary action against Mr. Gelb, it will in effect be saying "it's okay for APA members to wilfully misrepresent their academic credentials to the courts, to law enforcement agencies, and to the public at large." I don't see how any intellectually honest person could reconcile such a position with the APA's motto, "Dedicated to Truth."

I'm sure the APA will be diligent in their investigation.  How could an organization with the motto "Dedicated to Truth" do otherwise?

To date, I have received no reply to my ethics complaint against Ed Gelb. In fact, Donald Weinstein, the chairperson of the American Polygraph Association's Ethics & Grievance committee, has not even acknowledged receipt of my complaint.

However, as of today, Gelb still styles himself a Ph.D. on his website:

http://www.polygraphexpert.com

The APA's ultimate action or lack of action on this complaint will be instructive. If the APA is unwilling to hold accountable one of its senior members who has falsely represented his academic credentials to the courts, to law enforcement agencies, and the public at large to boost his business, then the APA has no business talking about ethics.