Quote:George,
The relevance to my question may not have anything to do with his challenge; however, I hardly would consider a person an expert when they have only actually ran a "modest" number of "real" exams.
JB,
Indeed, I think your question is without relevance to Dr. Richardson's challenge. If you disagree with anything that Dr. Richardson has said or written on polygraph matters, why not simply point out his error for all to see?
Quote:In my eyes, it's like your credibility...you've never actually employed countermeasures during a real exam and defeated it.
So what? I don't claim to speak on the subject of countermeasures based on personal experience. Rather, the information on countermeasures in
TLBTLD is based on research, with citations that readers may check and evaluate for themselves.
Quote:Therefore, although you are very intelligent on the subject of polygraph - you have no real world experience. Your "evidence" that examiners can't detect countermeasures is dated and did not involve the use of examiners trained in countermeasures and how to deal with them.
Indeed, Honts et al.'s studies in which experienced polygraphers (forewarned that subjects would be attempting countermeasures and fully appraised of the countermeasures that they would be attempting) were unable to detect countermeasures at better-than-chance levels are several years old.
But the circumstantial evidence that polygraphers lack confidence in their ability to detect countermeasures is very strong and recent:
- Dr. Gordon H. Barland's misleading comments regarding a case where a person was "not successful" in employing countermeasures in remarks at a 1999 public hearing on DOE polygraph policy. (He neglected to mention that the subject admitted to having employed countermeasures.) At the time, Dr. Barland was DoDPI's top expert on countermeasures.
- DoDPI and CIA's unethical stonewalling of the National Academy of Sciences regarding supposed countermeasure studies.
- DoDPI countermeasure course instructor Paul M. Menges' 2002 article suggesting that providing countermeasure information to the public should be outlawed.
- The fact that no research indicating any ability by polygraphers to detect countermeasures has been published.
- The fact that no polygrapher "has the guts" to accept Dr. Richardson's challenge.
Quote:Frankly I suspect that most examiners who are trained and experienced in managing examinees who employ countermeasures are not in a position that would allow them to accept the challenge. For instance, if a Federal examiner was up to your challenge, realistically what are the chance their agency would allow them to participate in such a challenge?
Federal polygraph program managers no doubt rightly fear that accepting Dr. Richardson's challenge would expose their inability to reliably detect countermeasures.
In any event, countermeasures have been on the agenda of a great many (if not most) polygraph association seminars since AntiPolygraph.org went online. Certainly, many polygraphers, including recently retired federal examiners now in private practice, have received such training.
What prevents
you from accepting Dr. Richardson's challenge?