NoLieGuy,
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You write in part:
Quote:In the Smart case You / We are working with what little information has been released thus far, and not the complete information in what took place and the findings of all of the tests done. Further, Although the public has a right to know such things, it is only after a case has gone to trial or a claim that it has been solved that such information is released.
You make a very good point. We are indeed working with limited, and sometimes contradictory, information. However, I think it is still possible to make some logical inferences, for example, that the Salt Lake City police relied on the polygraph as more than simply an interrogatory prop.
Quote:At some point you really have to take a step back, look at yourself and ask why, as an academic, you have become so obsessed with this polygraph thing. One has to wonder in your specific case where you claimed they told you that you failed such a test; whether you would have met the security clearance criteria under the Psyche exam given your level of obsessive behavior. Could your foreign travels also have played a part in your being assessed as not the most desireable candidate ? There are only so many openings in such agencies which you applied for, so why should we assume that you were otherwise the best qualified despite your polygraph result ? Did you get a private sector retest prior to your commitment to countermeasures ?
I don't believe my personal experience is relevant to the issue(s) at hand. If you believe that anything I've said or written is untrue or misleading, please don't hesitate to point it out.
You also write:
Quote:It is a shame to see such an academic mind concentrate on the negative, rather than use your mind to improve such a system or replace it with something better. You have only criticisms and no solutions; the lowest form of academic participation.
I disagree.
CQT polygraphy is a pseudoscientific fraud. Misplaced reliance on it has caused and continues to cause serious harm to individuals, national security, and public safety. Exposing this fraud, and ending it, is a worthy goal in and of itself.
Quote:I was also wondering, why would such a prestigious organization as the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory put their efforts and software scoring program in this field if they could not validate it and/or make it reliable ?
I believe that Anonymous has adequately addressed this point above.
Quote:Doesn't the forward movement of technology, as added to the polygraph hardware and software, make your arguments weaker with each passing addition. Surely there are too many confirmed D.I. and N.D.I. charts, vs. False Positives or False Negatives, not to give this profession merit to the realm of statistical significance.
No. Polygraph results have no statistical significance, because CQT polygraphy has no grounding in the scientific method: it is completely lacking in both standardization and meaningful control. It is not a valid diagnostic test. (See Chapter 1 of
The Lie Behind the Lie Detector and the sources cited there.)
Quote:Doesn't guilty knowledge / peak of tension type testing on elements of the crime, unknown to all but the perpetrator and police, act as a clear indicated [sic] to the point of lottery odds in it being any other person in such a case ?
The Guilty Knowledge Test (GKT) and the Peak of Tension Test (POT) are qualitatively different from the "Control" Question "Test," and I believe that in some cases, it may be possible to draw logical inferences from GKT and POT results. These techniques are, however, vulnerable to countermeasures.
Quote:In short, give credit where credit is due, weed out any unprofessional types as with any other profession, and let's get on with solving cases with this and other valuable investigative tools !!!!!!!!
The problem of CQT polygraphy is not so much "unprofessional types" as the fact that the entire methodology is without validity.