Skeptic,
DoD or, more specifically, the office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Command, Control, Communications, and Intelligence (ASD C3I), which prepares DoD's annual polygraph report to Congress, is relying on the following conclusion of the NAS report, which appears at pp. 8-4 to 8-5:
Quote:Alternative Techniques Some potential alternatives to the polygraph show promise, but none has yet been shown to outperform the polygraph. None shows any promise of supplanting the polygraph for screening purposes in the near term. Some potential alternatives maybe useful as supplements, though the necessary research to explore that potential has not been done. Some, particularly techniques based on measurement of brain activity through electrical and imaging studies, have good potential on grounds of basic theory. However, research is at a very early stage with the most promising techniques, and many methodological, theoretical, and practical problems would have to be solved for these techniques to yield improvements on the polygraph. Not enough is known to tell whether it will ever be possible in practice to identify deception in real time through brain measurements.
Section V of
DoD's polygraph report to Congress for FY 2002, which discusses the NAS report notes, "...The NRC [research arm of the NAS] also concluded that no alternative technique has yet been shown to outperform the polygraph technique." While this is an accurate statement, the DoD completely ignores the NAS's damning findings regarding polygraphy in general and polygraph screening in particular.
Note, however, ASD C3I John P. Stenbit
clearly misrepresented the NAS's findings in a
memorandum dated 5 Nov. 2002 circulated to senior DoD officials. Stenbit wrote, "...I believe it is important to remember that the National Research Council Report determined that the polygraph technique is the best tool currently available to detect deception."
The NAS's conclusion that no alternative "has yet been shown to outperform the polygraph" is not tantamount to a finding that "the polygraph technique is the best tool currently available to detect deception." Indeed, the NAS also concluded that "[t]here is essentially no evidence on the incremental validity of polygraph testing, that is, its ability to add predictive value to that which can be achieved by other methods" (p. 8-2).
One wonders whether Assitant Secretary of Defense Stenbit actually reviewed the NAS report, or whether he delegated the drafting of his response to an underling. Stenbit's
on-line biography indicates that in 1999, he was inducted into the
National Academy of Engineering (NAE). His support of continued, and even expanded reliance on the pseudoscience of polygraphy should be an embarrassment to both the NAE and DoD.
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