cesium_133
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Location: Charlotte, NC, USA
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th , 2006
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Re: Cry me a river
Reply #17 - Jul 20th , 2006 at 8:22pm
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I might guess that herdman is a polygrapher or is somehow connected yet today with the box. No matter what the connection between the ploygraph, er, polygraph and employment opportunities in government is, it's off base. What this site demonstrates, and very well, is that the box simply doesn't do what is advertised. Herdman actually concedes this in his opening post: that the poly is not a lie detector. That it measures only physiological responses and biofeedback, and does so without regard as to why said biofeedback occurs. That it cannot tell why such BFB occurs, anyhow. Thank you, QED. That leaves me puzzled as to the veracity and sincerity of the pro-poly side: cui bono? That is, why is herdman defending something that he admits is falsely labeled and understood, while we expose it for what it is? We, the concerned public, have more reason to be concerned about misuse of this device than does someone incestuously connected with the poly and who apparently has profited from its use. Herdman thus is left with arguing for the indirect, value-based, imprecise, and defeatable "benefit" of the magic box: the post-test interrogation. This 3rd degree is, of course, based on speculation and blind guesswork assessment on the part of Polyman. He must speculate what the lines mean; speculate what kind of lie, if any, is being told; and then come up with something to try to force a confession of something, old Soviet-style. All the while relying on nothing more than BFB that could, and often does, come from fear, upset, revulsion at a question, or even negative stimulus by the polyman's tone of voice. What kind of a sick joke is this? Enough people have come forward in this one thread alone with their experiences of disqualification from jobs based only on poly results to make me believe that those scores make all the difference. I simply do not buy that a "DI" or "SR" response is just thrown away or mixed into the calculations (unless the government chooses to do so). This is a tool, all right: a tool utilizing the same deception and misinformation and half-truths that it allegedly attempts to prevent. Sounds kind of like the breaking wheel, if you ask me. The end does not justify the means, people. That is the apologists' excuse for totalitarianism. Maybe we can re-open Lubyanka Prison and put the poly in there as the newest torture method...