nonombre wrote on Apr 21
st, 2006 at 11:22pm:
Uh uh, don't change the subject Hombre,
Am I to understand that if you were to explain to your children the lethality of antifreeze, and they then used that information to deliberately poison somebody, you would feel NO sense of responsibility for their actions?
I guess that is what they mean by the "me" generation...
Regards,
Nonombre
I guess I was assuming that you were bright enough to see the absurdity of that analogy. Apples/oranges anyone?
OK, I'll spell it out. Jumping from the fact that disseminating information on how to "beat" or "pass" a polygraph machine that countless scientists including the NAS have routinely judged to often produce inaccurate/incorrect results, especially when employed as part of a pre-screening process, could also lead to dishonest people using this knowledge to pass a polygraph exam TO a shotgun in the doorway of a schoolhouse and teaching children that antifreeze is very, very bad is not very, very good logic.
The first example imparts knowledge on how to beat a flawed machine. If you want to argue that the machine is not flawed, that's for another day, and for you to take up with the NAS. The fact that those with no integrity could use such knowledge to also beat a flawed machine is troubling, I agree, but this very fact should likewise call the effectiveness of the polygraph into more doubt. To me it's also troubling that good people are rejected from employment because of this machine.
We are talking about a test here--in your two examples you are talking about (1) an illegal action and (2) supplying knowledge to a child in good faith that is later used by the child for ill means. I fail to see any connection between the CM teaching and (1) or (2).
Moreover, there's a flip side to your coin, compadre--am I to assume that you feel no responsibility when a polygrapher judges an honest and moral person to be dishonest and/or morally corrupt and thereby ruin that person's dreams of working as a cop or intel analyst?