gelbpost
FOCUS ON PROFESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE APA RATHER THAN THE ETHICS OF “DR” GELB
In its official reply to George, the APA was acting as if it were primarily or even exclusively a research oriented society like the Society for Psychophysiological Research (SPR). If it were like SPR, then the position that it will act only for advertisements and articles in APA's journal, the Polygraph, would be defensible. And to a neutral reader like my wife, the APA’s letter seems justifiable at least content, if not in tone.
So, at first glance (and assuming, as I of course do not, that there is any scientific basis to the polygraph, and that it, therefore, is possible to do research on it), this seems a reasonable defence. As a parallel, if someone were to complain to SPR that a former president of SPR, in his separate practice as a clinical psychologist, misrepresented himself as having obtained a D.Sc. (higher than a Phd) when he had not, SPR would probably only act to make sure that in its journal this individual did not advertise himself as a D.Sc., nor claim this title in any of his publications in the journal.
However, the APA is predominantly a professional organization of practitioners that offer scientifically-based services of a psychological sort to the community. It purports to tell the community whether someone is telling the truth or lying, or is innocent or guilty. It is much more like the real APA (the American Psychological Association—here I’ll use rAPA to distinguish it from the polygraphic APA) than SPR. In fact it is further from SPR than APA, which does contain a significant scientific, non-practitioner component, and still retains the highest research-impact psychology journals, whereas the APA’s journal, Polygraph, doesn’t even make it into the low-impact, peer-reviewed scientific journals category).
Now if the rAPA were notified that one of its former presidents who was also a practitioner, did not hold a PhD from a recognized institution (and, in particular, there was no record of the abstract of his PhD thesis being published in dissertation abstracts), the rAPA would be obligated to investigate if this charge was true. If it was, the rAPA would bound in terms of its professional obligations of protecting the public, to act against this former president, and to expel him formally from rAPA. A similar case occurred some years ago with the (in)famous psychologist, Joyce Davidson, who was expelled from the rAPA for what is essentially professional misconduct. By the way, I recall Joyce, because on the “Lie Detector”, the show which starred Gelb as the polygrapher, she averred that the only danger with the polygraph was one that was given by someone who was not a member of the APA. The video where she said this can be viewed on
http://www.psych.utoronto.ca/~furedy/polygraph.htm, see 1st section, item 29 (also somewhere on antipolygraph archives).
A more minor, but still significant, point is Gelb’s apparent claim that he holds a PhD in psychology, which is certainly the most relevant academic discipline to the purportedly science-based practice of polygraphy as endorsed by the APA. To the extent that he has claimed psychology as a discipline in which he did his PhD (or other degrees), and this claim is false, the APA should have the same problem with him as the rAPA would have if an ex president claimed he had a degree in psychology, whereas he really only had the degree in some other discipline like theology. This false claim should be of interest to any professional organization, because it is a danger to the public to pretend that one has a degree in a profession-related discipline, whereas the degree is really in a discipline that is not related to the profession.
So while George’s pursuit of an individual charlatan may be more suitable for legal suits, I think that anti-polygraph should give at least equal attention to the unprofessional conduct of the APA. This attention is independent of the other basic issue to which academics like me have given most attention: the lack of any scientific rationale for the practice of polygraphy as conducted by APA members. To return to my entrails-reading parallel, this is as if an individual entrails-reading priest allegedly lied about his background in disciplines that are purported to underlie entrails reading, and the temple of priests, when confronted with these allegations, were as casual about them as the APA is, rather than how bodies like the rAPA or the AMA would handle such matters.
Also, perhaps a follow-up letter to the APA may be in order, so it can more clearly be seen whether it continues to be so casual about its professional obligations.
All the best, John
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Ethics Complaint Against Edward I. Gelb (Read 75516 times)
