The Wikipedia entry for Pseudoscience includes a section titled "Identifying pseudoscience." I invite all to peruse this checklist and consider for themselves how polygraphy fares.

LieBabyCryBaby wrote on Dec 13^th, 2006 at 9:29pm:


The existence of polygraph granfalloons, chief amongst them the American Polygraph Association, which purports to be "Dedicated to Truth" (APA motto) but sees no ethical problem with a past president and life member falsely passing himself off as a Ph.D. in marketing his polygraph services, is but one of the many hallmarks of pseudoscience stamped all over the empty vessel of polygraphy.

George

I agree with this video and I'm the biggest skeptic around and don't believe much until I try it myself when it come to urbal benefits. However, I think this guy is wrong when it comes to the FDA. 

I have been plagued with skin cancer for 20 years. I had four surgically removed with two returning. Then my daughter obtained a product that cured melanoma on her prize stallion. It was suggested that he be put down. He lived another 12 years. I then used it on the two carcinomas that returned. It cured them and they never returned. Then I got melanoma myself in my right temple and applied this product. Walla. It was cured. I can furnish pictures of the different stages of cure. It has cured cancers on me, three members of my family and four others 17 times without a failure. But do you think the FDA will do research on it. Hell no. Why? Because this product has been curing cancer for 100 years and pharma industries and the medical profession can't make their billions from it. I firmly believe that the FDA is the enforcement arm of the AMA and Pharma.

I will not name the product because I don't believe in advertising on someone else's website.

Like I said. I proved it on me first then others without a failure. I still don't believe the pseudoscience of polygraphy because I proved it ineffective on me first.

Twoblock,

The point in the video concerning the FDA is the importance of blinded clinical trials with statistically significant numbers of individuals for evaluating the effectiveness of a drug. Anecdotal evidence is not enough.

With regard to polygraphy, our personal experiences do not prove that it's not valid. Even a valid test for deception (and none has yet been devised) would have a margin of error, and inevitably some truthful persons would be wrongly classified as deceptive (and vice versa).

But polygraphy has not been proven to reliably differentiate between liars and truth-tellers under field conditions. Those who claim it is a highly accurate test for deception (who inevitably have a financial stake in polygraphy) have failed to support such claims with evidence that withstands scrutiny.

With regard to the FDA, it doesn't initiate testing of drugs. The company that wants to market a drug does so. I'm glad that your melanomas are cured, but your experience is not enough to prove that the treatment you employed is generally safe and effective.

Of course, as you noted, herbal is spelled with an "h." Some people aspirate the h, some don't, which explains how a misspelling like "urbal" can arise.

skeptic too,

The FDA's 1,700 prescription drug recalls in 2009 were evidently based on manufacturing lapses, and not faulty clinical trials.

The US government has not conducted any trial of polygraphy that is remotely comparable to the FDA's clinical trial process.

As Alan Zelicoff, M.D. has observed, "If we had medical tests that had the same failure rate as a polygraph, then physicians that use those tests would be convicted of malpractice."

LOL...you could replaced the psuedoscience catchword with polygraphy and no one would ever know the word psuedoscience was there in the first place!!! LOL

I rarely ever comment on this board anymore, but as a scientist and engineer, 2 letters "BS". Just like fMRI was going to be the next big thing in detection of deception devices. This eye movement device delves into the same area that the fMRI tries too. That the human body has a definitive standardized response to lying. Standardized responses from human beings is a pipe dream. Which has always been the holy grail for any device that claims to be able to detect deception. And I can off the top of my head think of at least 5 OTC medicines that would not only hinder any attempt to monitor eye movements, if not completely negate reactive eye movements. Try as you might  Mr. Mangan, science and substance beats pseudoscience everytime. And once a subject is trained on how the detection of deception con is played, (pick your device), it basically renders the process useless. Or in layman's terms, once you know the magicians trick, it is far from impressive.

Mr Mangan,

Just like every other Detection of Deception machine, or should I say Placebo Device, its only as good as the selling job that's done with it. If you correlate Placebo Effect to any deception detection process, its one and the same. The ultimate countermeasure to be trained is "Just don't believe". Core Non-belief leads to no adrenals released, no F3 reactions, no reactions on the machine. Its that simple, and knowledge is power. Remove the fear and anxiety and you get nothing. So it doesn't take a rocket scientist, once informed,  to see any deception detection device as being worthless.  So until a device is built that can actually read the human mind, any of these devices remain just what they are, interrogation props. And a knowledgeable subject will know he has nothing to fear from them. Which defeats even the most ardent operator.