A predictable response.  Make it about me, not the question which you cannot answer.  Not just will not answer but cannot answer--under any circumstance.  I don't know whether or not you perceive fully the situation that you are in, nonombre.  The question (What is the purpose of the deception used by polygraphers if not to increase accuracy?) is a sticky tar baby and in dealing with it you have precious few options.  If you just leave now--and you should have never become mixed up in this to begin with--whether announced or unannounced, that'll be a tacit acknowledgment that you can't answer the question and we'll draw our conclusions accordingly.  That is, I think, the best outcome that you can hope for in this situation and the sooner you take it, the better it will be for you.  On the other hand, if you make further attempts at sophistry, obfuscation, and delay you will simply become more and more ensnared, more and more stuck.  There will be--and there is--only one thing that can rescue you from that mess.  The truth.  The truth will set you free, nonombre.   

But let us set aside the wisdom of that Jewish rabbi and use a more concrete argument.  You are an investigator so suppose you were a policeman investigating a murder.  And when you question the prime suspect and ask where he was at the time of the murder he provides no alibi, instead simply asserting again and again that he wasn't at the murder scene and could, when needed, supply an air tight alibi.  Would that or would that not make you suspect that he couldn't provide an alibi and was stalling for time, hoping that he would eventually be able to cobble some story that might pass together?  Unless you are a blithering idiot, his refusal to clear himself, as he claims he can do, would raise bright red flags in your mind.

The situation here is the same.  You claim to have an alibi--an explanation for the deception that doesn't involve it increasing accuracy.  Why do you not provide it?  We stand in readiness to receive it--try us!  What?  I'm not nice?  I tell you the truth, I'd be a hell of a lot nicer if your livelihood didn't screw over people like me.  You claim it doesn't, so just answer my question, I'll admit you're right, and I'll be much nicer to all of you and do just penance to atone for the error of my ways.

If my language seems bombastic, it is by design.  I'm handing you your excuse on a silver platter.  Eventually you will claim that I am simply unreasonable, won't accept any answer whatsoever (never mind that you won't have presented a single true answer), and that nothing further can be gained by continuing the discussion.  In the end, you will do that.  But of course, your knowledge of my prediction introduces a new variable, one that likely invalidates my prediction of your behavior and makes new calculations much more difficult.  So, perhaps you'll just decide to ignore me after all.

And the second reason for my language is that I am having an immense amount of fun.  I enjoy the classics, don't you?  Or have you never read Moby-Dick?   

All that most maddens and torments; all that stirs up the lees of things; all truth with malice in it; all that cracks the sinews and cakes the brain; all the subtle demonisms of life and thought; all evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in Moby Dick. He piled upon the whale's white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart's shell upon it.

The white whale took Ahab's leg; your kind has taken something equally valuable from me.  Maybe not you personally, but you'll do for a start.  You see, I hate you very, very deeply.  Yes, hate--it is not too strong a term for that which I feel towards you and your kind.  You have chosen to be that which you are, to remain such, and to pretend that you are otherwise.  Just admit it.  Just say 

"Yeah, Lethe, you did get screwed unfairly.  People who know how the polygraph works are indeed at a serious disadvantage when taking it and when you came to us with those concerns before hand we were forced to dismiss them and pretend that they were baseless.  I'm sorry, but the polygraph demands that certain people be sacrificed so that other advantages can be obtained, there is no way out of it.  I think, on balance, the cost-benefits analysis comes out in favor of using the polygraph and I hope that eventually some lie-detector can be found that won't screw over smart people like yourself.

If you could do that, you would atone for all the sins of your profession, from Adam on down.  Maybe you really do feel bad for those who must be sacrificed; maybe a part of you even wants to apologize. But here's the real crime of the polygraph: you can't.  You are not your own master, you are a slave to the polygraph.    Nonombre, those who would detect liars should look to it they themselves do not become liars. You have gazed long into the abyss, and the abyss has gazed also into you.

We all have limitations placed upon us; here, you are a bigger slave than I, thus my allusion to our National Anthem's third verse.  And your chains severely constrict your freedom of action.  I've dealt with many like you before, nonombre, and I have a pretty good idea how you'll probably respond to this.  I'll not say what my prediction is, since that'd invalidate it, but I'll tell you afterwards if I was right.  Of course, you'll have to take my word for it.   

Now, I will try to be nice.  Let me start by apologizing for my hatred.  It goes against my most important moral principles to hate you; I should love even my enemies and do good to those who hurt me, groups into which you most certainly fall.  But I am weak and fall far short of that ideal and having that pointed out by the situation which you put me in, oddly, makes me hate you even more.  And you know, I trust, how Moby-Dick ends.  I am sorry that I have discomforted you with my strong language.  And that I am not the person that I wish I were.  And I will say no more on that at this place. 

Nonombre, I would indeed be more appreciative if, in your expertise, you could enlighten us on a very, very important matter.  If the deception used in PLCQ exams is not used to increase the accuracy of the exam, what then is its purpose?  Can you answer that for us?  Please.  I would be most appreciative of either an answer, or a specific statement that the polygraph's workings do not permit you to give one.

Lethe wrote on Jun 27^th, 2007 at 4:35am:


Although I still detect a hint of sarcasm, I do very much appreciate your move to a more civil tone.  This enables us all to be more objective and thoughtful.  Now the answer I am going to provide to you may still be not exactly as you seek, but it is my immediate thought out answer on this very warm summer evening.  My response is designed to address not just the question posed above, but will address the original accusation (by many on this site) that because deception is sometimes part of some polygraph procedures, polygraph examiners are therefore all "frauds" and "liars.":

There are certain polygraph methodologies in which the true nature of the process and analysis is not to be shared with the examinee (the PLC formats for instance).  

First of all, as you may know, the entire structure of this much maligned (by APG.org)  PLC process (to include how the nature of the examination is presented to the examinee) is actually geared toward helping the innocent/truthful examinee successfully pass the test (a point quickly lost during all the "fraud" and "liar" accusations).

Next, I believe it important to point out that there are several procedures currently administered by psychologists and psychiatrists in which the true nature of the data pursued and the analysis of the data received is deliberately hidden from the examinee (take MMPI for instance).  In other psychological endeavors, the examinees are blatantly lied to and misled (certain psychological research comes to mind).  Does that mean the psychologists, psychiatrists, and practitioners in these cases are all "frauds" and "liars?"  If not, then why not?  After all, they are LIEING to the examinees are they not?

So, does a PLC examinee armed with information regarding the "true" nature of how a PLC examination is administered/analyzed, somehow cause the results of his examination to be less accurate?  I do believe that polygraph examiners are concerned that PLC procedural information provided by this and other "anti" polygraph sites as a  "public service" has in fact "served" to do nothing more than make it more difficult for innocent examinees to get through the test (I argue strongly this information has HURT a lot more folks than he has helped). 

I also know that polygraph examiners who use the PLC test have lately taken great pains to design comparison questions that don't SOUND like comparison questions.  In fact, the ones I have been exposed to of late sound quite "relevant" indeed (and no, I am not going to give you any examples).  So therefore, no, I don't think that as a whole the PLC process has become any less accurate.  As I see it, in the end it has plainly become the responsibility of the polygraph community to help the people you thought you all were "helping," but actually hurt.  I know you will never accept that as fact, but that is how I view this question.   

Regards,

Nonombre

Lethe wrote on Jun 27^th, 2007 at 11:56pm:


Don't you believe it to be a bit of a stretch to compare taking or giving a polygraph examination to Nazi Germany?

A bit absurd, nonetheless, I do find myself interested in the details of your arguments...Hmmm.  And how do you address the statements by the NAS that specific issue polygraph (of the PLC variety) in fact detected deception at levels FAR above chance (albiet not perfect).  

Based on your position, we should throw the tool out anyway....Why?  Because the polygraph examiner chose not to give an detailed blow by blow description to the examinee of exactly what was going on during the testing process???  Or that a group of disgruntled former examinees decided to get on the internet and "let the poverbial cat out of the bag?"

So the polygraph community, learned, adjusted, and reloaded....  Accuracy and utility still in place (if ever actually in question), now more robust then ever... 

You know the truth is that this website is the best thing that ever happened to polygraph.  You all have made us better, stronger.  I am not trying to taunt you here.  You all truly made us take a look at what we were doing, much like how even a borderline successful hack by a computer hacker forces a company take a closer look at it's own security and close the open ports...

Forensic polygraph version 2.0, now available at a police department or governmental agency near you...

Regards...

Nonombre
     

Yes, it would be more than a bit much to draw close parallels between polygraphers and Nazis, and I don't think that I do that in the above post.  I try to follow this rule of thumb: If someone isn’t advocating the murder of millions of people in gas chambers and a global Reich for the White Man I don't assume he’s a Nazi because it’s pretty damn evil to call him one.

However, totalitarians do like to eliminate critical thought and get people to take things purely on their authority and "just follow orders" (the defense given by many concentration camp guards when tried at Nuremburg).  Polygraphers don't set out to do that, but that is an incidental side effect of what they do.  People who go out and get information, instead of just taking what is grudgingly given to them, and who then apply their own rationality to said data, instead of simply accepting the proffered explanations, are--as you admit--at a disadvantage on the polygraph.  Thus, we can expect to have fewer of those sorts of people at a polygraphing agency than we expect to find there if it were a nonpolygraphing agency.  I don't see how that conclusion can be escaped.  Do you find it valid?  If so, I'm guessing that you find it deplorable but you think the benefits still outweigh even that cost (which I think is pretty high).

Anyway, I don't have a problem with the NAS review, the executive summary of which says the polygraph detects deception "well above chance, though well below perfection."  I think that George and I differ a lot in that I believe that under ideal conditions it might be possible that the polygraph could obtain the 90% accuracy levels that polygraphers like to cite.  The ideal circumstance requires many things under the tester's control: environment of exam, well-trained polygrapher, good equipment, adequate background info, etc.  But it also includes one major element that cannot be easily controlled by the tester: the examinee's knowledge of the exam.  You will be right far less than 90 times if you put 100 people who know how the polygraph works and doubt its accuracy.  My guess would be that the accuracy in that circumstance--with examinees furthermore hostile to the examiners who have been lying to them and insulting their intelligence--will be little better than chance.   

The problem is not that examinees are not told how the test works.  The problem is that those examinees who find out how it works are at a huge disadvantage--and they're precisely the sorts of people that we most want in the sorts of jobs that we feel we have to polygraph for.

One solution is just to keep everyone ignorant.  If you can do that with total success, you can return to the 90% success rate.  But, if the method for keeping people ignorant has other negative drawbacks you need to run through the cost-benefits analysis again.  And how are you going to get people to think critically about everything except this one little thing that they can never question or look into?  I don't think it's possible; either everything is fair game for skeptical inquiry or you must muzzle critical thinking.  Otherwise, eventually it'll start asking "Why is it that this one thing we can never think about?  What is so special about it that we must never question it, even though we are told to think rationally about everything else?"  And at that point you must either banish the voice of reason or embrace it.  Woe to those who send it away.

Again, I can provisionally accept a 90% accuracy rate for the polygraph under ideal conditions, if inconclusive results are left out. But when an inconclusive conclusion is results in the same thing for the examinee as a failure it's dishonest to pretend the polygraph didn't fail when an honest person comes up inconclusive.  To honestly debate the widespread use of the polygraph, it seems to me, we need to know the following three things:

• the accuracy rate with ignorant subjects;
• the accuracy rate with knowledgeable subjects; and
• what percentage of examinees are knowledgeable

If we don't have those three bits of information, I don't see how we can estimate what the real world accuracy rate is.  And that's what is important, not what rate some guy got in a laboratory.  It's not people who may or may not have stolen $5 out of a desk who are a danger to anyone.

It's like when you go to a car dealership and look at the stickers.  They don't just say "30 mpg."  They will indicate the car gets 30 mpg on the highway and 22 mpg in city driving.  Then you, the consumer, knowing that you do 80% of your driving in-town, can calculate what your real mileage will be (23.6 mpg, if my hasty math is correct).  Again, it is dishonest to cite the accuracy under ideal conditions if only 30% of the real world tests can be done under those conditions.

Anyway, this website is the best thing that ever happened to polygraph?  I don't think anyone should be surprised that the free exchange and competition of ideas leads to better ideas.  Personally, I'd like to see it practiced on an even wider scale.

Drew,

I would think that we can both agree that a lie is not necessarily what is measured or deception necessary in a procedure of testing for deception.  In fact, concealing information is in itself a form of deception.  Although I do believe that conditioning is a part of the procedure (e.g. orienting response is a form of conditioning), it needn’t be “contorted”.

I am not sure what it is that you were trying to accomplish with your last thought of the examiner and the critic but I personally have had many personal discussions with David Lykken, some with Bill Iacono, and some with John Furedy (some of the harshest opponents of CQT polygraph).  In fact, I corresponded with David up until a day or two before he passed away.  I neither agree nor subscribe to the ideology that one should isolate themselves from someone just because they do not agree with you or have different beliefs than you.

J.B. I stand by my analysis of your posts, which you've done nothing to refute.  When put into plain language, they really are that vacuous.  But, I know, the answer to all my questions is always in the next article or book.  Well, here's an article for you to read: Politics and the English Language, by George Orwell.

[quote author=nonombre link=1181580290/15#18 date=1182983500  I do believe that polygraph examiners are concerned that PLC procedural information provided by this and other "anti" polygraph sites as a  "public service" has in fact "served" to do nothing more than make it more difficult for innocent examinees to get through the test (I argue strongly this information has HURT a lot more folks than he has helped). 

Regards,

Nonombre [/quote]

Whew. That is the biggest crock of horse manure I have read in a long time. 
If you sincerely believe that this site and TLBLD has actually made it more difficult
for innocent subjects to pass a p/g examination, then you are seriously deluded and 
are definitely No Friend of anyone who visits here for advice.

Wow. The scary thing is that you may even believe this rubbish that you posted.

No. I dont think you believe your own ramblings. You're just stuck in a rut with no
alternative but to wallow in it long-term.

How sad. Just at a point where I thought you had some real life in you.
0/10 for the BS
But 10/10 for effort.

I will conjure up your image in my mind and send you peace and blessings.