Stan_Smith wrote on Aug 18
th, 2007 at 9:52pm:
[The polygraph is] a tool used to point LE in the right direction. Does it sometimes present false negatives? sure. Does it help convict criminals and point the police in the right direction? most definitley. I feel I'm repeating myself and again, Lloyd, methinks you doth protest too much. The more you post, the more I'm convinced you may have very well poisoned your own cake.
Stan, you are basically talking about a cost-benefits analysis. Yes, the polygraph sometimes leads investigators down wrong paths, but the good that it does outweighs this overall. Have you factored into your analysis the following costs:
(1) The bias of the polygraph against truthful examinees who know how it works;
(2) The resulting necessity that people be kept from knowing how it works;
(3) The resulting attempts to get people, including suspects and applicants, to believe silly statements and blindly accept authority; and
(4) The reduction in critical thought by police officers and government employees due to the elimination of honest, intelligent people who find out how the polygraph works and therefore have a very difficult time passing the exam.
Have you taken those into your cost-benefits analysis? On my side, I have counted as benefits of the polygraph that fear of it can get applicants to make admissions that they otherwise would not and that others with unsavory events in their past can be discouraged from applying in the first place out of fear that the polygraph really would detect their deception. I still find that the costs carry the preponderance of the weight, however. Perhaps you can enlighten me otherwise.
Your allusion to Shakespeare, Stan, gives me hope that you might be capable of responding to my queries with something approaching originality and skill. You certainly didn't learn the bard in polygraph class. I had had hopes for nonombre, but he appears to be falling completely to pieces on us.
In any event, the points that I make here I have made elsewhere on this forum. For instance,
here and
here. Please note that nothing that I have said has anything to do with countermeasures. Please don't argue against them as I have not argued for them. Also, logical fallacies will not be tolerated. I look forward to discussing these matters with you, Stan.