You're looking for influenza or an absence of influenza, just as you are looking for deception or an absence of deception.  In both tests, you will have inconclusives.  Just because you call the absence of deception "truth" (which it is), doesn't make them (or rather, the analogy) all that different.  After all, you could call the absence of influenza "healthy" (and influenza, "sick").

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Error rates are too high for what C? Despite the disinformation, decisions regarding incarceration and/or applicant rejection as a sole result of polygraph are simply not tolerated, period. Perhaps your concern for "human collateral" stems from a modality from a seperate country---not in the US at this time. So many people are rejected by fed intel and cop shops because the officials seek individuals who are cleaner (can you say boringingly squeeky) than the vast majority of US citizens---in the scope of drugs, sexual history, and theft especially. Let a dog lick your balls as a teen?...well, the chief might not like that ----regardless if it was a typical teenage fancy. Steal cash from grandma while she was in the hospitol?--the cheif might have a soft spot for grandmothers-----but typically many things are overlooked unless they present as unashamed or perpetuating. Individuals, say, in an applicant screening situation, are rejected over many factors---many of which are not told to the applicant, as this is certainly the case with any job whether poly is used or not. Most times the applicant just doesn't have all the right qualities, and the polygraph is scapegoated. Take Erik Prince, the controversial owner and (former Navy Seal) of Blackwater USA, he failed his CIA poly, but it is pretty much accepted that he snagged other concerns--having garnered the reputation of being critical of the Naval Institue as a young attendee (he quit bitterly), and being a right-wing extremist (long story) among other slightly "off" personal attributes such as alleged recklessness (the CIA's greatest phobia)-------but was only told at that time that he simply "failed" his polygraph (according to the latest Newsweek magazine article on Blackwater's Prince.) I find it quite telling that now that he has such high accesses and clearences, that he continues to use polygraph pervasively within the Blackwater organization. Bare in mind that Prince calls the shots and he has a love affair with applicant screening modalities, and if he felt that polygraph was a pseudoscience he would certainly ignore the usage potentials.

ps. 1904, your opinion has never been "humble" and neither has mine. 

Sergeant1107 wrote on Oct 29^th, 2007 at 3:53pm:


So does your question imply that a person who was falsy accused of lying could then go on to use the instrument in the way that you stated? Unlikely. You have no faith in poly screening per your historic statements, so I gather that you wouldn't use the poly if it were your multi-million dollar operation. Call me crazy.

I wasn't endorsing E Prince and my point was that despite Prince's obvious controversial history, power, and alliances---and having failed his CIA polygraph which according to many people here----cost him a job by virtue of the stated draconian practices of "DI means DQ", he would seem to be the cat who would not use polygraph, rather than hiring 100's of us.

FYI, I'm not a huge Blackwater fan these days---but besides the point.

Sergeant1107 wrote on Oct 30^th, 2007 at 1:07am:


Now there's some ground truth for the statisticians and pseudo scientists that daily swamp this board with pie-in-the-sky psychobabble and even though some declare that the AP folk bore them, continually
return with their daily tsunami dose of BS.