sackett wrote on May 1
st, 2008 at 6:46pm:
Why then, would the esteemed council of "unbiased and neutral" scientists report their findings from their selective meta-analysis and include the need for additional research; in something they (allegedly) find non-scientific, non-viable and unreliable? Confouding and confusing, is it not?
Save your indignation, Jim. There's no need to put "unbiased and neutral" in quotation marks in reference to the National Academy of Sciences' Committee to Review the Evidence on the Polygraph. A
sine qua non criterion for selection to participate on the panel was to
not have a vested interest in the outcome of the research review. Names of proposed members were published in advance, and the public had every opportunity to object to the inclusion of any member. To my knowledge, no objections were made.
The panel were necessarily selective in their choice of studies to review because most of what's been published by polygraphers in trade journals like
Polygraph lacks scientific rigor.
The NAS panel's conclusions regarding polygraphy, cited at pp. 212-13 of its
report, are quite damning (emphasis in the original):
Quote:Polygraph Accuracy Almost a century of research in scientific psychology and physiology provides little basis for the expectation that a polygraph test could have extremely high accuracy. The physiological responses measured by the polygraph are not uniquely related to deception. That is, the responses measured by the polygraph do not all reflect a single underlying process: a variety of psychological and physiological processes, including some that can be consciously controlled, can affect polygraph measures and test results. Moreover, most polygraph testing procedures allow for uncontrolled variation in test administration (e.g., creation of the emotional climate, selecting questions) that can be expected to result in variations in accuracy and that limit the level of accuracy that can be consistently achieved.
Theoretical Basis The theoretical rationale for the polygraph is quite weak, especially in terms of differential fear, arousal, or other emotional states that are triggered in response to relevant or comparison questions. We have not found any serious effort at construct validation of polygraph testing.
Research Progress Research on the polygraph has not progressed over time in the manner of a typical scientific field. It has not accumulated knowledge or strengthened its scientific underpinnings in any significant manner. Polygraph research has proceeded in relative isolation from related fields of basic science and has benefited little from conceptual, theoretical, and technological advances in those fields that are relevant to the psychophysiological detection of deception.
Future Potential The inherent ambiguity of the physiological measures used in the polygraph suggest that further investments in improving polygraph technique and interpretation will bring only modest improvements in accuracy.
That's about as strong a condemnation one will find in a consensus scientific report. Speaking more plainly, the Commitee's chairman, Professor Stephen Feinberg stated,
"Polygraph testing has been the gold standard, but it's obviously fool's gold."
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Will Thinking About Something Make You Fail? (Read 14675 times)
