SanchoPanza wrote on Oct 9
th, 2008 at 11:46am:
Dr. Maschke, I was really hoping for something more substantive than your "The Polygrapher must have been guessing" excuseplanation. {excuseplanation- an excuse thinly disguised as an explanation}
I think I did substantively address the concerns you raised.
Quote:The simple fact is that according to the evidence at hand, kpminam followed your directions and got busted for it. You claim that polygraph ruins potential careers, but when a dishonesty that you helped perpetrate ruins a career, you still refuse to acknowledge any responsibility.
I'm not shirking responsibility for anything I've written or said regarding polygraphy. The truth is important to me, and I think AntiPolygraph.org's policy of not censoring dissenting views is a reflection of that. We even have a
forum dedicated to discussion of
The Lie Behind the Lie Detector where any criticisms may be aired.
I have seen no evidence that the polygraph community has any ability to detect the kinds of countermeasures outlined in
The Lie Behind the Lie Detector at better-than-chance levels, and considerable evidence that it cannot. Such evidence is set forth in Chapter 4.
If it is your contention that the polygraph community can now detect countermeasures, I would be keenly interested in seeing the evidence therefor.
Given the available evidence, I can only continue to agree with the late David T. Lykken that, "...if I were somehow forced to take a polygraph test in relation to some important matter, I would certainly use these proven countermeasures rather than rely on the truth and my innocence as safeguards..."
(A Tremor in The Blood: Uses and Abuses of the Polygraph, 2nd ed., Plenum Trade, 1998, p. 277)
Quote:In the words of James Russell Lowell~
Ef you take a sword an' dror it,
An' go stick a feller thru,
Guv'ment ain't to answer for it,
God'll send the bill to you.
Lowell wrote the poem you cite in protest against the U.S. war against Mexico (See, Ellsworth, Clayton Sumner,
"The American Churches and the Mexican War," The American Historical Review, Vol. 45, No. 2 (Jan., 1940), pp. 301-326). The point of the poem is that those who choose to kill are personally responsible for their deeds, even though they kill for the State. Although I hesitate to analogize polygraphy to murder, what is the implication for government-hired polygraph operators who pretend to assess the credibility of individuals based on a
thoroughly discredited procedure that has
no scientific basis?