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The testing process should be fair, and it is not.  That is how people are "getting burned."

It has nothing to do with feeling entitled to the job.  It has everything to do with telling the truth on a test that supposedly detects lies and being told you lied and therefore won't get the job.

If a police agency lined up all their applicants, had them count off, and then summarily removed all the even numbers from the hiring process, would you think it reasonable to argue that none of those applicants were entitled to a job in the first place, so they have no reason to complain?

Cullen, I'll take that as an admission that you couldn't name any peer reviewed studies about anything conducted  and funded by anyone who doesn't have some stake in the outcome. 
You also don't appear to have any basis, general or specific, that applicants are currently being rejected solely on the bass of polygraph.

Why didn't you just say so?

My illustrated point, which you mislabel a diatribe was merely given to emphasize your ridiculous position that in order for research to be valid it must be conducted by disinterested parties. That never happens. Everbody involved in any study has a stake in the outcome. Otherwise they have no incentive to do the study in the first place. I'm sorry the simple logic of that statement seems to escape you. The Crewes Study is the only part of my post that makes a direct comparison to polygraph screening and medical screening and as I posted previously, to date no-one has successfully refuted the findings of his study.


"If a police agency lined up all their applicants, had them count off, and then summarily removed all the even numbers from the hiring process, would you think it reasonable to argue that none of those applicants were entitled to a job in the first place, so they have no reason to complain? "

They might have a reason to gripe but they would be laughed  out of court or arbitration because whether you like it or not the procedure you described is a perfectly LEGAL way to eliminate applicants because it does not discriminate against the applicant on the basis of race, gender, religon or political beliefs.  Polygraph is a perfectly legal way to eliminate applicants and it that context (and only in that context) it really doesn't matter whether it works or not.  

According to the American Medical Association Polygraph performs significantly better than chance.  "It is established that classification of guilty can be made with 75% to 97% accuracy, but the rate of false-positives is often sufficiently high to preclude use of this test as the sole arbiter of guilt or innocence."
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/256/9/1172

Ask any statistician if you want to know whether or not 75% to 97% can be properly characterized as "significantly better than chance."


But once again The American Polygraph Association Policy for pre-employment testing clearly says: 
"Polygraph test results should never be used as the sole basis for the selection or rejection of a law-enforcement or public-service applicant"
http://www.polygraph.org/files/delPolicyLE-PublicServicePre-employmenttestingJan...

It appears that the American Polygraph Association and The American Medical Association are in full agreement that polygraph results should not be used as the sole basis for a hiring decision.

It isn't very likely that polygraph will ever be eliminated from law enforcement hiring procedures. Not likely at all. 

If you want to have a significant positive effect on leveling the playing field in the hiring process where polygraph is concerned, why don't you try to identify those agencies that are still using polygraph as the sole arbitor in hiring, failing to use the successive hurdles approach, or violating the American Polygraph Association Policy in any manner and encourage rejected applicants to base their appeals on APA policy violations?  The APA may never publicly censure those agencies who violate their policies but neither will they voice support for anyone who fails to follow them. 

The questions I would ask a rejected applicant would be along the lines of.

How many tests were you given? 
A failure on a single test question series of 3 or 4 charts without a follow-up test is a strong indcation that the successive hurdles approach was not followed. 


Who told you that you were rejected? 
How did they tell you? 
Did you get anything in writing? 
This information might provide evidence of an APA policy violation. 

Did you lie or omit any information before or during the test that pertained to a past criminal act or falsifying of application documents?
If they did, they were rejected because they lied and got caught. You can't help them. 

Did you attempt or were you accused of countermeasures?
If someone was caught using countermeasures there isn't much you'll be able to do to help them because they got caught cheating. 

If any of these questions lead you to believe that APA policy was violated refer them to the APA policy and suggest that they read it thoroughly and point out any potential policy violations in their appeal letter. You should also suggest that they sit down immediately and commit to paper every thing they can remember about the test and what was said by whom and when it was said. This will enable them to better respond to any questions raised in the appeals process.

You'll never beat them by griping about it or by using George's book. 
If you want to whip them, whip them with their own switch, in this case the APA preemployment testing policy.

But Mr Cullen, it should be so easy to debunk a false science.  One good antipolygraph scientific study in 100 years is not asking too much, is it?

Even if NAS only found 56 valid polygraph studies, that is still 56 to 0 our way.

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Dr. Lee wasn't cleared by the polygraph. Although he initially passed his DOE polygraph screening examination, the FBI claims to have interpreted his charts as "inconclusive, if not deceptive," although this is contradicted by Dave Renzelman, then chief of the DOE polygraph program, who reached the conclusion that Lee's polygraph examination was "not finished" (whatever that's supposed to mean). In this regard see my 26 July 2001 "OPR Referral Regarding FBI Testimony on Wen Ho Lee."

Note that Lee later "failed" an FBI polygraph interrogation that may well have been rigged: it was reportedly conducted in an overheated room with a painfully overtightened thumb cuff. See Chapter 2 of The Lie Behind the Lie Detector for more on the use (and abuse) of polygraphy in the Wen Ho Lee investigation.

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Where did you get the notion that the NAS research review was funded by donations from DOE scientists?

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Which scoring criteria mentioned in The Lie Behind the Lie Detector (4th ed.) do you maintain are "no longer considered valid by modern polygraph examiners?"

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Citations?

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I've done my homework, and I can tell you that:

1) You're wrong about the NAS polygraph review having been funded by DOE scientists. It was funded by Congress.

2) The scoring criteria mentioned in The Lie Behind the Lie Detector are current and based on DoDPI/DACA documentation.

3) Very little peer reviewed polygraph research has been published since the publication of the NAS report, and the shortcomings of polygraphy enumerated in that report have not been mitigated in any significant manner.

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In earlier posts, you said the source of funding and peer reviewing of studies don't really matter that much.  That regarding polygraph studies funded by the APA.

All of a sudden, the NAS report is biased because you claim funding came from private sources.

At any point, as I've asked pailryder, what is it precisely in the NAS report do you find to be so much in error, and why?  Particularly, in the conclusion section of the report.

TC

Mr Maschke

How do you square your claim of a scientific consensus against polygraph with the Gallop and Amato-Hounts poll results?

Cullen the point is if you presume polygraph research is inherently biased by their financial or prejudicial interest in the outcome. Then the NAS study is equally biased. Your bias argument absent proof of intentional falsification of results is neutral so you should move on. 

But in George's response did you note how he carefully ignored, as you have, the convergence of opinion between the AMA and the America Polygraph Association regarding how pre-employment testing should be used?

Then there are the poll citations that show that your comments and his regarding how the scientific community views the polygraph wererefuted by Gallop and Amato-Honts poll results. Artfully ignored; at least until one of you figures out some way to accuse Gallup of bias. 

He also seems to believe that research and changes in polygraph scoring criteria haven't occurred because nobody mailed him a copy. 

If he wants to look at some of the new stuff he needs to start with the names I gave him. Heinz and Susan Offe, Stuart Senter, etc. 

I would expect that type of artless or naive reasoning from someone who thought that Columbus was the one who discovered the world was round, but George has a Phd. and appears to wish people regard him as a scientist, although I don't really know if he has published anything but TLBTLD since his doctoral dissertation or anything that has ever been subjected to the peer review process.