pailryder wrote on Mar 2^nd, 2009 at 7:24pm:


I agree with David Lykken, who discussed these polls in Chapter 12 of A Tremor in the Blood: Uses and Abuses of the Lie Detector. His key criticisms of these polls are 1) the fact that respondents were asked about the usefulness of polygraph test interpretations, rather than their validity, and that even those who reject the latter may concede the former, 2) that no distinction was made between the CQT and the GKT, and respondents who thought polygraph interpretations useful may have had the latter technique in mind, and 3) the Honts-Amato poll had a low response rate.

In a better constructed poll by Lykken and William G. Iacono, only 36% of SPR members and 30% of APA Division One fellows responded "yes" when asked, "Would you say that the CQT is based on scientifically sound psychological principles or theory?" More than a decade has passed since that poll, and I suspect that if a new poll were conducted today, those numbers would be lower.

The poll is just a poll, but it is a replicated poll and was not proferred for its scientific accuracy. It was proferred to refute your insipid insistance that "science" has determined that polygraph doesn't work.
Thats a false conclusion based on your own opinion not scienific study. Polygraph Works. 56 peer reviewed studies that were approved as having sufficient quality to satisfy the NAS say it works. The NAS says it works, the American Medical Association says it works and the poll by Gallup that was replicated by Amato and Honts establishes that the majority of psychophisiologogists agree that it works. Unless you can find fraud they are all still awaiting someone to refute the findings,

The issue is not whether or not polygraph works, IT DOES, It just doesn't work well enough to suit YOU and GEORGE. but just to make you guys happy research is ongoing. 

Cullen I don't see why are you still ignoring the American Medical Association aren't they scientific enough for you?

I quote: "The American Medical Association (AMA) Council on Scientific Affairs has reviewed the data on the validity and accuracy of polygraphy testing as it is applied today. The use of the control question technique in criminal cases is time honored and has seen much scientific study. 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. This does not preclude using the polygraph test in criminal investigations as evidence or as another source of information to guide the investigation with full appreciation of the limitations in its use."
Link: http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/256/9/1172

Once again,  Ask a mathmatician or statistician if 75% to 97% is significantly better than chance. I'll save you the time. They'll tell you that it is significantly better than chance. 

The following excerpt from the "Conclusion and Recommendations" section of the NAS review doesn't sound like they concluded "it works", from a scientific standpoint, anyway:


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.


OTOH, they concluded the polygraph does have "utility", since many people are  dumb enough to believe it is valid, and can actually detect lies.  Of course, we know the polygraph is nothing more than an interrogation, and interrogation techniques can be quite effective.

Polygraph examinations may have utility to the extent that they can elicit admissions and confessions, deter undesired activity, and instill public confidence. However, such utility is separate from polygraph validity.  There is substantial anecdotal evidence that admissions and confessions occur in polygraph examinations, but no direct scientific evidence assessing the utility of the polygraph. Indirect evidence supports the idea that a technique will exhibit utility effects if examinees and the public believe that there is a high likelihood of a deceptive person being detected and that the costs of being judged deceptive are substantial. Any technique about which people hold such beliefs is likely to exhibit utility, whether or not it is valid. For example, there is no evidence to suggest that admissions and confessions occur more readily with the polygraph than with a bogus pipeline—an interrogation accompanying the use of an inert machine that the examinee believes to be a polygraph. In the long run, evidence that a technique lacks validity will surely undercut its utility.

This is why it is important to go into the test "akamai" (informed).  Reading TLBTLD at a minimum!  Know beforehand that the machine DOES NOT detect lies.  Read about some of the interrogation techniques that are likely to be used against you, and the real purpose of a polygraph examination.

Oh yeah, the NAS review also mentioned the high expected number of "false positives" that occur, and conclude that screening polygraphs can be expected to do more harm than good, eliminating qualified TRUTHFUL applicants from employment by falsely labeling them as "deceptive".

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The line Gino cited is the take home conclusion of the NAS report. It's not cherry picked to support a conclusion that the report doesn't make, or a view that the polygraph review committee members didn't voice.

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T.M. Cullen's citation of the NAS report is not deliberately misleading in the manner you suggest. He highlighted quoted passages in blue. (It would be preferable to have used quote tags for this purpose.) The first passage cited in his last post is from pp. 212-13 of the NAS report. The second passage, also in blue, is found at pp. 214-15.

Earlier in this thread you wrote:

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I have never claimed to be a scientist, never allowed myself to be erroneously characterized as such, nor have I tried to create any such impression.

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Both quotes are word for word and right out of the NAS report.  Would you like the page numbers?   

If you don't agree with the NAS report quotes I pasted, just say so.  You'd be more credible if you did.  Making false accusations just makes you appear psychotic and paranoid.

What do you have against cutting and pasting relevant quotes from scholarly sources?  I didn't come unglued when you cut and pasted from JAMA.

TC