Dan Mangan
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st , 2014
Re: Does the CIT steal the Antipolygraph Community's Fire?
Reply #20 - Feb 15th , 2016 at 2:53pm
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John Daly? You're really dating yourself Ark. But I did the same when likening APA de facto chief researcher Ray Nelson to Professor Irwin (The world's foremost authority!) Corey. The APA has a storied history of steadfastly supporting studies claiming perfect accuracy. In fact, the report that the APA stood by for 15 years -- and sold for 25 bucks a whack -- contained multiple studies showing polygraph to be 100% accurate. Remember, in that compendium, it was reported that average field accuracy for polygraph was a whopping 98.6 percent. There are several factors that contribute to the "perfect storm" that sets the stage a study showing perfect accuracy. Such factors include clear-cut cases that more than merely satisfy Backster's cardinal requirements for success -- adequate background information, case intensity (i.e., what's at stake), and distinctness of issue; flawless execution of a proven technique, test-taker suitability, and, of course, examiner expertise (to include innate talent, skill and intuition -- none of which are "scientific"). The bottom line is that polygraph is far more of an art than it is a science. Add to all of that the inherent benefits of conducting a polygraph "test" in a police setting, such as being fed information based on the hunches of the case investigators, as Dr. Richardson has pointed out. Also, people who submit to a police polygraph are probably not all that bright, which helps immensely. Let me be clear: Studies suggesting 100% accuracy are not to be generalized to the polygraph-operator population at large. Far from it, in fact. Look at it this way...you can't teach someone to throw a 95-mph fastball. That's primarily a God-given skill. In the case of the MQTZCT, it is my opinion that only (exceptional) examiners who were taught personally by Backster in his seminal ZCT method, and subsequently taught the Quadri-Track technique by its creator Matte himself, should conduct such exams. Nelson is correct when he characterizes the MQTZCT as both an outlier and a boutique technique. To be sure, the MQTZCT does not fit the APA's current cool-kid narrative that espouses simplified, dumbed down, cookie-cutter polygraph methodological shortcuts such as ESS, inclusive CQs, and directed lies.