Update

[orolan]

Are you serious?  You are staking the credibility of polygraphy on the alleged genius of William Marston?

You have to admit, the man drew a pretty good comic. And that magic lasso Pure genius, an Einstein in the making

[Ray]

Human Subject,

This thread questioned the intelligence of polygraph examiners.  Let's take a quick look at Marston's resume.

- Three (3) degrees from Harvard University
- Wrote an article entitled "Emotions of Normal People" which subsequently led to the development of the Personality Profile used today to catergorize individuals into four personality types.
- Created one of the most popular comic characters of all time.

No one is staking the reputation of polygraph on anyone.  I love how you tried to spin that.  However, Marston was a highly intelligent man who believed in polygraph from it's infancy.  Regardless of your feelings about polygraph, can you dispute these statements?  Would you care to compare your resume to that of Marston's?  

[Ray]

How about you Orlan?  Think your accomplishments match up to Marston's?  He may not have been an "Einstein in the making" but the guy was highly intelligent and accomplished.  

I like how you attempt to discredit his intelligence by demeaning his creative success with Wonder Woman.  Is creativity indicitive of limited intelligence?  

It will be interesting to see how you answer my questions.

Keep 'em coming Orlan....you're entertaining me.

[AngryinNY]

Ray,

Your comment that "For every "testimonial" on this site and Williams' site, I have ten verified examples of the effective use of the polygraph" is pretty frightening as a defense of the polygraph. Even if this is true, and even if your personal experiences were representative of polygraph outcomes in general, is a 10:1 ratio really good enough when ruling on such critical issues? Is that margin of error acceptable when accusing people of heinous crimes, destroying careers, and making decisions that affect national security? I don't think so. Do you?

[Skeptic]

How about you Orlan?  Think your accomplishments match up to Marston's?  He may not have been an "Einstein in the making" but the guy was highly intelligent and accomplished.  

I like how you attempt to discredit his intelligence by demeaning his creative success with Wonder Woman.  Is creativity indicitive of limited intelligence?

No, but you seem to feel misspellings fit the bill.  I believe you mean "indicative".

Pot, kettle, black and all that.

It will be interesting to see how you answer my questions.

We've posed a few thousand of our own to the polygraph community that it has thus far collectively failed to address.  Feel free, at any time, to take a whack at a few -- there are some in virtually every thread on this forum.  How about it, Ray?

Skeptic

[meangino]

Ray:

You wrote:

No one is staking the reputation of polygraph on anyone.  I love how you tried to spin that.  However, Marston was a highly intelligent man who believed in polygraph from it's infancy.  Regardless of your feelings about polygraph, can you dispute these statements?  Would you care to compare your resume to that of Marston's?

It's is the contraction for it is.  Its (without the apostrophe) is the possessive for it.

You had 2 spelling errors in the subject post.  Is this a comment on a typical polygrapher's intelligence?

Be careful on criticizing the spelling of other posters on any message board, for you open yourself up for others to find your errors.  

[Philip]

Ray, thanks for catching my error in spelling.  When I made a statement about the intelligence level of polygraphers, perhaps I didn't word that correctly.  Obviously there are a great many highly intelligent people who work as polygraphists.  What I was trying to convey, was the fact that it doesn't seem logical that people with a respectable amount of sense can be so convinced that lie detection can be obtained through polygraphy or cvsa.  To me, that is as accurate as determining if one is being truthful by observing one's    body language.  Neither is a reliable means of detecting deception.  At best they are educated guesses.  For the record, I am all for a method that can aid in putting criminals behind bars.  However, I don't think that the   lie detector is the answer.  I would also like to say that it is utterly disgusting that people like yourself can make light of a situation as a person who is wrongfully disqualified because of his/her false positive results.  You have no idea what that can do to one's life, and it seems that you probably don't care either.

[Ray]

Skeptic,

What questions do you have for me?  Go ahead, ask away (within reason) and I'll do my best to answer them.  

Meangino,

I'm very disappointed with my improper use of "it's."  That is one of my biggest grammer error pet peeves...  I'll slow down and be more careful next time.

Be careful on criticizing the spelling of other posters on any message board, for you open yourself up for others to find your errors.

You're absolutely correct here.  Damn, now I'm triple checking everything I write!  

Phil,

To me, that is as accurate as determining if one is being truthful by observing one's body language.

Are you serious?  Body language can be a clear indicator of deception...there is no question about that.    

[Phil]

Ray, I do think that sometimes body language can be read to speculate if one is lying.  Note the word speculate, as opposed to know.  I have to mention again, that I personally know of a couple of cops who have beaten their polygraphs without even using countermeasures.  For every one that admits it, there are who knows how many that  never will. They will simply be content that they passed theirs, and never bring it up.  If you don't believe any of us here, check out police message boards such as realpolice.com.  There is usually a thread about polygraphs, and you can read some of their posts on that site.

[DIorNDI]

Careful, Ray, about the body language being a good deception indicator, or there may soon be the AntiNeuroLinguistics.org to teach child molestors and <insert description for person who lies to pass polygraph> yet another way to remain free to do as they please.  And George, you sell yourself short.  You have to your credit, teaching numerous sexual predators the required skills to allow them to reoffend and violate their probation while still passing polygraphs!  You and Gino deserve a pat on the back.  And your reply to Saidme was harsh.  How 'bout some kind of update as to the progress of your site?  Public awareness?  You must have some empirical data on how many have beaten the polygraph using your technique, right?  That's progress.  "Drug Addict beats polygraph thanks to Antipolygraph.org - but promises he will be a good police officer because he only lied to get the job - now that he has the job, he will never lie again."  That would make a good poster slogan for your site!  And speaking of the site, since the campaign is going so well, and soon the evil polygraph will be defeated, to what crusade will you devote your entire life?  I guess you will just cross that bridge when you get to it, or if you get to it.  

[suethem]

DIorNDI,

Are you telling us that the polygraph is accurate???

What about  Gary Leon Ridgway?

What about Aldrich Ames?

What about all those LVMPD officers?

I think that public awareness is growing.

Part of the growing public awareness due to this site.

Part of that growing public awareness is due to the polygraphers themselves, who continue to absolve serial killers and hire criminal cops!

Why are you so upset with George and Gino for telling the truth about the polygraph?

Aren't you dedicated to the truth?

[DIorNDI]

Now that is about what I expected.  "hiring all those criminal cops"  Without the polygraph, how many more criminal cops would there be?  Too funny.  You bash the system for allowing bad people to become cops, and you bash the system that prevents bad people from becoming cops the best it can.  Tell me, WHAT would satisfy you?  I do not get upset that G and G expose my secrets, I get upset that they are teaching criminals to beat the system, the only system we have in place to protect us from monsters.  From what I see, we need MORE pre-employment testing.  How about some statistics on employee theft?  workplace violence? It would appear that just asking them and then blindly accepting their answer is not working out.  How about this scenario:  20 employees being subjected to a polygraph for the actions of one thief?  I know, you will claim that no one should be polygraphed.  But I win, they will be interrogated and polygraphed as necessary, so assume that there are 19 innocent people that are "accused" of theft when a pre-employment poly might have prevented the thief from getting a job in the first place?  Just something to think about.  Now take out the "thief" and put "killer" armed with a semi-auto pistol shooting fellow employees?

And somewhere on this site it was suggested that examiners are out to fail everybody.  That they are only looking out for their jobs and wanting to get money for testing.  You are assuming that we judge prior to testing.  To fix the "reject everyone and keep testing to make more money" theory, we could counter with commissions for passing people.  The more that pass, the more you make.  That would solve the problem, huh?  My position remains:  If you want to bash polygraph, by all means do so, but if you continue to teach criminals to beat the system just to prove that polygraph is inaccurate, that is just plain wrong.  I don't care how many people claim that they just use CM's to "enhance" their truths, thousands of people pass without them.  More it seems that CM's are employed by people who need to beat the system.  And I can already hear the proclaimations of innocence, which will no doubt be along the lines of:  "I did not lie on my test, I just used CM's to insure that I did not get a false positive"  Which, of course, NO ONE can prove!  

[suethem]

DIorNDI,

You can lie and pass a polygraph!

You can tell the truth and fail a polygraph!

I guess I can't make it any more simple than that!

It's been proven unreliable in the lab and the field!

Just like when other polygraphers have responded in the past,  there is no mention in your statement of how sorry you feel for the people that are falsely accused.

(I hope you can admit that innocent people are accused and face consequences for being falsely accused?!)

It shows a complete lack of empathy, a feeling that every good officer should have.  

I have read this lack of caring from the pro-side over and over. It frightens me and makes me wonder how you and the others got your LE job.

The polygraph is a reckless tool, used by reckless investigators.  

Background checks may not catch every bad apple, but at least they do not use just one source to falsely accuse someone or to make them a golden candidate.

I would take the money put into the polygraph and re-direct it towards doing a more thorough background check.  I think that many agencies are doing skimpy backgrounds and are really relying on the poly to pick up the slack.  I believe that is wrong.

I don't know why you are a polygrapher, but I understand why you are angry.

 As more and more people come to discover that your 'secrets' are just simple lies, they will loose their belief in the magic box and unfortunately loose respect for LE for using it.

[n0mad]

Atleast he admits that the CM's work!