Saturday, January 07, 2006

Zap 'em with the Truth Machine

Polygraphs, or lie detectors, don't work. They're like cold fusion: would be nice to have, but sorry, no go. The ideas behind them are pseudoscience. The best you can hope for with a polygraph is that a suspect will believe that it works, and perhaps confess when you trundle it into the interview room.

But this doesn't stop the U.S. Department of Defense from wanting a polygraph that works at a distance and without the subject knowing they are being assessed.

Let me say that again. There's this machine that doesn't work at close hand, and now the DoD wants one that does its non-working thing at a discreet distance as well. Brilliant.

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2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I know from the writer Oliver Sachs that people with afatic disorders are very hard to lie to. Maybe they can be used instead of tecnical devices...jenny m

07 January, 2006 11:43  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The DOD is taking proposals...which means this will be just another way for the government to waste millions of tax dollars. Since 9/11 the DOD gets what it wants, when it wants it however much it costs. Boy, I'm proud to be american. Ridiculous isn't it? We wouldn't want to feed our poor with that cash would we?

07 January, 2006 14:53  

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