Greater Manchester Skeptics: Lie Detectors

Thursday, July 01, 2010

The Polygraph - Complete Nonsense? (Just Skeptics Episode 6)

For episode 6 of the Just Skeptics podcast we were joined once more by Rick Owen, who talked at great length about lie detectors. You can listen to this episode (and more) by searching iTunes for "Just Skeptics" or by visiting the Just Skeptics blog. He was kind enough to write this accompanying piece for us:

As with my rant in episode 2, my soap-box session on episode 6 of the Just Skeptics could have gone on for hours, and there are so many more things that could be said about it. I’m not going to give you a full transcript of the podcast, you will have listen to the podcast, but here are some extra points.

As I mention, polygraph operators are “trained”, even certified. In some states they may even enjoy the tacit government approval of needing to be licensed. But this training can be completed in 7-12 weeks. That’s not a lot for a thorough understanding of the human mind under stressful conditions, and the ability to tease out genuine deception from the other possibly causes of stress during the polygraph examination.

What is Skepticism?

Skepticism is a method of discerning truth from fiction. Doubt is preferred to belief - when presented with an unusual claim, a skeptic will doubt that claim unless there is a decent amount of evidence to back it up.

Many people confuse Skepticism with Cynicism. This is not the case - cynicism is the tendency to ascribe the worst possible motives for the actions of other people, while skepticism is simply the refusal to accept claims without good evidence to back it up.

While a skeptic will try to remain rational, skeptics are of course fallible. A skeptic might also be cynical, close-minded or just plain wrong, but a good skeptic should always try to change their beliefs when shown how and why these beliefs are wrong.