You had written that you "completely dismiss antipolygraph.org as a useful source of information." Considering that we provide primary sources such as the federal polygraph handbook, I think you were being a bit obtuse.
Not at all. I don't care how many primary sources that Answers in Genesis purports to provide regarding the theory of evolution; the editorial bias is so heavy-handed, so manipulative, and so deceitful that I can't trust that any of the cited sources actually say what they do. They're not above distorting sources until they say the exact opposite of what the authors intended.
I dismiss antipolygraph.org
for exactly the same reason. Because the citations are so blatantly untruthful, I can't even trust your representation of primary documents to be in any way accurate. How do I know you haven't airbrushed the handbooks until they say what you want?
It's the NAS (National Academy of Sciences) not the FAS (Federation of American Scientists) to which you refer. But your citation is inapposite. The same NAS report (The Polygraph and Lie Detection) goes on to conclude that the scientific underpinnings of polgyraph testing are quite weak.
See? You're doing it again. What's the difference between something that doesn't exist and something that is "quite weak"? The NAS goes out of its way to point out that there
is a scientific basis for polygraphy, but that it's weak --- and you distort that to say that there is no basis.
Furthemore, you expect me to believe that the NAS view, which is explicitly the corporate view of scientists generally does not represent the "consensus view," and instead refer me to the
work of the
individual scientists Iacono and Lykken.
You're confusing Iacono and Lykken for the entire scientific world?
This view is supported by a survey of scientific opinion conducted by William G. Iacono and the late David T. Lykken that you'll find discussed in the former's aforementioned article, "Forensic 'Lie Detection': Procedures Without Scientific Basis":
Oh, a
survey. How many surveys can I find on Answers in Genesis? It's extremely easy for a biased researcher to write a biased survey which can then be trumpetted to the hills by a biased site -- especially if the biased site is blatantly untruthful.
It would be an ad hominem argument to claim that the fact that the FBI considered the creator of the lie detector to be a crackpot and a phony proves that polygraphy is invalid. It doesn't. But I think this little known historical fact is interesting and worthy of contemplation.
.... and it just
happens to be part of a bullet-pointed list on a site entitled AntiPolygraph.org, as part of a campaign to convince people that polygraphy is invalid. But, no,
of course it's not intended to further support the invalidity of the polygraph via innuendo, slime, and (if necessary) slander.
Riiiiight.
If you could be so kind as to point out anything else I've written that you believe to be untrue (you accuse me of lying), I'd be grateful.
Certainly. In the posting to which I'm responding, you wrote:
The bullet list on the AntiPolygraph.org home page is intended not to provide a point-by-point logical refutation of polygraphy,
I consider this to be a
blatant untruth, so from my perspective, you're telling lies on a web forum to justify your telling lies on a web page.
I think there's a lot of cold, calm, logical stuff (and more importantly, correct stuff) that can be written about the potential evils of polygraphs. I think that polygraph
screening is one of the most misguided government policies since the establishment of the anti-homosexual policies in the 1950s that knocked out half of the RAND theorists (and Turing). But I think the actual talking points get lost in the presentation and
mispresentation on antipolygraph.
Think of it this way. You know how governments work, and how good they are at ignoring things that they don't like. JoeyDonuts specifically said that "interestingly enough, in the NCIS prebriefing for the polygraph, they asked a group of us if we had done any research on the polygraph and specifically mentioned your website in a not-too-flattering light. Without mentioning you by name, they cast you as a disgraced and disgruntled person who has a bone to pick with the authorities."
They
mentioned your website. Apparently there's nothing about your website that actually threatens The Man enough that they don't want it to be known about. Apparently they consider your website sufficiently UNconvincing that they're willing to admit that it exists, since it's obvious enough that it was written by "a disgraced and disgruntled person who has a bone to pick with the authorities."
If they felt threatened by it, they'd bury it. They wouldn't tell anyone about it. It's easy enough to find ill-informed, strident, unconvincing antipolygraph web sites that can be held up as a parody of real, informed research. It's very easy to create or find strawmen activists to make whatever current policy is look calm, rational, and well-informed by comparison. If necessary, they'd just by up polygraphssuckballs.org and create a page full of ill-informed lies and innuendo that a concerned applicant could look at and be reassured.
You are their chosen activist strawman. They didn't need to buy a new domain.
Doesn't that make you hesitate, just for a moment?
