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About the Author
Dan Greenberg is a longtime observer of science policy and politics. He is the author of "Science for Sale: The Perils, Rewards, and Delusions of Campus Capitalism" (University of Chicago Press), as well as other books, and has published widely in newspapers and popular and professional magazines.
About Brainstorm
Mark Bauerlein
Marc Bousquet
Laurie Fendrich
Dan Greenberg
John L. Jackson Jr.
Stan Katz
Michael Nelson, guest blogger
Stephen Joel Trachtenberg
Brainstorm Alumni
Marty Nemko, guest bloggerBob Zemsky
Recent Posts
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Stamp Out Election Polls and Surveys: You Can Help | Comment [10]
Bending the Rules for Drug Approval | Comment [3]
Truth in Publishing: Blurbs and Acknowledgments, Continued | Comment [1]
Featured Articles By the Author
Take a Polygraph? Don't Do It, Roger
Asked on 60 Minutes whether he would take a polygraph test to support his denial of steroid use, Roger Clemens replied, “Yeah,” adding, “I don’t know whether they’re good or bad.”
Don’t do it, Roger. The polygraph is bad.
Based on measuring blood pressure and other physiological responses to neutral and provocative questions, it’s a voodoo device that can stain the innocent and exonerate the guilty. While projecting an aura of scientific certainty, the polygraph, or lie detector, has been repeatedly rejected by independent scientific reviews. Nevertheless, the FBI, various security agencies, and innumerable police forces regularly utilize the polygraph, though admissibility in court is severely restricted for lack of scientific evidence of reliability
With a little instruction, it’s said to be not difficult to beat the polygraph. Master spy Aldrich Ames, working deep inside the CIA, easily passed polygraph sessions in 1986 and 1991. (A Googling of “polygraph” turns up many instructional services for beating the machine.)
But that’s no impediment to the technology’s survival. The best argument for the polygraph was offered by a wily pragmatist, Richard Nixon. Conferring in 1971 with fellow conspirators while trying to track down White House leaks, Nixon strongly urged polygraphing suspects, saying, “I don’t know anything about polygraphs, and I don’t know how accurate they are, but I know they’ll scare hell out of people.”
The scientific literature on the polygraph has been the subject of major reviews by the National Academy of Sciences, in 1983 and 2003, both giving the device failing marks. The more recent review concluded, “Its accuracy in distinguishing actual or potential security violators from innocent test takers is insufficient to justify reliance on its use in employee security screening in federal agencies.”
Various studies of the polygraph have noted its capacity for producing high numbers of false positives, i.e., flagging false responses where none actually exist.
Try carrying on with a government career with that mark on your record, unjustified though it may be.
Roger, don’t add to your many troubles by getting wired up to a polygraph. Given all the stuff they’re throwing at you, it can’t establish your innocence but it sure can deepen your woes.
Posted at 11:35:57 AM on January 8, 2008 | All postings by Dan GreenbergComments
Commenting is closed for this article.
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Dan, thanks for the post on polygraphs and their unproven reliability for accuracy! As a kid fresh out of college and looking for a job (any job) I agreed to take a polygraph test for one of the still popular restaurant chains (yes!) as one of their “background check requirements.” Not taking it, they told me, would result in them taking weeks and weeks of background checking so I should go ahead and expedite the process with the polygraph and start working much sooner. Little did I know that when I returned home, my father, a state court judge, hit the roof when I told him about it and advised me to “never” take a polygraph again since they were inadmissible in court and have not been proven as reliable and accurate on a consistent basis (and still have not). I have never done so again and when asked to take it by this same company as part of a yearly r “check” that this company does on every employee, I informed them of my father’s words to me and they backed of very very quickly – nary a word said again to me on this topic! I only wish others knew the real story about these types of archaic unfounded methods still being utilized and embraced by the ignorant public.
— Pam Stanziani · Jan 9, 08:09 AM · #
You’re mixing apples and oranges here. Screening exams and specific issue tests are not the same. The former the National Academy of Sciences didn’t like. The latter, they reported a median accuracy (for field studies) at 87% – much better than eyewitness memory.
So, the chance of error with a properly conducted test is only 13%. Maybe that’s too high, so consider testing each side (Roger and his accuser). The chance of error when you combine the tests is 13% of 13%, which is less than 25.
As far as the above comment goes (Pam’s), a pre-employment test by a non-government employer is illegal. Moreover, it’s a myth that polygraph isn’t accepted in courts. Often it is by stipulation, and Ohio just admitted it over objection. New Mexico routinely allows polygraph evidence in trial.
— Barry Cushman · Jan 9, 08:29 AM · #
I’m not sure what happened there. It should say 2.5% – not 25.
— Barry Cushman · Jan 9, 08:31 AM · #
Mr. Greenberg, I would respectfully suggest that if you intend to act as a journalist that you do a better job of checking your facts. Most particularly the regarding the Ames case you appear to have merely regurgitated the views of other journalists who wrote a book on the case, Maybe you should read the “Unclassified Abstract of the CIA Inspector General’s Report on the Aldrich H Ames Case” or the 1994 Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report “An Assessment of the Aldrich H. Ames Espionage Case and Its Implications for U.S. Intelligence”, that indicated the traitor showed consistent deception in his 1986 polygraph regarding whether or not he had been asked to work for a foreign government or that a 1993 review of this polygraph by the FBI also raised concerns as to deception dealing with unauthorized disclosure of classified material?
In his 1991 polygraph where specific information regarding the traitors activities was withheld from the examiner, Deception was indicated, when he was asked whether he was concealing contacts with foreign nationals. After several hours of testing, he continued to show deception in response to the question.
Of course I can only presume that these investigative bodies might somehow have more information regarding the case than reporters, but I think it is a reasonable presumption.
— E. E. Upshaw · Jan 9, 10:11 AM · #