Re:Are courts keeping “junk science” out of the courtroom?
by himinlomax on Monday February 17, 2020 @12:30PM
(#22349132)
Polygraphs should not be used at all, for anything except maybe research.
Re:Are courts keeping “junk science” out of the courtroom?
by staticautomatic on Monday February 17, 2020 @03:14PM
(#22350321)
"it can be argued that polygraphs may have their place in a limited amount of employment situations as long as the lying/truthful results are thrown out as the test may work as a "placebo" for the interviewee to admit to serious skeletons in their closet."
If the test cannot distinguish between true and false, then any purported "skeleton" is as likely to be false as it is to be true.
Re:Are courts keeping “junk science” out of the courtroom?
by 0xcde4c3db on Monday February 17, 2020 @03:43PM
(#22350550)
The idea isn't that the machine is actually detecting anything here, it's that the general atmosphere of the "test" and a sufficiently convincing performance of "the machine says you're not being truthful" will get people to volunteer information that they would otherwise have kept to themselves. It's a variation on an old technique where an interrogator will claim to have incriminating evidence or eyewitness testimony that they actually don't.
Re:Are courts keeping “junk science” out of the courtroom?
by thrwaway69 on Monday February 17, 2020 @07:52PM
(#22352451)
Now I wait for someone to complain about companies abusing their hires through this in another hn thread for hiring practices.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employee_Polygraph_Protection_...
>However, the act does permit polygraph tests to be administered to certain applicants for job with security firms (such as armored car, alarm, and guard companies) and of pharmaceutical manufacturers, distributors, and dispensers. The law does not cover federal, state, and local government agencies.
Since doesn't apply to any governments (local, state, federal) so so government employees are subjected to polygraphs.
Interestingly, it can be argued that polygraphs may have their place in a limited amount of employment situations as long as the lying/truthful results are thrown out as the test may work as a "placebo" for the interviewee to admit to serious skeletons in their closet.
https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/23/16511732/border-patrol-p...
>Polygraph results are of questionable scientific value, but the interviews have an unexpected benefit apart from their dubious powers of detection: under pressure from interviewers, applicants frequently admit to wrongdoing.
To be clear I personally lean towards not using polygraphs at all for employment situations.