(via What’s new by Bob Park – Friday, September 22, 2006)
1. POLYGRAPH: SCIENCE MOVED ON FEDERAL AGENCIES NEVER NOTICED.
Eighteen years ago, WN said, “the polygraph can’t tell a lie from the sex act,” (WN 4 Mar 88) . It still can’t, but Monday, the Office of the Inspector General of the the Justice Department released a 20-page report on the use of the polygraph by the Justice Department. The polygraph is used slightly less as an investigative tool (recall it failed to expose the Green River killer). But it is used increasingly to screen employees (recall it missed CIA super-mole Aldrich Ames, and has never uncovered a single spy). Meanwhile, brain research became the hottest frontier after physicists developed fMRI brain scanning, revealing what really goes on in our heads. The report never mentions all the unrefuted science showing the polygraph is worse than useless. Nor does it mention fMRI research advances.
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