Detecting Lies

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Re: Detecting Lies

Postby mrgreen » Sun Jan 27, 2013 6:22 pm

Fox News' Clown Doctor Analyzes Obama
Where do they find these clowns? First there was Dr. Phil and then there was Dr. Drew and now we have Dr. Ablow! It's like they decide that the dumbest guy in the room is automatically an expert or something. It's the exact opposite of a merit-based society!
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Re: Detecting Lies

Postby deathvalleyjake » Thu Dec 05, 2013 10:19 am

I had an argument years ago with someone who was absolutely convinced that the polygraph was a useful way to tell if someone was lying or not. He was convinced that since it had scientific sensors and created a graph displaying changes in heart rate and perspiration that it just had to be accurate. It's kind of funny how people are so easily distracted by all the glitter and shine and fall for such an obvious smoke and mirrors trick and fail to see the fundamental error underlying the whole scam. Sometimes I wonder if there's any hope for the human race!
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Re: Detecting Lies

Postby dustdevil » Fri Jan 17, 2014 10:11 am

A lot of people aren't good at thinking for themselves and they just believe whatever they're told by authority figures. Personally I think there's a built in tendency within the human brain to believe what we're told by people who are of high social status. Humans are social animals and there was probably an evolutionary advantage for people to trust their leaders. This, of course, means that we must work to overcome this tendency since in modern times it is to our disadvantage as a result of widespread corruption. This whole lie detection scam is a good example of how those of high social status believe that they can get away with lying right to our faces!
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Re: Detecting Lies

Postby desertrat » Wed Jul 16, 2014 6:56 am

Should child-focused companies polygraph its employees?
Anderson Cooper clearly and slowly explains to this nitwit politician that polygraphs don't work and he essentially responds by saying, "Why don't we do it anyways!" Such arrogant stupidity is not acceptable. It should not be tolerated. Idiots like this should not be allowed to hold public office or serve in any position where they supervise anyone. The polygraph is no more accurate than flipping a coin in determining if someone is telling the truth. This guy doesn't care if someone is denied a job because of a false positive or that someone would get a job as the result of a false negative. Apparently he believes that his constituents are so stupid that they don't see any problem here and are willing to vote for him because they perceive him as "doing something about a serious problem" despite the fact that what he's doing will only create a bigger problem and do nothing whatsoever to solve the problem he claims he wants to solve.
:smack:
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Re: Detecting Lies

Postby deathvalleyjake » Wed Jul 16, 2014 8:15 am

DesertRat: I agree with what you say and would like to make two additional points:
1) Big corporations don't care about fairness. They care about making money. If they can sell useless gadgets such as polygraphs for big bucks, they make money. It's a scam, but that's how our system works.
2) The inherent problem here is that democracy allows stupid people to have equal input and so we wind up with morons (such as the guy featured in this video) being elected into office. The morons who voted for him are incapable of critical thinking. They feel or emote and that's how they make their decisions. If it feels good, then it must be good. And so this guy speaks emotionally (ignoring the facts presented to him by the commentator) and talks about "doing something" and that's all he has to do. The people who vote for him are just too damn plain stupid to figure out that there is a fundamental flaw in what he says. This puts the burden on intelligent people to educate the morons, but most of us have neither the time nor the patience for such a task!
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Re: Detecting Lies

Postby a2z » Mon Nov 17, 2014 6:56 pm

Feds Indict Another Person For Teaching People How To Beat Polygraph Tests :smack:
It's a well known fact that the polygraph is about as accurate as flipping a coin when it comes to determining if someone is telling the truth or not. It's just a little smoke and mirror show used by detectives to trick suspects into confessing to crimes. The tragedy is that ridiculously stupid people actually believe that the polygraph can detect lies and some of those people work in positions in which they are in charge of hiring and firing employees. Some of these stupid individuals have decided that using the polygrpah is a good way to screen potential employees. Anyone who has ever been denied employment as the result of the results of a polygraph test should file a lawsuit against the potential employer. The problem is that if you're out of work you can't afford an attorney and so the idiots who use the polygraph are not likely to be challenged. Just another way that this world is fucked up...
The real weakness here is the government's reliance on polygraph testing, but no one's interested in addressing that. The government farms out employee vetting to private contractors who can't be bothered to do the job properly. Negative results are ignored by government agencies when they stand in the way of hiring the people they want to hire.

LINK:
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20141115/16013429160/feds-indict-another-person-teaching-people-how-to-beat-polygraph-tests.shtml
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Re: Detecting Lies

Postby desertrat » Tue Nov 18, 2014 8:52 am

a2z: I'm generally against lawsuits since so many lawsuits are frivolous or based on strange assumptions about personal responsibility, but this is definitely a case where I'm in favor of a lawsuit. The government should not be hiring private contractors to run tests that have been scientifically proven to be invalid. That's a complete waste of public funds and without a doubt completely and totally unacceptable! That's not even to mention that it's unfair to those who are denied jobs because they were found to be deceptive based on the flawed test administered by the companies that deceptively claim that the tests aren't totally bogus!
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Re: Detecting Lies

Postby CactusHugger » Sat Jan 24, 2015 9:26 am

Study Shows Most People Easy to Convince They Committed a Crime That Never Happened
Detectives tend to be intimidating people (or at least the one's who play the "bad cop" are) and coupled with a pseudo-scientific device like the polygraph, gullible people can be manipulated to the extreme and the result is a false confession. This seems far-fetched when you're sitting in the comfort of your livingroom, but you might fold under pressure, just like a significant portion of the rest of the population. People smuggly believe that they would never be the victim of something like this, but when it happens, they never realize what hit them.
"Understanding that these complex false memories exist, and that ‘normal’ individuals can be led to generate them quite easily, is the first step in preventing them from happening,” Shaw concluded. “By empirically demonstrating the harm ‘bad’ interview techniques – those which are known to cause false memories – can cause, we can more readily convince interviewers to avoid them and to use ‘good’ techniques instead."

LINK: http://thefreethoughtproject.com/study-shows-people-easy-convince-committed-crime-happened
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Re: Detecting Lies

Postby cactuspete » Thu Feb 26, 2015 8:29 am

It's called intimidation and that's one of the main techniques used by law enforcement across the board. Polygraphs don't detect lies, but they do help to intimidate suspects. Sometimes the intimidation is so strong that false confessions are produced, but the intimidation doesn't stop with the interrogation. Next comes over-charging in order to convince suspects that their best option is to take a plea bargain. It's a system based on intimidation and a disrespect for the rights of the accused.
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Re: Detecting Lies

Postby MojaveMike » Sat May 09, 2015 9:26 am

What Happens When Kids Hook Their Moms Up To Lie Detectors :roll2:
Although this video is entertaining it is also incredibly fake. While lie detectors are neat little gimmicks in videos like this and the operator plays his role in a way which adds to the entertainment value of the video, even lie detector operators would admit that you can't have a casual conversation and expect the lie detector machine to provide any kind of useful feedback. The truth is that the lie detector machine doesn't detect lies even in highly controlled situations and so as long as viewers don't take this as evidence that lie detector machines actually work, this is all just harmless fun.
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