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Scientist Organizes Resistance To Polygraphs
George Maschke writes "Brad Holian, a senior scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, is using a blog to organize resistance to plans for random polygraph and drug testing of Lab scientists. Holian writes: 'Polygraphy is an insulting affront to scientists, since a committee of the National Academy of Sciences has declared that, beyond being inadmissible in court, there is no scientific basis for polygraphs. In my opinion, by agreeing to be polygraphed, one thereby seriously jeopardizes his or her claim to being a scientist, which is presumably the principal reason for employment for many scientists at Los Alamos.'"
The idea is to convince people to *believe* that the polygraph machine is scientific and will detect their lies so that they're more likely to not lie, or are nervous while questioning, or even don't take the test at all and just spill it beforehand. It's psychological intimidation, kind of like forcing confessions of bad thoughts in a cult environment. That's one reason you see those "you shall not be subjected to polygraphs at work" posters at your job... a nasty employer could really intimidate people (e.g. union organizers) with it.
-b.
Cheers,
-b.
So they attached this to one of those emergency defense appropriation bills:
Your Congress at work.
The FSB, the spun off domestic branch of the KGB like to promote the use of the polygraph amongst companies in russia to ensure employee lotyalty (Yes, I was at one of their presentations a few years back). The joke is that itt was revealed by Vasily Mitrokhin (the KGB Archivist and defector)that faking your way through a polygraph test was simply a matter of training. In other words, the polygraph may catch the person stealing paperclips but it probably won't find the trained spy.
See my journal, I write things there
Bad logic? Not quite. I understood this as "by agreeing to be polygraphed, one [endorses pseudoscience and] thereby seriously jeopardizes his or her claim to being a scientist" (insertion mine).
I mean, really...
Isn't it kind of obvious when someone's personal life is interfering with their professional life?
Is it so hard to take the cue from the rest of the world, where such nonsense is not even considered (with no apparent ill effects)?
Oh, for gahd's sake, just because you break a few minor laws does *not* mean that you'd be more likely sell out your country to the enemy-of-the-day. By your "slippery slope" logic, anyone who gets caught for speeding should be pre-emptively shot. After all, who's to say when they'll move from speeding to treason?
-b.
Name a spy caught after failing a polygraph test.
Neither can I. It never happened.
TFA is completely correct on polygraphs.
Tubby or not tubby. Fat is the question
How else can we screen out subversives that believe in that evolution nonsense?
Faith: n. -- That human impulse that drives them to steal appliances when the power goes out
Long story short: the polygraph is a pile of pseudo-scientific bullshit, that can be easily beaten by anyone that knows how it works. At its core, its basically just a non-standardized investigation protocol for extracting harmful confessions by deceiving the person being investigated.
After educating myself, I passed a polygraph easily the first time, without any preparation or practice, while directly lying to my investigator. For the record, what they were asking was none of my employer's business (in my opinion). I was previously warned that the average session takes an hour, and can sometimes run into 3-4 hours when there are "complications". However, by manipulating my physiological responses to a few critical control questions, and pretending to be appropriately intimidated and impressed by the investigator and his machine, I was out of there in 15 minutes, which I was later told was something of a record.
From http://antipolygraph.org/:
The dirty little secret behind the polygraph is that the "test" depends on trickery, not science. The person being "tested" is not supposed to know that while the polygraph operator declares that all questions must be answered truthfully, warning that the slightest hint of deception will be detected, he secretly assumes that denials in response to certain questions -- called "control" questions -- will be less than truthful. An example of a commonly used control question is, "Did you ever lie to get out of trouble?" The polygrapher steers the examinee into a denial by warning, for example, that anyone who would do so is the same kind of person who would commit the kind of behavior that is under investigation and then lie about it. But secretly, it is assumed that everyone has lied to get out of trouble.
The polygraph pens don't do a special dance when a person lies. The polygrapher scores the test by comparing physiological responses (breathing, blood pressure, heart, and perspiration rates) to these probable-lie control questions with reactions to relevant questions such as, "Did you ever commit an act of espionage against the United States?" (commonly asked in security screening). If the former reactions are greater, the examinee passes; if the latter are greater, he fails. If responses to both "control" and relevant questions are about the same, the result is deemed inconclusive.
The test also includes irrelevant questions such as, "Are the lights on in this room?" The polygrapher falsely explains that such questions provide a "baseline for truth," because the true answer is obvious. But in reality, they are not scored at all! They merely serve as buffers between pairs of relevant and "control" questions.
The simplistic methodology used in polygraph testing has no grounding in the scientific method: it is no more scientific than astrology or tarot cards. Government agencies value it because people who don't realize it's a fraud sometimes make damaging admissions. But as a result of reliance on this voodoo science, the truthful are often falsely branded as liars while the deceptive pass through.
Perversely, the "test" is inherently biased against the truthful, because the more honestly one answers the "control" questions, and as a consequence feels less stress when answering them, the more likely one is to fail. Conversely, liars can beat the test by covertly augmenting their physiological reactions to the "control" questions. This can be done, for example, by doing mental arithmetic, thinking exciting thoughts, altering one's breathing pattern, or simply biting the side of the tongue. Truthful persons can also use these techniques to protect themselves against the risk of a false positive outcome. Although polygraphers
Of course this does not admit the possibility that there are other reasons why a scientist would agree to be polygraphed, including the possibility that someone working at a sensitive facility such as Los Alamos may just feel that it ain't worth the hassle to fight it.
That is, of course, the reason most people in such positions accept the insult. It is a game of chicken and usually the individual feels that they have more to lose. But not always.
I have a good friend who holds a handful of clearances. Part of the requirements for some of those clearances is an agreement to take a drug test if asked too. My friend is so straight, he rarely drinks and hasn't even smoked a single joint in his entire life. But he will never take a drug test because he feels they are insulting to him as a professional.
If it comes down to it and he is asked to take a test, he will refuse and accept revocation of his clearance and 'loss' of his job. In his case, the loss of a job is of little consequence, he's got enough money in the bank to retire permanently if he wanted to. The programs he works on would suffer more by his leaving than he would.
Unfortunately, most people are not in such a position, or at least don't feel like they are. So they cave to the pressure and accept the insult because they've got families to feed or careers they think will be ruined if they don't. In other words, freedom doesn't mean jackshit if you are afraid to exercise that freedom.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Considering the "brainscan" approach to polygraphs that the future may hold. I am kind of interested in
how a 100% accurate polygraph or lie-detector would affect civilization. How it would affect law enforcement
and judiciary. How would it affect business agreements and politics. If a really good lie detector were
readily available, then what would it do to society, government, economies, education, religion...
Its fun to imagine how the world would reshape itself. Would it be good, or a disaster.
Quite simply, LANL employees' biggest problem is that we aren't unionized. We stand idly by and watch management (LANS/NNSA/DOE) hammer us again and again and again with policies that decrease the quality of workplace life (without adding jack to the real safety and security of the institution). The "substantially equivalent" requirement for benefits between the last contractor and the current contractor has been revealed to be a stinking pile of bullshit. With a strong collective bargaining agreement, there'd be some pushback against this unrelenting spiral into hell. There is none, however, because nearly everyone in Los Alamos County believes that unions are dues-sucking liberal plots that exist solely to protect the slackers and lackwits. Efforts to unionize have been and will continue to be fruitless. And so, things will get worse.
To specifically address the current outrage, Director Mike Anastasio's plan to expand random drug testing, one can say that it's true that LANL has had far, far too many security and safety incidents over the past decade. But I can't think of a single one in which the cause was traced back to drug use or alcohol overconsumption. This means we'll be spending money that the contractor doesn't have (they're facing a $150M + shortfall this year) to solve a problem that the lab doesn't have, and raping the Fourth Amendment in the process. (Yes, I know the workplace drug laws have been routinely upheld, but when the courts write that some things are too important for Constitutional protections to apply, what're you to think?) THIS is the kind of visionary thinking that made LANS the winning contractor?
/Pee in cups for LANL
//Take polygraphs for LANL
///Hates self for it
Learn to spell: nickel, missile, lose, solely, amendment, speech, kernel, probably, ridiculous, deity, hierarchy, versus
There is no scientific basis for polygraphs. Therefore they fail to meet court standards for admission of evidence. And therefore they are not admissable in court. This guy is formulating what is at least partially a legal argument as well as a scientific and political argument and so it is very relevant for him to point out the complete NAS opinion that polygraphs are not admissable in court, in addition to having no scientific basis. The NAS position he cites specifically says "beyond", not "because of". While the author does use established legal standards to support his argument in a rhetorical sense, he is not relying on them as proof of anything scientific.
I don't know where you divined the information that polygraphs fail to meet court standards for admission of evidence for any reason other than their lack of a scientific basis. Specifically, those standards keep polygraphs out of courtrooms because of their high error rate, as one would expect from a technology built on top of a pseudoscience.
As for the rest of your argument, the choice of whether or not to consent to a stupid polygraph is simply not on par with one's freedom of religion.
Sharon Scranage - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharon_Scranage
Jim Nicholson - convicted of spying for Russia
There's two. There's hundreds found... and even many more before they get off the ground- how many people could be compromised had they been given access?
Fair enough. But if it's a matter of national security, then let's be sure the Congress, the cabinet and the Commander-in-Chief are subject to identical questions, investigation and consequences.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
Reread what was said. There is no scientific basis for polygraphs *and* they're not admissible in court. The latter issue is important because when it comes time to actually, you know, justify a firing, pointing at a polygraph as a basis fails completely because it's not admissible. Ie, from just that standpoint it is fundamentally a waste of time.
No. More precisely, if you agree to something that's unscientific, acting as if it *is* scientific, then one seriously jeopardizes their claim of being a scientist. It doesn't mean it's impossible that you're a scientist; perhaps you're carrying out a study, as impartial as you can, to test the hypothesis that a polygraph is a valid test of what it claims to be a test of.
Now you're mixing up things. Religion isn't scientific. Religion is founded on a study or otherwise communion with the supernatural. The supernatural, by definition, is not a repeatable experimental space. So, one is not likely a scientist if they believe religion is scientific. But, one can continue to believe that one's religion is true. It's perfectly acceptable to believe that science might not be capable of explaining all phenomenon. The issue is when you start rejecting the phenomenon that science *can* explain or start rejecting the claims that can be refuted.
I mean, we can't at all be sure, at the minimal, that some of the axioms of science are true (especially those extremely long-term consistency assumptions). Science is both a model and a system. If you can develop a better model and system to explain more things or everything, feel free. But certainly there's nothing illogical about pointing out that one is doing such outside the model and system of science. It doesn't make your model incorrect. It most certainly makes it unscientific. Having said all that, polygraphs sure seem to not be correct.
Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
Back in the day, you could lose it by getting the clap too many times.d d-5210_42.htm/
http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/doctrine/dod/do
In GOD we trust, all others we monitor.
The National Defense Authorization Act of 2002 passed the House as HR 2586 and the Senate as S. 1438. While the actual policy with respect to polygraphs is established and implemented by the DOE, this rider to the Act set the parameters to guide that policy.
Although I don't think it was one of the "emergency" bills, just the yearly defense budget bill for 2002. I'm not sure our habit of having yearly defense budget emergency bills extends further back than 2003 and I'm too lazy to look it up. Still, whether it was or not, as a major defense budget allocation, it was "must-pass" legislation of the sort that often has questionable unrelated riders added- to do questionable stuff like build $200 million bridges to uninhabited parts of Alaska.
The guy's right, by the way. For similar reasons, I've walked off jobs because I refuse to be piss-tested. I don't do drugs, I'm an infrequent drinker, nearest to a chemical vice is drinking too much espresso, but as a matter of principle, it's none of their goddamned business. And I've never gone a day without being employed. The only reason not to stand up to the bastards is cowardice, or the all-American tendency to grovel before any authority, no matter how illegitimate or irrational.
Get your teeth into a small slice: the cake of liberty
Back in the 80's, I was a restaurant manager. At the time I had a theft problem. At one point, some money showed up on one of my employees. I had her take the test and she failed. I ended up firing her, all the while thinking that it could not be her. Turned out that the problem continued and it was somebody else. I fired an innocent gal based on that shit. There is nothing that would convince that that crap works. It is pure voodoo and is absolutely worthless. IMO, you would be better off casting bones then polygraphs. At least you do not subject the person to total humiliation.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
As far as random screening is concerned, you must consider the positive and negative predictive values of the tests. A very good test might have, for example, a 1% false positive rate and a 2% false negative rate. It is commonly assumed -- falsely -- that a test with 1% false positive rate has 99% predictive value; that the subject is 99% likely to have whatever is being tested for.
From the false positive and false negative rates you have to compute the positive (and negative) predictive value -- that is, the probability that somebody who tests positive (or negative) really has (or does not have) what the test shows. To compute positive predictive value you need to know the prevalance in the population being tested. Suppose the prevalance is 1 in 1000 and you test at random. That means that for every true positive you'll get ten false positives. That is, the positive predictive value is 9%. A far cry from 99%!
Now to compute false positive and negative rates of the order of 1%, you need sample sizes of at least several hundred -- probably thousands. I don't believe there is any physiological test of truthfulness that has shown anything even resembling a statistically significant result, which is why I take great exception to your statement:
The controlled experiments for polygraphs have shown between 40% and 70% false positive and false negative rates which, for the sample sizes used, are indistinguishable from chance.
I'm unaware of any valid experimental design that uses a sample size of 1.
True, and a good point - although the sample size isn't 1, in what I described, just one of the groups is of that size. But your argument is still strong (more on this later).
From the false positive and false negative rates you have to compute the positive (and negative) predictive value -- that is, the probability that somebody who tests positive (or negative) really has (or does not have) what the test shows. To compute positive predictive value you need to know the prevalance in the population being tested. Suppose the prevalance is 1 in 1000 and you test at random. That means that for every true positive you'll get ten false positives. That is, the positive predictive value is 9%. A far cry from 99%!
Yes, of course. I was referring to this issue when I mentioned the "prior for the Null Hypothesis" and the use of Bayes' theorem. Obviously without a prior, you can't calculate the probability that you want.
The only thing different from the standard testing protocol is what you correctly pointed out, mentioned above, that there is only a single case in one of the groups. I must now confess to believing my statistics Professor a little too quickly when he described this - it does demand some thought. I'll have to get back to you on this one.
I don't believe there is any physiological test of truthfulness that has shown anything even resembling a statistically significant result
Well, again, "truthfulness" isn't the issue here. What we are testing for is mental content. The Stroop Effect which I mentioned is a great example for this, it is an highly accurate test which is very hard to fool. By a Stoop-type test you can check if someone knows a language; by Priming-type tests you can test whether someone is familiar with a particular stimulus (although in that one, familiarity means you react faster, so it is easier to fool - just slow down). In summary: "Truth" - no test for it (a problematic concept anyhow); objective measures of cognitive content (saw stimulus X before or not, etc.) - yes, we can test for (some) things like this.
The controlled experiments for polygraphs have shown between 40% and 70% false positive and false negative rates which, for the sample sizes used, are indistinguishable from chance.
Once more I must point out, that we are in 100% agreement about the commonly-used polygraph. I am not defending it. I am against it. Arguments against the polygraph are not arguments against what I am defending, since I am defending something different.
Spin away!