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Lie Detector Company Threatens Critical Scientists With Suit
An anonymous reader writes "The Swedish newspaper DN reports that the Israeli company Nemesysco has sent letters to researchers at the University of Stockholm, threatening legal action if they do not stop publishing findings (Google translation). An article called 'Charlatanry in forensic speech science: A problem to be taken seriously' was pulled by the publisher after threats of a libel lawsuit." Online translations can be a little wonky; if your Swedish is as bad as mine, this English-language article describes the situation well.
to refute this libel claim, is a lie detector test :-)
Oh wait...
If I had an Ass, I'd call it Fanny Bottom, then I could slap my Ass; Fanny Bottom, on the Arse.
Forget the lawsuits. Ask the researchers if they'd be willing to be connected to the lie detectors and to then testify that their research and conclusions were made in good faith.
If the detectors indicate a lie, the situation doesn't really change. But if the detectors do not indicate a lie, the manufacturer is pretty well cornered.
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Hey, look! I can blast buzzwords and pretend my software works too!
So how much would you pay? Wait, don't answer because this can flash the overall value for each parameter in a separate window! Now how much would you pay?
Here's the abstract of the article from http://www.equinoxjournals.com/ojs/index.php/IJSLL/article/view/3775
ABSTRACT
A lie detector which can reveal lie and deception in some automatic and perfectly reliable way is an old idea we have often met with in science fiction books and comic strips. This is all very well. It is when machines claimed to be lie detectors appear in the context of criminal investigations or security applications that we need to be concerned. In the present paper we will describe two types of âoedeceptionâ or âoestress detectors" (euphemisms to refer to what quite clearly is known as âoelie detectorsâ). Both types of detection are claimed to be based on voice analysis but we found no scientific evidence to support the manufacturersâ(TM) claims. Indeed, our review of scientific studies will show that these machines perform at chance level when tested for reliability. Given such results and the absence of scientific support for the underlying principles it is justified to view the use of these machines as charlatanry and we argue that there are serious ethical and security reasons to demand that responsible authorities and institutions should not get involved in such practices.
I wasn't able to find a copy of the paper itself.
Shop smart, Shop S-Mart.
It's probably because the scientists' bullshit detector infringed on Nemesysco's patents.
Ever take a lie detector test? Years back, a prospective employer sent me for one. Unlike most people, I actually read the release they asked me to sign, and discovered: 1. I'd be giving up the right to challenge the results of the test, by any manner, and 2. The testing agency reserved the right to sell the results of the test, good or bad, to ANYONE, in perpetuity. Does this sound ethical, or as though they trust their own test? I told them to stuff the test, and the job. The next day, I was called about the position, and explained I could not, in conscience, acquiesce to the polygraph test. They said, "Oh, don't worry about that, we get it if we can, but it doesn't mean anything. Welcome aboard!"
If lie detectors *really* worked, we wouldn't have to torture so many people, would we? We'd just hook them up to the lie detector, and ask them questions, like, "Will the LHC discover the Higgs boson?", and then we would know if they were guilty or not.
The US could close down Guantanamo in a fortnight.
But then the Torture Industry would need a bailout.
Or maybe the Torture Industry should just get a cut of every lie detector sold?
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Polygraphs, voice stress analyzers, coin flips, sticking your hand in the statue's mouth and Scientology's "E-Meters" all share the same validity in catching lies -- basically none. It's all pretend "science" with cool moving needles and wires, but you might as well be watching a seismograph for all the good it does you. It simply gives government agencies and insurance companies an excuse to call you a liar. "Hey, don't look at me, the MACHINE says you're lying..."
Now FOX has this propaganda puff piece for the TSA called "Lie to Me" going where an actor I like is helping spread nonsense I can't stand.
Can you imagine the revolution society would undergo if "voice stress analyzers" actually worked? "I did not have sex with that woman!" BZZZ! "Saddam Hussein is building nuclear weapons!" BZZZ! "The 700 billion will be wisely spent!" BZZZZ! "I was misquoted!" BZZZ!
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
Text is here: http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:4x3raI0CVjoJ:www.ling.gu.se/konferenser/iafpa2006/Abstracts/Eriksson_IAFPA%25202006.pdf+&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=us
Contains:
This is the html version of the file http://www.ling.gu.se/konferenser/iafpa2006/Abstracts/Eriksson_IAFPA%202006.pdf.
Google automatically generates html versions of documents as we crawl the web.
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Proceedings, IAFPA 2006, Department of Linguistics, Göteborg University
Charlatanry and fraud - an increasing problem for forensic
phonetics?
Anders Eriksson
Department of Linguistics, Göteborg University, Sweden
anders.eriksson@ling.gu.se
In my talk I will describe one case of charlatanry and one case of fraud in forensic phonetics.
Charlatanry can take different forms. One type is when someone appears as an expert without
having the necessary qualifications or no qualifications at all. Another form is when some kind of
physical device is used or marketed which is based on principles for which there is no scientific
support. This is nothing new. The use of voiceprints is a classical case of this type. Charlatans often
exploit the fact that people are easily impressed by advanced technology. Today the methods are
often claimed to have been made possible only because of recent advances in computer technology.
The following two quotes may serve to illustrate my point: "enhanced by the rapid advancements in
personal computer technology", "the worlds most advanced application of this core frequency
based technology". This is how both products I will present here are described by those who market
them although in reality they are very unsophisticated products from a technological point of view.
By fraud I will refer to methods or devices based on principles which are so obviously false that
there can be no doubt that the people who produce them or use them must be aware of it. The
second example is of this kind.
A lie detector which can reveal lie and deception in some automatic and perfectly reliable way is an
old idea we have often met with in science fiction books and comic strips. This is all very well. It is
when machines claimed to be lie detectors appear in the context of criminal investigations that we
need to be concerned. Both examples presented here belong in this category. They are of particular
interest for forensic phonetics because they are both said to be based on analysis of the human
voice. The basic idea behind "lie detectors" based on voice analysis is that there are properties in
the voice signal that may be reliably correlated with lie or deception.
A gadget called Voice Stress Analyzer (VSA) or Psychological Stress Evaluator (PSE) has a history
that goes back to the seventies. In the sixties it was discovered that in larger muscles like the biceps
there is involuntary tremor, called micro tremor, with a frequency in the 8 to 12 Hz range. This
gave rise to speculations that the same phenomenon might be present in the larynx muscles and that
it may affect the voice source frequency. In particular it was suggested that the tremor might vary
as a function of stress in the speaker. Before anybody had a chance to investigate the possible
occurrence of micro tremor in the voice, the first "lie detector" based micro tremor in the voice
source appeared. (See. Rice, 1978). In the years to follow, many researchers tested voice stress
analyzers based on these ideas, but with largely negative results. Hollien surveyed the literature in
1987 and concluded that: "the ability of voice analyzers to detect stress from speech-or to identify
spoken deception-have been negative or "mixed" in nature". He a
Some researchers published an article with an inflamatory title: "Charlatanry in forensic speech science: A problem to be taken seriously", and got sued for libel.
There's nothing wrong with the title if they do indeed demonstrate that there is charlatanry in forensics speech science. It sounds like they did just that. There are times when an inflamatory-seeming word is still the correct word.
IIRC, embryonic stem cells have a tendency to be cancerous ...
Sure, that's why embryos always die of cancer. Oh, wait, they actually don't.
Are you really so simple-minded that you think that every possible therapy that might be developed using embryonic stem cell research will always increase the risk of cancer? It wouldn't surprise me if there was a specific therapy or class of therapies that increased cancer risk - but how can you possibly go from that to the radical generalization that all possible therapies that might ever be developed will carry a risk of cancer? Is it the crystal ball, again?
Charlatary : a person who makes false claims.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Charlatanry
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Please don't try to bring rational thought to a debate with an "Educated" liberal. I really don't need the headache that will surely ensue.
Is that because they are unwilling to listen to your rationale, or because you are unwilling to listen to theirs?
Chances are it's both so I don't see any solution myself, but giving up on talking to one another seems like a poor third option.
From TFA:
By fraud I will refer to methods or devices based on principles which are so obviously false that
there can be no doubt that the people who produce them or use them must be aware of it.
Seems reasonable to me.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Just the same, when Obama says "Yes we can close Guantanamo!" he isn't promising to do a goddamn thing, he's just phrasing his aspirations for what America could do in such a way that people hear "OMG Barack is gonna close gitmo!"
This is not lying, and treating it like it is is just victimology of the voter against eeeeeeevil politicians.
That is absolutely lying! We're talking about natural language communication here, not a programming language. Words and phrases have meaning that are not necessarily the sum of their individual parts, there is context involved that guides the necessary interpretation of both sides. As in, pedantic literal interpretation is not, and has never been, the sole judge of the meaning of a sentence.
When the words spoken by a speaker are designed to convey a certain meaning to the listeners, and the listeners receive that meaning, then we call that successful communication. When that correctly conveyed meaning is deliberately false, that's a fucking lie!
When the speaker also designs their words to leave themselves a semantic escape valve so they can claim to have meant something else later, that doesn't mean they weren't lying, it means they knew they were lying and thus needed the out!
When Obama said "Yes we can close Gitmo", everyone correctly interpreted that to mean that if he were elected, he would close Gitmo. That is the meaning he obviously intended to convey. If he doesn't close it, then that's a lie*. And if he defended himself by saying that all he had meant was he thought it was something America could do hypothetically, then that makes him a double liar because that obviously is not the message he intended to convey when he spoke!
The only people who think that isn't lying are:
1) People who've sacrificed reason itself on the Altar of Pedantry.
2) Liars who are lying about it not being lying and just like being able to use semantics to escape from obvious lies.
I refuse to sacrifice my ability to detect lies covered with such a thin ruse to either group of people.
* So far so good on this count, but of course I won't be happy until the thing is really truly closed.
The enemies of Democracy are
Presumably a let down to know she was choosing cardigans whilst you got off.
That's ok, I was on the other end reading Slashdot. So we're even.