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Originally Posted by BACKCHECK!!!
And in the end, they found that the evidence is sufficient to conclude that while not perfect, polygraphs do work.
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No, they found that there is little or no evidence that polygraphs work, but that they may have utility for reasons unrelated to their actual effectiveness. I quote from pp. 214-215 at the link above:
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Utility Polygraph examinations may have utility to the extent that they can elicit admissions and confessions, deter undesired activity, and instill public confidence. However, such utility is separate from polygraph validity. There is substantial anecdotal evidence that admissions and confessions occur in polygraph examinations, but no direct scientific evidence assessing the utility of the polygraph. Indirect evidence supports the idea that a technique will exhibit utility effects if examinees and the public believe that there is a high likelihood of a deceptive person being detected and that the costs of being judged deceptive are substantial. Any technique about which people hold such beliefs is likely to exhibit utility, whether or not it is valid. For example, there is no evidence to suggest that admissions and confessions occur more readily with the polygraph than with a bogus pipeline—an interrogation accompanying the use of an inert machine that the examinee believes to be a polygraph. In the long run, evidence that a technique lacks validity will surely undercut its utility.
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