Junk-Science in the Medical Profession: The Resurgence of Polygraph “Lie-Detection” in an age of Evidence-Based Medicine.

Circa 1995

The article below was published in the now defunct magazine Gray Areas almost twenty years ago. (Vol. 4, No. 1, Spring 1995 pp. 75-77).  It is not a research article but a critique of the use of polygraphy written for a general audience.

Antipolygraph.org founder George Maschke noted in 2008 that the article “makes a good introduction to the pseudoscience of polygraphy” and “the criticisms of polygraphy remain valid today.”  The basic assumption of any good test is that is has construct validity; that it is actually measuring what it is purported to measure.   Polygraphy is purported to detect lies but the specificity and sensitivity are about the same as a toss of a coin and has the potential to cause a great deal of harm to those who are…