Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With
Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello, everyone,
Speaker 1: welcome to tech Stuff. My name is Chris Polette, and
Speaker 1: I am the tech editor here at how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot Com, sitting across from me as usual as senior
Speaker 1: writer Jonathan Strickland. Actually I am also Chris Polette. I'm
Speaker 1: sorry what I'm just seeing if I can get away
Speaker 1: with it. That's not true. No, it's not true. It
Speaker 1: leads to our listener mail. This listener mail comes from
Speaker 1: Boris or if you wish, Bobcat, and I do wish,
Speaker 1: So this listener mail comes from Bobcat, who says, hello,
Speaker 1: beloved tech eas First of all, I have to say
Speaker 1: that I really appreciated the rant and other outbursts of
Speaker 1: skepticism in your ghost Hunting Technology episode. That has been
Speaker 1: a profound absence of critical thinking and evidence based positions
Speaker 1: on various issues coming from the media lately, and your
Speaker 1: show has definitely made me feel as if there's hope
Speaker 1: for rationality and non wackiness. So kudos you've made at
Speaker 1: least one listener as happy as pie. If you're considering
Speaker 1: doing more podcasts with related undertones of skepticism, I suggest
Speaker 1: that you guys consider taking on things like radiometric dating
Speaker 1: technologies as well as lie detectors and the technology of spying.
Speaker 1: That is, how some believe that the government may be
Speaker 1: watching us and how they actually do. Also, during the
Speaker 1: sci Fi Movies podcast from before, you brought up doll
Speaker 1: House in passing still can't believe it's over. Why cover
Speaker 1: movies for a podcast, not do TV shows and then
Speaker 1: rub it in our faces by mentioning Dollhouse. I expect
Speaker 1: this gross malfie essence to be corrected as soon or malfeasance,
Speaker 1: I guess I should say my brain is not working.
Speaker 1: Should should be corrected soon. And with one of those
Speaker 1: annoying listener mail announcements from Strickland, thanks for maintaining your
Speaker 1: high standard of podcast. Yes, except for the fact that
Speaker 1: I mispronounced malfeasance. Um well boris thanks a lot. We
Speaker 1: actually decided from this email to take one specific UH suggestion,
Speaker 1: which was the light detector suggestion. I thought that was
Speaker 1: an excellent suggestion. We can talk about how they work
Speaker 1: and how they do not work, because they do both
Speaker 1: at the same time. As it turns out, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: I was still thinking about pie. Yeah, I was still
Speaker 1: thinking of Malfie, Yes, and so uh in suburbia. But
Speaker 1: you know, you know, once in a while I dropped
Speaker 1: a bomb like that and then I beat myself up
Speaker 1: over it for the next like three months apparently. So anyway, yeah,
Speaker 1: let's talk about let's talk about polygraphs. Light detectors. So
Speaker 1: those those highly calibrated machines that it takes you know,
Speaker 1: a train forensic psycho physiologist, uh, weeks to learn. Yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah you could. It could take you up to fourteen
Speaker 1: whole weeks to learn how to operate one of these things.
Speaker 1: All right, before we get too far, let's let's let's
Speaker 1: make some things very clear. First of all, light detectors do,
Speaker 1: in fact measure things. They're not just it's not just
Speaker 1: a box with some little pens that scribble on a
Speaker 1: paper randomly. It's not like it's it's um uh, you know,
Speaker 1: just a fake tool. Um. What they do is they
Speaker 1: measure physiological responses over a set period of time, the
Speaker 1: set period being whenever you turn the machine on and
Speaker 1: whenever you turn the machine off. Um. But it does
Speaker 1: this through three main methods. It measures your respiratory rate.
Speaker 1: That would be uh, the respiratory Right there is Chris
Speaker 1: breathing heavily into his mike getting it's just if any
Speaker 1: of you found that creepy right tech stuff at kustaphors
Speaker 1: dot com. I know I will be. And then it
Speaker 1: also measures your pulse rate. It has a pressure cup
Speaker 1: on your arm. Oh my god, hey, you know I'm okay.
Speaker 1: I want as as a as the person who is
Speaker 1: sitting here in the studio with Chris at this time.
Speaker 1: I can't wait to see what he has to do
Speaker 1: about this one. I got nothing for this. Third. The
Speaker 1: third thing it measures is galvanic response, which technically is
Speaker 1: um sweating. And yeah, Chris is always sweating buckets, so
Speaker 1: it's kind of hard to tell from one moment to
Speaker 1: the next if he's actually, you know, trying to display something,
Speaker 1: if he's trying to to illustrate a point. But that's
Speaker 1: just as he's not really sweating. So they do this
Speaker 1: through various methods. There's like a there's one that will
Speaker 1: be sensors that are placed around your chest to measure
Speaker 1: your your chest expansion and contraction. Wise, your breathing would
Speaker 1: be the respiratory rate. Part that would be the respiratory rate.
Speaker 1: There's a pressure cuff placed along one arm that measures
Speaker 1: the pulse the blood pressure right right, and then there
Speaker 1: are electrodes attached to the fingers to measure the galvanic
Speaker 1: response that the amount of sweat. Yes, okay, so they
Speaker 1: have a bucket underneath the tables, you know, if it
Speaker 1: gets out of hand. Yeah, when Muggsy comes in, they're like, okay,
Speaker 1: we got us weather, Let's let's put a bucket under there.
Speaker 1: So these are always measuring these changes in the rates.
Speaker 1: They have to establish a baseline first, and any change
Speaker 1: in any of those three uh factors will result in
Speaker 1: a needle on the paper scribbling something um so that
Speaker 1: you'll see you can actually see where the changes happen
Speaker 1: along along the set time period. I think we've all
Speaker 1: seen a movie or TV show where the you know,
Speaker 1: they've done that close up shot and little needle going right,
Speaker 1: the needles starts shaking back and forth really crazy. In
Speaker 1: case any of you can't hear that, you know what,
Speaker 1: we should just leave it to Liz to put in
Speaker 1: the little scratchy sounds, because I bet that picks up
Speaker 1: a lot better than you scratching on your laptop. I
Speaker 1: don't know. They can pick up footsteps outside the studio,
Speaker 1: that's true. We have her bigfoot lurking outside our studio
Speaker 1: occasionally anyway, but at any rate. Okay, So so yeah,
Speaker 1: these it's not just one line of data. It's actually
Speaker 1: uh several lines of data because you get the you
Speaker 1: get one essentially for each um uh factor. So uh,
Speaker 1: there are three different needles measuring it, and ideally you
Speaker 1: would be able to look at the three different lines
Speaker 1: and be able to tell when there was a major
Speaker 1: uh change in someone's physiological response. Well, there's there's sort
Speaker 1: of a hypothetical basis on which you could say if
Speaker 1: somebody was lying, you would expect them to be more
Speaker 1: stressed out than if they were telling the truth, preventing
Speaker 1: the truth from coming out. Right. That's that's what the whole,
Speaker 1: the whole basis of of polygraph is is. That's the
Speaker 1: foundation for the polygraph test. The foundation for the polygraph
Speaker 1: test is an assumption that if you lie about something,
Speaker 1: you will your body will respond, will engage in the
Speaker 1: fight or flight response. Not to take something from our
Speaker 1: sister podcast stuff, you should know, that's their favorite phrase
Speaker 1: or it used to be anyway, but the fight or
Speaker 1: flight response tends to pop into play whenever you are
Speaker 1: trying to to conceal something. At least that's the theory. Now.
Speaker 1: If this were to hold true, if every single person
Speaker 1: in the world were to respond in a similar way
Speaker 1: whenever they were trying to be elusive or lie about something,
Speaker 1: then the light detector test might actually work if everyone
Speaker 1: responded the same way. But we're human beings. Turns out
Speaker 1: we all have different responses to the same sort of
Speaker 1: sensory input. Some of us, uh get very anxious at times,
Speaker 1: including myself. There are there are certain situations where I
Speaker 1: get very very anxious, and um, I'm certain that if
Speaker 1: I were ever brought in to be questioned about something,
Speaker 1: I would be very anxious about it. Not because necessarily
Speaker 1: that I did something. I'm not saying I did, and
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that didn't. I'm just saying that, yeah,
Speaker 1: But in either case, even if I were completely innocent
Speaker 1: of it, I know that people asking me these questions
Speaker 1: would make me nervous and my body would react in
Speaker 1: such a way that, uh, it would be very difficult
Speaker 1: to say that a reading that you got for me
Speaker 1: would be, would would indicate a live versus truth just
Speaker 1: because I would be anxious no matter if I had
Speaker 1: done it or not. Uh. Conversely, there are people out
Speaker 1: there who are consummate liars, and either they are delusional
Speaker 1: and actually believe the things they're saying, they're sociopaths, they
Speaker 1: don't care what they're saying, or they've trained themselves to
Speaker 1: not give away these physiological responses so that it's very
Speaker 1: difficult to tell whether or not they're telling the truth.
Speaker 1: Everything looks like the truth. It's kind of fascinating to
Speaker 1: think that there are actually people that are you know,
Speaker 1: that actually believe that what they are saying is true,
Speaker 1: even when it's you know, a patent lie. Yeah. Um.
Speaker 1: But you know, if if somebody is delusional about that
Speaker 1: and believes that what they are saying is true, then
Speaker 1: they're not going to register any kind of response like that.
Speaker 1: They believe it to be true. And as time passes,
Speaker 1: it's it's easier and easier to believe a lie. Uh.
Speaker 1: I mean uh. And and in some case when I'm
Speaker 1: saying lie, it may just be an exaggeration. For example,
Speaker 1: if you think about something that happened to you in
Speaker 1: your childhood and you tell the story about it, and uh,
Speaker 1: it can. It's one of those things that I've mentioned
Speaker 1: this before. It can build over time, like you elaborate
Speaker 1: the story and you might exaggerate one fact over another,
Speaker 1: or you might add in a little thing that that
Speaker 1: didn't necessarily happen, but it makes the story better. And
Speaker 1: upon retellings and over the passage of time, you might
Speaker 1: actually come to believe that that is actually exactly how
Speaker 1: it happened. And then if you were to review, say
Speaker 1: a film of it or a video of it, you
Speaker 1: might be shocked to see how different the real event
Speaker 1: was from the way it was in your mind. If
Speaker 1: you've been given a polygraph test and you were asked
Speaker 1: to relay that information under the polygraph system, uh, it
Speaker 1: would show that you're telling the truth because you're you're
Speaker 1: saying what you believe. It's not it's not a there's
Speaker 1: no magic in the box that allows it to determine
Speaker 1: what is really true and what isn't. So let's talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about the process of a a graph
Speaker 1: examination and kind of explain, you know, how how these
Speaker 1: examiners build a routine so that they can try and
Speaker 1: and track lies right now. Um. Actually, when I was
Speaker 1: commenting earlier, when we got started about the forensic psycho physiologist,
Speaker 1: I was hoping to say it without tripping that time. UM,
Speaker 1: those are the people who who like to UH or
Speaker 1: who are who like to be known that with that
Speaker 1: it is their professional UH title, I guess, but they
Speaker 1: are the people who give the polygraph tests and really
Speaker 1: a professional forensic psycho physiologist. If I don't look at
Speaker 1: the words make them out easier. Um, they are. They
Speaker 1: are generally going through some kind of professional training UM,
Speaker 1: such as the ACCTRON International Academy UM, which is accredited
Speaker 1: by the American polygraph Association and certified by the American
Speaker 1: Association of Police Polygraphists Polygraphists. People who have polygraphs. Polygraphists
Speaker 1: sound like people who have more than one graph. Um.
Speaker 1: I'm on a monographists myself. So if you so, If
Speaker 1: you were going to to become a forensic psycho physiologist US,
Speaker 1: you would need to UH to have a baccalaureate degree
Speaker 1: or at least five years of UM investigative experience and
Speaker 1: an associates degree UM. You would need to go through
Speaker 1: a certified course which includes, among the different categories you
Speaker 1: would need to study or psychology, physiology, ethics, history, UM,
Speaker 1: question construction, UH, speech analysis, chart analysis, text and test
Speaker 1: data analysis. And you would also have to uh, you know,
Speaker 1: go through a series of exams to you know, on
Speaker 1: actual cases in which a LIE detector tests or I
Speaker 1: should say polygraph is being used. Um and the th
Speaker 1: are reviewed by professionals. So, uh, this internship can although
Speaker 1: the program is sort of short, that the internship can
Speaker 1: take from eight months to a year. According to the
Speaker 1: article we have on the website about how lie detectors work, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's actually a very good article. I do recommend that
Speaker 1: you read it. Um. So that all being kind of
Speaker 1: beside the point really when you get down to to
Speaker 1: what exactly is going on with lie detectors. But I
Speaker 1: just wanted to point out that that that there is
Speaker 1: some that the people who are actually doing this for
Speaker 1: say a police department or another law enforcement agency, go
Speaker 1: through training on how to interpret what they think is
Speaker 1: coming out of the machine. Right. The problem is that
Speaker 1: again the very foundation of what they do is faulty,
Speaker 1: so built on a false premise. Ultimately it's built on
Speaker 1: a false premise. I just wanted to talk about how
Speaker 1: the process works. Okay, So let's talk about the test itself. Okay,
Speaker 1: So during the test itself, what would happen is the
Speaker 1: examiner would you know strap ian um. So let's let's
Speaker 1: let's say that that I Jonathan Strickland. I'm the subject
Speaker 1: of this polygraph examination. The first thing that would happen
Speaker 1: is that we will Usually you get a few questions
Speaker 1: at the beginning that are supposedly to form the baseline
Speaker 1: so that the questionnaire can see what your level of
Speaker 1: anxiety is, just based upon normal questions, nothing that necessarily
Speaker 1: has anything to do with what they brought you in for.
Speaker 1: They want to see basically what's moving the needles when
Speaker 1: they tell it, say or ask you versus what isn't
Speaker 1: moving the needles, and they can get an idea of
Speaker 1: how you're gonna behave right if you're If you're already anxious,
Speaker 1: then this would theoretically at least let them know. Okay,
Speaker 1: this guy's kind of a nervous nellie, so uh uh,
Speaker 1: anything that hits this level doesn't necessarily mean it's a lie,
Speaker 1: because this dude's just quivering in his boots, which is
Speaker 1: exactly how I would be. I'm not gonna lie I'm
Speaker 1: about that anyway, So they would ask me a series
Speaker 1: of questions, supposedly to create a baseline. Now this is
Speaker 1: debatable whether or not this actually, you know, may any
Speaker 1: real difference. Next, what they would probably do is ask
Speaker 1: a control question, and this would be a again a
Speaker 1: simple question where it's just to uh, to measure your
Speaker 1: your response. And then they would alternate that with a
Speaker 1: question that actually relates back to what they're looking into, right,
Speaker 1: and that would that would be why they ask the
Speaker 1: people who are training to work with polygraphs to learn
Speaker 1: about question construction, because they want to learn how to
Speaker 1: phrase uh different topics in ways to see if they
Speaker 1: can get a response from me. Yeah, so you get
Speaker 1: you get your design questions or what they're called, were
Speaker 1: the ones that have to do with your actual what
Speaker 1: the purpose for the polygraph. So let's say, look, the
Speaker 1: first question might be uh, um, is your name Jonathan
Speaker 1: Strickland And I would say yes, And then the next
Speaker 1: question might be I don't know, and then I'd pee myself.
Speaker 1: But the next the next question, my be might be
Speaker 1: um more pertinent to whatever the matter is. For instance,
Speaker 1: like like uh, were you in the Buckhead neighborhood? On
Speaker 1: Tuesday night, and then I would say either yes or no.
Speaker 1: And then if they suspect that I was there and
Speaker 1: I said no, they would look at the chart to
Speaker 1: see if the response on that question, UH was measurably
Speaker 1: different from my response to the control questions, because if
Speaker 1: if I'm answering the control questions honestly, and they should
Speaker 1: be able to to know that, because the control question
Speaker 1: should be obvious, right, it should be very obvious questions
Speaker 1: like are there two people in the room with us,
Speaker 1: and you'd say yes or no? UM. If you are
Speaker 1: lying to an obvious question, then they can tell pretty
Speaker 1: quickly if you're going to be able to to fool
Speaker 1: the polygraph UM, which by the way, is very possible.
Speaker 1: So they alternate these questions. They will ask a control
Speaker 1: question now and again just to make sure that that
Speaker 1: they're reading the results correctly, and then they will ask
Speaker 1: one of the design questions to see if you are
Speaker 1: telling the truth or not. UH. You can get through
Speaker 1: an entire polygraph lying your butt off the whole way through,
Speaker 1: and if you are able to control your responses or
Speaker 1: you're able to boost your responses to control questions to
Speaker 1: show that you are a nervous, nelly. Either of those
Speaker 1: are going to make the results unreliable. They're not gonna
Speaker 1: be able to say this guy for sure was lying
Speaker 1: or or was telling the truth. So for instance, that
Speaker 1: they asked me, is your name Jonathan Strickland and I
Speaker 1: said yes, but I was able to, uh, to provoke
Speaker 1: myself into reacting in a more um well heightened way,
Speaker 1: it would indicate that I had lied on that even
Speaker 1: though I told the truth. Um, and this could all
Speaker 1: be very I can manage to do this on my own.
Speaker 1: So in other words, I could fabricate it as if
Speaker 1: it looks like it looks like it's a lie. And
Speaker 1: then the next question they asked me, where you win
Speaker 1: Buckhead on Tuesday night? And I say no, Um, I
Speaker 1: could just relax a little bit and then it will
Speaker 1: come up as not being a lie, and then they'll
Speaker 1: they'll look at the results and say, well, according to this,
Speaker 1: I mean, we asked him this control question. He told
Speaker 1: the truth, but his response was off the charts. Then
Speaker 1: we asked him this question and he said no, and
Speaker 1: his response was calm, clearly, he's just nervous. We can't
Speaker 1: we can't rely on this as as information to establish
Speaker 1: whether or not he's guilty, or or if he's telling
Speaker 1: the truth or not. Um So, really, when you get
Speaker 1: down to it, once you understand that, you realize the
Speaker 1: polygraph is not a reliable tool for telling truth versus lies.
Speaker 1: That doesn't mean that the polygraph isn't useful if you
Speaker 1: are willing to use some psychological bullying to try and
Speaker 1: get a confession out of someone. In fact, it's incredibly
Speaker 1: useful if you want to try and get a confession
Speaker 1: out of someone, and as long as that person believes
Speaker 1: that the lie detector is doing its job and is
Speaker 1: working properly, it's it can be incredibly effective at getting
Speaker 1: a confession. It's but it's almost like a confession under
Speaker 1: dure us if you think about it, because the person
Speaker 1: is being fooled into thinking this device is doing more
Speaker 1: than it really is. Well, how are you How are
Speaker 1: you going to fool somebody into believing that it actually works?
Speaker 1: All right? What could they do? Here's here's a good example.
Speaker 1: This is not necessarily how everyone does it, but there
Speaker 1: are police, state law enforcement officials who have done this
Speaker 1: or examiners who have done this. Um you do a
Speaker 1: very simple card trick, but you don't present it as
Speaker 1: a card trick. What you do is you you present
Speaker 1: the person who's being questioned. You present that person with
Speaker 1: a deck of cards and say, pick a card, look
Speaker 1: at it, memorize it, put it back in the deck,
Speaker 1: you know however you want to do it. And then
Speaker 1: you deal the cards out face up, and you just
Speaker 1: tell the person, uh, just say that it's not your card,
Speaker 1: whether it's your card or not, say it's not your card. Okay.
Speaker 1: So each card that comes up, you're saying, no, that's
Speaker 1: not it, No, that's not it, till you go through
Speaker 1: the whole deck. Then the person goes back to supposedly
Speaker 1: look at the results on the polygraph, comes back and
Speaker 1: then says, our core into the polygraph, this is your card.
Speaker 1: And they hold up the card that you picked. And
Speaker 1: then you're convinced, oh my gosh, not only does this
Speaker 1: thing work, it can actually work to the point where
Speaker 1: it can it can tell the difference of one response
Speaker 1: out of fifty two questions. Now, in reality, the examiner
Speaker 1: has just used a very very basic card trick, and
Speaker 1: it's a it's there are many different ways of doing
Speaker 1: a card force where you forced someone to pick the
Speaker 1: card you want them to pick, or you don't force them.
Speaker 1: You just you manipulate the cards in such a way
Speaker 1: that you know what card they picked. Easiest ways just
Speaker 1: pay attention to what card is on the bottom of
Speaker 1: the deck, and then you cut the cards. You put
Speaker 1: you put the person's card they chose on the top
Speaker 1: of the cut. You cover that up. Well, the card
Speaker 1: that was on the bottom of the deck is gonna
Speaker 1: come immediately before the card that person picked, So you
Speaker 1: just look for that, like if it were the three
Speaker 1: of Hearts, you look for the three your Hearts. Next
Speaker 1: card that's gonna be the one that the person picked.
Speaker 1: I just I just did a big reveal on magic tricks.
Speaker 1: But that's a very basic one. So lots of YouTube
Speaker 1: videos out there that show how that's done. But anyway,
Speaker 1: you in this case, the examiner is gaming the system.
Speaker 1: The examiner already knows what the card is, does not
Speaker 1: need to look at the light detector at all. In fact,
Speaker 1: the light detector probably wouldn't even help at all and
Speaker 1: figuring out which card this was unless someone was just
Speaker 1: that hyped up about, oh my god, that's my card. No,
Speaker 1: that's not it. I mean, unless that were to happen.
Speaker 1: The light detector wouldn't help you. But by establishing that
Speaker 1: the light detector is so sensitive and accurate, you have
Speaker 1: now built into the person's mind that this thing is
Speaker 1: gonna catch you if you lie. And then you start
Speaker 1: the questioning, and since the person now believes that if
Speaker 1: he or she lies, it's gonna be instantly recognizable, they
Speaker 1: might actually move ahead and just confess. So you've skipped
Speaker 1: the whole process of having to do a light detector
Speaker 1: test in the first place. You've scared the person into
Speaker 1: confessing a crime. Now, of course, if the person is innocent,
Speaker 1: that's not gonna help at all. You know, you're still
Speaker 1: gonna have to go through the whole thing. Um, it's
Speaker 1: only if the person is guilty and willing to confess,
Speaker 1: if they if they don't realize that it was all
Speaker 1: a trick to try and gain their confidence. That's just
Speaker 1: one method. There are other ways of doing the same
Speaker 1: sort of thing, where you tell a person to lie
Speaker 1: and then you show them the results on the lie
Speaker 1: detector and say, see, here's where I asked you to lie,
Speaker 1: and you see where your response is, and that could
Speaker 1: either be a legitimate test that they're showing them, or
Speaker 1: it could be a pregenerated test where you're just showing
Speaker 1: them some lines and saying, see, see where I asked
Speaker 1: you to lie, and you see these squiggles here. Those
Speaker 1: may or may not be your squiggles. I'm just saying
Speaker 1: those aiggs right. Yeah, if you're like, no, obviously Jane
Speaker 1: wasn't here lying. She's a terrible liar. I'm much better,
Speaker 1: But yeah, they're It's it's essentially deception, is what it
Speaker 1: boils down to. And that's not to say that every
Speaker 1: examiner feels that this is necessary, or that every examiner
Speaker 1: even thinks that what they're doing has no merit. I'm
Speaker 1: sure most of them think that it is. Uh, it
Speaker 1: is a completely legitimate practice, but the fact remains that
Speaker 1: it's it's really it's just measuring your physiological response, which
Speaker 1: is different for everybody. Yeah. Yeah, there are there some
Speaker 1: things that people try to do to avoid giving themselves away,
Speaker 1: So just taking sedatives or biting their tongue or sticking
Speaker 1: attack in their shoe. There there's lots of other very
Speaker 1: simple ones. Just simple breathing exercises can help you stay calm.
Speaker 1: And like I said again, if you if you take
Speaker 1: it so that you maybe you tense your muscles a
Speaker 1: bit when you are when you're truthfully answering a control question.
Speaker 1: If you tense your muscles that and you just increase
Speaker 1: your breathing rate a little bit, that's gonna be enough
Speaker 1: to boost your your pulse and to change the respiratory
Speaker 1: reading to uh, to start fouling up the um the results.
Speaker 1: It is not hard to learn how to fate, how
Speaker 1: to how to fool a polygraph, or at least fooling
Speaker 1: is probably the wrong word. How to make the results unreadable, essentially,
Speaker 1: because if you make it so that it looks like
Speaker 1: you're lying to answers that are obviously the truth, they
Speaker 1: can't rely on the test as a whole. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: I think that's why, uh, it's so controversial even now
Speaker 1: after decades of being in use, and why so many
Speaker 1: jurisdictions won't allow polygraphs to be submitted, and there's still
Speaker 1: some that will, and some of them will only do
Speaker 1: it upon the order of a judge. Like in some jurisdictions,
Speaker 1: a judge can say can allow, has has discretion to
Speaker 1: allow or not allow lie detective results. Um, I I
Speaker 1: think it's it's I think that using them in any
Speaker 1: case in a in that sense like as evidence, is terrible.
Speaker 1: It's just a horrible idea because it's already been proven
Speaker 1: to be unreliable. You can beat it if you know how,
Speaker 1: and even if you don't know how, but you are anxious,
Speaker 1: can be falsely you can give off false positives. Um.
Speaker 1: And here's another good example. I meant to mention this
Speaker 1: with the whole control question versus the the real questions.
Speaker 1: So part of the problem is that you can never
Speaker 1: really establish a good control versus real question because the
Speaker 1: control questions aren't going to have the same emotional impact
Speaker 1: as the real questions. Okay, so, like a control question
Speaker 1: might be do you live at such and such address? Well,
Speaker 1: there's no emotional attachment there, there's no sense of risk,
Speaker 1: there's nothing like that, and you you could just say yes.
Speaker 1: But if they say did you kill Mr so and
Speaker 1: so blah blah blah, well that that's definitely got an
Speaker 1: emotional attachment to it, whether you did it or not.
Speaker 1: Just the accusation alone is enough to provoke the fight
Speaker 1: or flight response in most people. Maybe not even most,
Speaker 1: but in lots of people. Most is probably too too
Speaker 1: vague word but I would I would think that a
Speaker 1: lot of people would respond very strongly to that question
Speaker 1: whether they had done anything or not, because it's an
Speaker 1: emotionally charged question unless you were able to create control
Speaker 1: questions that were also emotionally charged. Uh, you can't really
Speaker 1: say that's a baseline. You know, it's like how was
Speaker 1: your day? Oh it is good? Good? Did you skin
Speaker 1: this person alive? And then wear that as address that?
Speaker 1: Two different questions, two different levels. For some of us
Speaker 1: we can casually answer yes to those, but others, you know,
Speaker 1: would have a bit of a reaction to that. Sometimes
Speaker 1: you frighten me. I just wanted you to to do that. Well, hell,
Speaker 1: you know what springs right around the corner, and fashion
Speaker 1: time is coming up great at any rate. So polygraph tests, uh,
Speaker 1: I think you can safely say are great for measuring
Speaker 1: a physiological response, not great at at ascertaining truth versus lies.
Speaker 1: So there, it's a misnomer. Really, it's more of like
Speaker 1: Tyler was saying, our our guest producer for the day. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's more of a stress test than a than a
Speaker 1: lie test. Um. Do you have anything to add to that? No?
Speaker 1: Not really. The fact that some some pretty major cases
Speaker 1: kind of came down to lie detector evidence making a
Speaker 1: big difference. Yeah, it's a little hard to imagine that,
Speaker 1: but um, it's true. But in in several of the cases,
Speaker 1: just because someone passes a lie detector test doesn't mean
Speaker 1: they're innocent, And just because someone fails it doesn't mean
Speaker 1: they're guilty. Well, it also if they fail it, they
Speaker 1: might be guilty. If they pass it, they might be innocence.
Speaker 1: So even in cases where lie detector tests were entered
Speaker 1: into evidence, usually there was other evidence that really contributed
Speaker 1: to a person's sentence of guilty. Um, that doesn't necessarily
Speaker 1: mean that no one has ever been falsely imprisoned because
Speaker 1: of a lie detector test. I haven't done the research
Speaker 1: on that. I would imagine that it's probably happened, which
Speaker 1: is unfortunate, but uh, it probably doesn't happen A lot
Speaker 1: still shouldn't happen at all, I know. But anyway, Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I'm glad we tackle this one because it's, uh,
Speaker 1: it's fascinating to think about it, and it's some The
Speaker 1: thing that makes this so different from the ghost Hunter
Speaker 1: Tech episode is that you know, it actually does more
Speaker 1: or less what it's supposed to, but it's just so
Speaker 1: unreliable that you can't count on it. Yeah. Yeah, like
Speaker 1: I said, there is you know, a legitimate reason for
Speaker 1: wanting to use it, right. It it does measure things.
Speaker 1: It's just like I said, the premise that it's based
Speaker 1: upon it itself is faulty. And that's the problem is
Speaker 1: when you when you're when you have a faulty premise,
Speaker 1: everything else that follows can't be relied upon. And again
Speaker 1: talking about critical thinking, so that's another great um example.
Speaker 1: And yeah, if you guys have other critical thinking kind
Speaker 1: of of topics you would like us to tackle, let
Speaker 1: us know. Now we should also point out some people
Speaker 1: have been suggesting things that really don't fall into the
Speaker 1: tech field. Uh. And this, since this is tech stuff
Speaker 1: and not skeptic stuff, we can't just tackle anything, as
Speaker 1: much as I would love to do that. But we
Speaker 1: do have a sister podcast called Stuff from the Science
Speaker 1: Lab that just went live not that long ago. And um,
Speaker 1: I'm sure they'd talk about scientific Yeah. I don't know
Speaker 1: what their email addresses off the top of my head,
Speaker 1: but as soon as this, by the time this goes live, um,
Speaker 1: I will I be sure to make a blog post
Speaker 1: that points people in the right direction, because I think
Speaker 1: that that podcast would probably be the best place to
Speaker 1: tackle skeptical matters that are non technology oriented. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm still going to take the tech ones. I will
Speaker 1: find them tooth and nail, but if it's not tech
Speaker 1: related and you still want to hear about it, it
Speaker 1: would be a good choice. So but that brings us
Speaker 1: to our second round of listening along. This listening mail
Speaker 1: comes from Jason from Maryland, and he says, Hey, guys,
Speaker 1: I read this and it reminded me of your podcast
Speaker 1: a bit ago about easter eggs. I hope all is well.
Speaker 1: A crazy easter egg popped up on airfare search site
Speaker 1: kayak today. If you try searching for one way flight
Speaker 1: from Sydney to Los Angeles to place on September twenty two,
Speaker 1: two ten, you'll get the fictitious flight featured on a
Speaker 1: mysterious TV show called Lost, which is true. You'll do
Speaker 1: get the Oceanic Airways flight. Um. I've never actually seen
Speaker 1: an episode of Lost, but I went ahead and tried
Speaker 1: this anyway and it did work. Yeah. Cool. I then
Speaker 1: was mauled by a polar bear. I have no idea
Speaker 1: what that's about. Yeah, I don't either. I haven't watched
Speaker 1: the show either. We're lane if you want to write
Speaker 1: and tell us how lame we are tech stuff at
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. Remember when we get the blogs,
Speaker 1: we get the live show every Tuesday one pm. Uh.
Speaker 1: I hope you guys are are tuning into that. It's
Speaker 1: been a really fun experience so far. We've we've managed
Speaker 1: to to to alienate Apple fans and when does fans alike?
Speaker 1: All right? I hope we can continue. I think Lennox
Speaker 1: is next. Just you know, it all depends on what's
Speaker 1: in the news. We'll see, so tune into that. Read
Speaker 1: the blogs, check out the website. Check out this article
Speaker 1: on how light detectors work. It's a, like we said,
Speaker 1: a very good article, and we will talk to you
Speaker 1: again really soon for more on this and thousands of
Speaker 1: other topics. Does it how stuff works dot com and
Speaker 1: be sure to check out the new tech stuff blog
Speaker 1: now on the house stuff Works homepage. Brought to you
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Speaker 1: you