Friday, January 15, 2010
With the death toll in Haiti now estimated at about 50,000, the evangelist
broadcaster explained to "The 700 Club" what it all meant. In colonial times,
he said, Haiti cut a deal with the devil to get rid of the French -- and has
been cursed ever since. According to a BBC news report White House spokesman
Robert Gibbs characterized Robertson's remarks as “stupid.”
There was in fact a lot of "stupid" going around this week.
According to a CBS News account of the suicide bombing at a CIA base in
Afghanistan, "The double agent was brought onto the base without first
being given a polygraph test, one of the basic tools in establishing a spy’s
trustworthiness." Really? Aldrich Ames, the master Soviet spy who was a
high-ranking CIA analyst, routinely passed polygraph exams, even as he passed
information to the Soviets. Nor did the polygraph expose Larry Wu- Tai Chin a
Chinese language translator working for the CIA who sold information to China,
or Robert Hanssen of the FBI. In fact, not a single spy has been caught by a
polygraph screening exam. In 2003 the National Academy of Science issued a
report, "The Polygraph and Lie Detection," that found the majority of polygraph
research to be unreliable, unscientific and biased. The high rate of false
positives was considered unacceptable. I have argued, however, that the small
number of true positives is the real problem. I propose replacing the polygraph
with a coin toss. That would identify 50 percent of the double agents compared
to zero with the polygraph. The unfortunate increase in false positives
constitutes collateral damage, which is inevitable in war.
A prospective adoptive-couple have been named as "persons of interest" in the
disappearance of an eight-month old baby in Arizona (Gabriel). The couple
appeared on television early this week demanding a polygraph test to "determine
absolutely whether we are telling the truth." The next day the polygraph
examiners announced the result: "inconclusive." The public perception is that
the polygraph is a scientific device that distinctively signals a lie. This is
abetted by the media which rarely mentions the strong scientific objections to
the polygraph. Devices claimed to be lie detectors are even used in television
game shows (Fox of course). In fact, the polygraph looks for spikes in blood
pressure, heart rate, respiration and perspiration. In other words, you can’t
tell a lie from the sex act.
The Personal Journal section of Tuesday's Wall Street Journal linked watching
TV to a higher risk of death. Of course, it may be the programming rather than
being sedentary that's bad for you.
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