<<This isn't a court of law, Cain isn't on trial, criminally or civilly, the policy being referenced has a 95% success rate.>>
You must be smoking some powerful weed that is not available up here. If that thing really had a "95% success rate," it would be accepted as evidence in every civil court in Canada and the U.S.A., where the cases are decided on a simple "balance of probabilities," which means only that the plaintiff, to win, must present a case that is more likely than the defendant's, even if his case is only 51% more likely to be true than the defendant's.
The device's "success rate" will obviously depend to some extent on the skill of the operator. Also, "95% success rate" is a term that nobody has defined - - does it mean that in 95 tests out of 100, it has successfully identified test subjects who were not truth-tellers, in which case, I would strongly suspect that anyone so claiming would be a charlatan? Or, as is more likely, does it simply mean that in 95 tests out of 100, it is able to successfully identify certain questions as productive of far more stress and anxiety than other questions?
<<And right on "q", in the fleetest of moments, you attempted to combine both the trashing of the messenger . . .>>
Believe me, it was no problem to trash THIS messenger. A simple Google of the name, combined with my standard policy of "Go to Wikipedia first," produced all the trash I needed on this idiot, probably the ONLY lawyer, practicing or not, who has described the retiring Justice David Souter, of the U.S. Supreme Court, as a "goat-fucking child molester," and the only "journalist" I can think of who admits in writing that his public opinions are tailored to fit whatever his bosses' public opinions are. The ease of my trashing this guy's credibility, plus the fact that he's the ONLY writer so far to treat this polygraph-like technique as determinative of the credibility of any witness, via TV no less! should indicate to you, if nothing else does, that this stuff is junk science without even having to consider why two systems of Federal civil Courts, fifty systems of State civil Courts and eleven systems of Provincial civil Courts, do not accept evidence from these machines even as something to be argued over in court, even where the balance of proof required is a mere 51%. This "messenger" ("mouthpiece" is obviously the more accurate description) had already fully discredited himself, even before I had even heard of him.
<< via the "junk science" retort, with a completely irrelevant point about this not being admissible in court>>
What's "irrelevant" about it not being admissible in court when the very basis of its inadmissibility is the unreliability of its results in the civil courts of fifty States, eleven Provinces and two Federal governments? It's banned from ALL of those courts, just like the opinions of fortune tellers, tea-leaf readers and phrenologists. Against the unanimous opinions of the courts of 63 jurisdictions encompassing ALL of the courts of English- and French-speaking North America, you have chosen to rely instead on the opinion of that schmuck Erick Erickson? ? ? Good luck widdat.
<<Both tactics I knew would be attempted, and you were so happy to jump right on in.>>
That's hilarious. You expected me to trash the junk science of a junk scientist whose "evidence" no court will accept AND you expected me to trash the reputation of some sleazy right-wing dipshit, who's already trashed his OWN reputation right out of his own mouth? Gee, sirs, what kind of a crystal ball do you have, anyway?
Finally, for anyone who against all logic is STILL determined to believe in this kind of poppycock, I suggest that you simply Google this question: "Can you beat a polygraph" and you will get an overwhelming response, the gist of which is, "Yes, dummy, yes." Selecting just one quote from the avalanche, I choose this little gem:
<<To determine whether polygraph exams have any validity, the National Research Council conducted a major study that was released in 2002. The 398-page report is easy to summarize: Polygraphs are baloney. The report found that lie detector exams are so subjective and undependable—are they really measuring deception, or just fear, for example—that they are inherently untrustworthy.>>
(from an article in Slate, found on the first page of the Google search that I just suggested)