Science or Art? - by Jack Ogilvie

back to article index

Where do you stand? Is what we do science or art? Probably
a little of both.

Certainly we employ some Psychology. No one could dispute
Physiology is involved. Both are certainly in the
scientific field and we all have had at least rudimentary
education in both subjects.

The examiner or detective who is good at interviewing and
interrogating is generally using some scientific
evaluation i.e. eye movements, but interview and
interrogation is not strictly scientific. Done properly it
is an art form. As a master woodworker goes about his
craft, so too does a good interviewer.

In past days examiners shied away from talking about
Polygraph in any type of scientific terms. Usually because
when they did they got burned or scorned by those more
knowledgeable in the sciences.

Even though Polygraph may not be completely accepted by
the scientific community it is moving in that direction.
We as everyday working examiners need to understand this
and become more educated in the scientific aspect of what
we do. We are going to have to raise ourselves to a higher
level. It is not going to be acceptable much longer to
just accept that what we do works. We are going to have to
be able to explain it.

A good example of this relates to the article that Don
Krahpol had in a past newsletter from the AAPP relating to
scoring. We can no longer say that any physiological change
that coincides with a question has to be a response.

When Dr. Raskin developed the Utah comparison question
test he also used his own scoring criteria. There was
a lot of controversy about what he would not score. He
simply scored only those features that he could prove
scientifically were related to a sympathetic response.
If something cannot be proven scientifically to be the
result of stimulation to the sympathetic nervous system,
how can we defend using it to score.

We all know that getting a confession after a polygraph
is the "Holy Grail". This is an art form. Some examiners
do it well, some not so well but it is what we strive
for on deceptive tests. Polygraph may not be Rocket
Science and you may not have to be a scientist to conduct
good exams but we can no longer bury our heads in the
ground. Polygraph has a basis in science and if we are
going to move forward we have to accept that or be left
behind.

I am sure I did not explain a lot of this very well and
my apologies to Dr. Raskin or anyone else I might have
offended. My point is simply that what we do does have
a place in science and we all need to accept that and
educate ourselves accordingly.

back to article index

Copyright 2003 - The Polygraph Place. All Rights Reserved
You may link to this article, however, you cannot reprint this article without prior permission from the Polygraph Place.

What is a Polygraph? (FAQ)
Polygraph Associations || Polygraph Schools
Equipment & Software || Insurance || Home