How Does Science Define Truth?

[Ray McCarthy]

Lie Detectors are techno-magic snake-oil. Expert subjects can fool them. Unscrupulous or poor operators can get fake results. They are too subjective and inaccurate.

lie detectors today is not the inability to detect lies

Actually most of the real scientific evidence (rather than US wishful thinking or Manufacturer's sponsored data) is that they mostly don't work to detect lies.

 

[tinkerdan]

But they are still used- so the problem with them is the operator and how that operator uses it as a tool to gain confessions with those who are not knowledgeable enough to realize that the tool is faulty and the operator has criminal intent. Which is why a person needs an attorney; when asked to participate in a lie-detector test.

 

[Dave]

This is a great thread subject! And yes, I think the concept of Truth has little to do with Science and much more with philosophy or Law.

Science uses a process of consensus of opinion and critical peer review to reach the truth. However, new evidence found can always overturn the current consensus. That can be seen as an advantage of the scientific method. It is unconcerned with dogma.

I'm studying History, and historians use a similar process of consensus of opinion and peer review, except that their "evidence" is often opinion filtered through the eyes of the recorder. Many historians say that the truth about history can therefore never be found. Others talk as if some truth exists if we could just find it, but why should it? People cannot agree about events that happened only yesterday - political decisions or football referee decisions - so why can they ever agree about historical events?

In Law, there must be a "truth" agreed upon. There is no room for grey, only black or white. The truth is tested using two great principles: for Criminal cases it must be proved beyond reasonable doubt, for Civil cases it must be proved on the balance of probabilities. Even in Law there are different levels of truth!

There is a conflict when expert witnesses are used in court. If a scientist (DNA analysis, pollution) or social scientist (psychologists) or, (in the case of the prosecution of the Holocaust denying author) a historian, is made to testify in court they will often to be forced into testifying upon some matter of fact that their profession does not wholly agree upon. The prosecution may cherry-pick experts who are more agreeable to the side of the argument that they want to present. This is completely alien to the idea of consensus of opinion and the peer review process on which science is built. It also leads to expert witnesses and science itself being brought into disrepute (as was the case with the MMR vaccine.)

 

[Ray McCarthy]

But they are still used

Puzzling.
But not accepted as evidence in most countries.
In USA they have resulted in false convictions.

 

[tinkerdan]

They are not admissible here, but they are in use.
Some employers use them after hiring people; and usually they have a statement in a paper you sign when you take the job.

Puzzling.
But not accepted as evidence in most countries.
In USA they have resulted in false convictions.

The police use them the same way they use that room to grill suspects and witnesses.

In fact I know of a case where the person was told all he had to do was come down and take the test and he'd be cleared. He couldn't afford the five thousand to retain an attorney so thought he had nothing to lose. They never told him out right that the machine said he was lying but they did pressure him with a claim they knew he was lying. Since he was an alcoholic who needed a drink bad by that time, and he was told they would let him go if he signed a confession to lesser crime; he was stupid enough to do so and it cost him 4 and a half years of a 5 year sentence even after he finally got the attorney.

The point is; get an attorney, who will then advise you not to do the test.

And either don't take the job or at least don't sign that paper after you get the job.

The truth sometimes is what other people believe and what they think they can make you believe: depending on whatever tools they have available.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

And either don't take the job or at least don't sign that paper after you get the job.

Yes.

 

[Dave]

Don't tell Jeremy Kyle!