K
I don't think I will be a believer in technological truth detectors anytime some.
Pushers of such technology conveniently forget to mention that considerable subjective interpretation is need before any results can be produced. And over time the technology tends to move from an investigative aid to become the investigation itself.
Just look at the polygraph. Despite lack of support from any accredited scientific institution, its become a primary investigative aid in many law enforcement agencies and is used as a prerequisite for employment in many federal agencies. The result being thousands of people deigned employment and the expenditure of millions of dollars for multi year investigations based on nothing more then a blip on a chart.
The only real success current lie detector tests have had is scaring people into confessing.
Until/Unless this "brain fingerprinting" can show repeatable and verifiable results by independent accredited scientific institutions, I won't think any more of it then I do the polygraph.
Pushers of such technology conveniently forget to mention that considerable subjective interpretation is need before any results can be produced. And over time the technology tends to move from an investigative aid to become the investigation itself.
Just look at the polygraph. Despite lack of support from any accredited scientific institution, its become a primary investigative aid in many law enforcement agencies and is used as a prerequisite for employment in many federal agencies. The result being thousands of people deigned employment and the expenditure of millions of dollars for multi year investigations based on nothing more then a blip on a chart.
The only real success current lie detector tests have had is scaring people into confessing.
Until/Unless this "brain fingerprinting" can show repeatable and verifiable results by independent accredited scientific institutions, I won't think any more of it then I do the polygraph.
Minority Report was a cool movie. 
sleuth
Livin' Like Thanksgivin'
Originally posted by vraiblonde
Minority Report was a cool movie.
But quite frightening, just the same.
So for the sake of discussion, let's say that it were possible to determine if someone was going to commit a crime before they actually committed the crime. Let's say we had methods that had somehow been proven ohhhh... say 99.9% effective.
Would it be ethical to arrest them ahead of time? Would it be fair, even though it's unconstitutional?
K
Kizzy
Guest
I'll bite and say no. We all have evil and ill thoughts everyday, but we do not act on them. I think that a lie detector (after the fact) only works if the person has guilt for their misconduct. We can all convince ourselves that a certain incident is the truth as we know it. You tell yourself over and over again the same thing, after awhile you believe it to be true.