I present this thread.
I claim Exapno’s being just a little bit more stupid (and a bit more than a bit more inappropriately impolite) than I am on that thread.
That constitutes the sum of my Pitting of Exapno Mapcase.
-FrL-
Oops, also, I forgot: Regarding the claims he has made and that I have disputed, he is wrong and I am right, and he is at fault for not recognizing this.
Okay, that completes my Mild Pitting of Exapno Mapcase.
Nyah.
-Kris
Man, you are a viscious son of a gun, aren’t you?
I regularly make small children cry for fun.
In fact, I’m doing it right now.
-Kris
Oh, and by the way, you misspelled “vicious” you fucking ignorant retarded cuntfaced asshole. Shit I hate people like you. Jesus fucking Christ in a handbag.
-Kris
I’m sure he meant to say “viscuous”, you oily bastard. 
Oh, there’s someone acting stupid in that thread, all right-but it ain’t Exapno Mapcase.
Aw, man.
Prove it!
Seriously, I’m ready to argue (mildly) about this.
-FrL-
Hey, you beat me to that, you sebaceous byblow! :mad:
P.S. Shoulda been “viscous” anyway.
Sorry, maybe it’s just my extreme hatred of Scientology, but the point is, you’re wrong. Scientology does not offer anything of value, none of their methods are scientifically sound, and many are harmful.
As for your suggestion that MAYBE the e-meter itself could work in therapy, please tell us how the hell a lie-detector test would work for theraputic purposes?
“How do you feel about your mother?”
“I love her?”
BZZT!
“Damn your infernal machine!”
“None of their methods are scientifically sound” and “many are harmful” are both statements irrelevant to my question and the reason I gave for my asking it, since I clearly state I’m talking about somethign that might have happened by accident, independent of Scientology’s intended methods and overall effects.
So we’re left with “You’re wrong” and “Scientology does not offer anything of value.” The first is a mere assertion, and the second begs the question against what I’ve tried to say. I said it looked possible to me that, amazingly, coincidentally, accidentally, at least one thing Scientology does may be adaptable pretty directly into a meaningful and helpful activity. Your sentence simply states the negation of this–that there is not even one such thing. This is not a good argument.
What would constitute a good argument against the basis I gave for asking the question in my OP? I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Exapno made exactly the kinds of statements which, if true, count as good counterarguments to the plausibility of the story I tell in my OP. If I find out lie detectors don’ work at all, or that e-meters are not (as they have been called by their critics) “crude lie detectors,” then the basis for my question is undercut. Also, if it is false that lie detectors could be used for therapeautic purposes, then my question is undercut. You approach that issue in the next section of your post. Finally, if it is false that repression is a real phenomenon, then my question is undercut.
Even if undercut, I should note, the question still has a factual answer. It appears the answer to my original question is “no, but for good reason.” Good enough.
The idea was, if repression is a real phenomenon, then often part of our trouble when we are having trouble might involve a fact that we are lying to ourselves. If lie detectors work, then they could signal this. And if they can signal this, and this is genuinely part of the problem a thearapy needs to solve, then it follows that they have a use in that form of therapy.
Of course, the idea with repression is supposed to be that you’re “lying to yourself” without knowing it, and the idea of a lie detector is (I think) that it catches you because you know you’re lying. But I don’t think it makes sense to say someone has “lied to themselves without knowing it.” So I don’t think that can be a good way to characterize repression. So it must be that if repression is a real phenomenon, there is a real sense in which a person repressing knows they were doing it. At least, “part of them” must know it, as they say. If lie detectors actually detect lies, then, it’s not implausible to think they would detect these lies as well.
Exapno has stated, however, that lie detectors do not detect lies. If his assertion is correct, then all of the above constitutes a hypothetical with a false antecedent, and so is vaccuous. I know that.
-FrL-
They don’t. There is a reason that polygraph evidence is not admissible in any US court.
As I said in the other thread, I was always under the impression that they’re not admissible because they’re not reliable enough, not because they’re not reliable at all. I think I’m going to GQ this point.
-Kris
Wow.
Mother told me not to post in the pit.
[Leon]Let me tell you about my mother[/Leon]
(You know I was joking, right?)
-FrL-
Allow me to note:
This thread: Polygraph Tests--completely unreliable, or just not very reliable? - Factual Questions - Straight Dope Message Board indicates that Exapno was just completely wrong about one of his assertions.
And further posts in the thread this thread is about (linked to in my OP) seem to indicate, though they do not conclusively show, that Exapno was wrong about all of his other assertions as well.
Exapno said the correct kinds of things if his goal was to provide evidence undercutting the motivation for my question. That is good. But he characterized me–my posts, the logic of my posts, and the motivation for my posts–incorrectly, unfairly and unkindly, and continued to do so after correction. That is bad. Furthermore, he presented his assertions as though they are the final word, and that is bad–especially in light of the fact that it seems he was wrong about those assertions!
-FrL-
Forgot one thing: In the thread the OP of this thread is about, Exapno has done us dopers a service by providin links to the SciAm and Discover articles I was talking about. That is good.
-FrL-
:grows goatee:
Interesting. I wonder why you would choose that example.
:strokes goatee: