There should be a 'Moment of Truth: Election 08 edition'

since you agree with point 1 i'll skip to point 2 2) This may be true, but it seems that people tend to vote based simply on the party and candidate rather than issues they stand for. All candidates will make huge speeches that sound motivational but never say anything. If a voter was able to watch a candidate and see what they are really going to do, even if they had planned to vote for them, might actually be able to see the candidate for who they really are and change his mind to vote for someone he now finds is more reliable, even if he was strongly against that cand. before. 3) Ture, people don't think lie detectors are reliable, there are ways to pass it, and there is not that much scientific fact supporting it. But you've greatly enlarged little problems. People don't think lie detectors are reliable in forensics because people can get nervous under interogation, but they also conduct the Guilty Knowledge test along with Control Question test. Let me explain A polygraph test doesn't measure lies, but signals the body emits when one knows they are lying. It takes EXTREME resilience to pass these and only someone with remarkable characteristics is able to falsly pass them. The mesurements the device measures are blood pressure, pulse, respiration and skin conductivity. Anyone who has lied about something knows that they feel some if not all of these effects when lying. It measures extreme fluctuations in accordance to questions asked to the resipient. The testers test the test (weird right) before they ask any of the real question they want to know. They first ask innocent questions one would not have trouble truthfully ansering, like "Is your screen name iq two?" where you would say yes. Then they ask obviously false questions and have you lie, like "do you have feathers on your nose" and you would say yes, and even though its not a question you should feel guilty about the machine will still pick up the signals you simotaniouly emitted in congruence with your answer and show your lying. Afterwards they will ask the real questions, randomly throwing in bogus questions to again make sure you are telling the truth. In criminal prosecustions they will run this test and the Guilty knowledge test, where they will have someone totally unrelated to the crime take the test and answer questions about the crime they could have no knowlegde about. THey are then graded by the reliability in accordance to the case . The theory behond it being that those results should be almost perfectly congruent with the suspects. If the suspect is innocent, then a confirmed innocent persons test should match up with theirs. If the suspect has knowledge on the case that someone would not have if totally left in the dark they have a better chance at being guilty. There is a 90-95% reliailty rate with this method, but still nothing that will hold up in court. The way people can pass these tests are either by telling the truth or by having to have complete control over the reactions of their body. This takes alot of skill something your adverage person would not have. They would need to be able to monitor their own blood pressure, pulse, respiration and skin conductivity all at the same time to come up with a fake 'true' answer. SO in short, they have to control actions the body would normally do by itself if they told the truth. Thats very difficult to do, and something that probably could not be done in an hour in responce to Dr. Richardson's claim. It also not true that there is absolutly no scientific basis for polygraph testing either. Rather, there is no DIRECT scientific evidence, but certainly many, many, many consitancies. Scientists have not yet been able to prove 100% that the measurements are associated with lies, but admit startling coincidences. There is alot of evidence that does support the polygraph testing, but nothing fully conclusive. So its not total bogus. There is validity, just nothing absolute. The show uses the polygraph test before the actual filming. The participant is asked 50+ questions and has no knowlege of the outcome of her bodyies signals in corespondence to the questions. They will then pick and choose the questions and know what their bodies reactions were. When actually on the show, they will compare the contestants on air answer with the results, and if they don't match, they are lying and sent home. The same can be done on the presidential candidates. Of course, I know that the Secret Service will probably make sure the questions are not slanderous, but I think the show will know not to do that. On accuracy, the answers are yes or no. If the question is, WIll you raise taxes they will probably have to say yes. Of course every president has to raise taxes somehow, its just another vague lie they tell in speeches. But if its specific like 'Do you plan to raise the price of oil" their answer will be more reliable. I don't think the CIA, FBI, or SS has any jurisdiction to teach a candidates how to pass lie detector test as they have no loyalty towards them at this time. On a current president maybe, but on a possible president they cannot. No, here, it is the candidate only. If there is one that has the potential to pass it untruthfully, I think it would be McCain, but all the others are average enough to were they will probably show the sametraits regular liars have. SO, we can accept politicians lie. We know they will not be truthful on many levels. What we don't know is on what levels those are. Some people are 1 issue voters, like abortion or the war. If they could find out the candidates real responces it could influence their feelings. People want to know the truth and this is how. Its important to know who you are voting for before you vote for them. We can no longer just take people's words for it when it comes to something as important as the election. These people run our lives, and we can't allow them to be in office if we can't trust them. I find it highly unlikly any politiician will have the ability to pass a polygraph, and think it is more reliable than Dr. Richardson says. Perhaps they will give nothing 100% conclusive, but it is better proof than that persons word as it measure the word. ANy anti-lie methos, from sodium pentathol to polygraphs, should be explored now that they exist, and Moment of Truth would just be a way to make the results of those methods public.