Commentary on "Looking for the Lie"

"Looking for the Lie", an article published in the weekly New York Times Magazine, explores the social and political ramifications of contemporary research in the neuroscience of lying, and tries to motivate debate in the public sphere.

Robin Marantz Henig, the author, is writing for the readers of the New York Times(I know the NYT and the NYT magazine are not the same, but I'm assuming that there will be significant overlap in readership.), a newspaper with a reputation for quality reporting. The typical Times reader is an educated professional and an active citizen. They have an interest in the major trends and implications of: science, the arts, politics, and world affairs.

Henig starts the article by describing how academic research and the government has found the traditional human screeners and polygraphs unreliable for detecting lies, and because of the post-9/11 security concerns, the government is pushing for development of a machine that can efficiently separate the liars from the truth tellers. After this brief introduction, she states her premise that the machines or techniques developed need to be reliable and are appropriately restricted to prevent abuse and the destruction of individual freedoms.

Henig's article directly addresses the current debate over the methods of national security. She expresses concern over the government's course of action to try and find a “blunt instrument, a way to pick out black and white from among the duplicitous grays”(p. 46), and tries to convince her readers that oversight is now necessary. She notes that several products have been rushed to market already without independent testing, and compares these machines to the controversial use of the polygraph. She also raises the specter of Orwellian monitoring by the government and hints at the implications of being able to detect a person's intentions before they actually act. However, she leaves it to the reader to realize that without the concept of free will, the foundation upon which the Constitution rests, the supposition that all humans are free, rational actors, collapses. These ideas tap into the current fear that changes made in the name of national security will erode the fundamental rights and freedoms of US citizens, turning America into a nightmarish police state. She highlights the importance of this junction by quoting a scientist who compares the government's push for a more effective lie detector to the Manhattan Project in terms of both morality and world changing consequences. This parallel brings the reminder that things done for national security don't always make us safer.

Henig also directly addresses another debate, the value of lying. Citing both scientific research and common situations, she demonstrates why enforced total honesty would be bad for society. The research of Bella DePaulo, a psychologist who studied lying in social interactions, indicates that lying is a daily occurrence and that a significant portion is what DePaulo terms “kindhearted” lies. Henig also discusses the Machiavellian Intelligence Hypothesis, the idea that intelligence arose from social manipulation, and relates it to what researcher Paul Ekman told her about good liars. She also talks about hypothetical situations where lying helps maintain social stability. Lying is also good for personal stability, because “Without lies, there can be no such sanctuary, no interior life that is completely and inviolably ours.”(p. 54) This idea of lying being a beneficial force in society is surprising, because it contrary to the commonly voiced idea of lying being sinful and honesty being the best policy.

There is also an undertone of the conflict between man and machine, a fear that a machine would not be constrained by the morality or appreciate the nuances that another human being would pick up on. Or, perhaps more cynically, it is a fear that the liar would have no chance of fooling the machine. Early on, she introduces this conflict with the line, “Two strands of scientific work are currently involved in this effort: brain mapping, which uses the 21^st century's most sophisticated techniques for visualizing patterns of brain metabolism and electrical activity; and face reading, which uses tools that are positively prehistoric, the same two eyes used by our primate ancestors to spot a liar.”(p. 46) This little interplay is further highlighted by the quotes that she obtains from scientists working on both technologies. Ekman, a researcher who invented a classification system for face reading, says “'I don't use my ability to spot lies in my personal life,' . . . 'They[his family] haven't given me the right to call them on their lies.'”(p.54) Whereas the head of research at a DOD facility developing lie-detectors invokes the Werner von Braun defense. “'The operational use of what we develop is not something we think about,' . . . 'Our job is to develop the science. Once that science is developed, how it's used is up to other people.'”(p. 60) This conflict is most apparent when Ekman relates being told by a government official, “I can't support anything unless it ends in a machine doing it.”(p. 57) It is clear from the article that Henig prefers Ekman to any of the machines for lie detection, and tries to engender similar preferences from the reader. Though, she seems to miss the irony in taking this position. We have to trust Ekman not to abuse his position.