Looking for the Lie

A typical reader of the New York Times Magazine, especially one that is reading a scientific article like this one, is going to be expecting information on multiple examples (potentially of different viewpoints) including what experiments were done, what the results were, and what the results mean in the bigger picture, bonus points if the bigger picture affects their daily lives. There are two major parts of this article: the different types of methods for detecting lies, and the morality aspect of creating such tests.

Some of the experiments do not have much real world applications. People had to be strapped down and rendered motionless inside huge expensive machines in order to determine brain activity. Another experiment hooked people up to a helmet with 120+ sensors that had to be kept moist at all times. Some experiments were more realistic such as noticing people’s facial features to detect involuntary movements. In a twist of irony though, it was stated that this more realistic version could not be officially used unless some kind of efficient machine was used. This article does a very nice job explaining the contrast of experiment techniques and the different types of brain activities measured as well as the types of 100% flawless results that the government is looking for to the audience of this article and thus is able to keep our interest.

The other key point to this article is the implications and ramifications that can occur if a fool proof and easily applicable method of finding out lies is ever found. The article explains that different kinds of lies such as omission and half-truths are very common among human speech in order to keep some things private and avoid hurting other people’s feelings. It reminded me of an episode of the show “Kino’s Journey” in which the townspeople gained the ability to read each others’ thoughts but became so afraid of each other that as a result families and marriages split, babies stopped being born, and people lived by themselves in houses separated out of the range of each others’ powers. The same arguments were made in this article in that if people knew when others were speaking half-truths and withholding information that people would either become hurt or become unable to trust each other. This is a very powerful scenario to a reader of this article as the reader’s own life could become very impacted if the experiments in this article were to succeed. The author has done a great job in explaining why the science of the article could affect the reader, and thus the article has a greater chance of remaining with the reader long after it has been read.