This whole lie-detector situation is simultaneously almost comically preposterous and worryingly disquieting. The Israeli equipment manufacturer is clearly angling to muzzle free and open scientific inquiry that would diminish its claims about its products, apparently with some success. It is surprising that the journal has bowed to such heavy-handed tactics so there may be more to this story than is being reported – perhaps some looming methodological question marks. Still, one must ask how a scientific experiment or series thereof, if properly conducted, can possibly be libellous or defamatory. The peer review process will surely show up a poor study in due course.
The situation seems akin to a group of homoeopaths threatening to sue, say,
The Lancet or
New England Journal of Medicine for intending to publish yet another properly designed and executed study that shows homoeopathy to be bogus.
In any case, the onus of proof rests on the claimant who makes a positive claim. In this instance, the equipment manufacturer is making the positive claim that its equipment can distinguish with some minimum level of success between a person’s honest and dishonest statements. If they have evidence for this claim, they should present it in the same forum that the contentious article was supposed to be published in so that it is also open to scrutiny by other interested parties. In other words, the effectiveness or otherwise of their lie-detection device(s) is clearly a scientific question that should be settled scientifically. Such suppression as the manufacturer has chosen to adopt is thoroughly anti-scientific because, as said, it overtly and actively seeks to stifle free inquiry.
It is indeed true that most countries require the plaintiff in
a defamation suit (libel or slander) to prove damaging statements false, while the best defence is usually to show the statements true. Thus, if the equipment manufacturer can prove that their gear works as claimed, they would win the case, whereas they’d lose by default if they couldn’t or the scientists put forward their study and the court found it compelling.
Perhaps the answer would be to subject the equipment manufacturer’s senior staff to double blind testing with a variety of such devices, including some of their own. The deciding question would be, “You are currently connected to a lie detector that neither of us can see. Assuming that it is one made by your company, does it work at least as well as any other manufacturer’s?” It’ll be revealing to see at what rates different devices identify those “Yes!” answers as lies…
'Luthon64
