Leave it to that bastion of good taste, Fox, to bring us the show that will make a lie detector a star.  According to the ABA Journal, which closely monitors all Fox programming, the new show will be called “Nothing but the Truth” with contestants hooked up to polygraphs to see if they can beat the system by lying on increasingly difficult personal questions.

While I am not clear on what is meant by increasingly difficult personal questions (like, do you know your middle name?  What size belt do you wear? Have you ever had bovine sex?) that the contestants don’t know the answers, I gather that this will be show designed to ask embarrassing questions to see if they can get truthful answers.  And the poly proves it!

Is this a problem?  Absolutely, according to Bluhn Blog.  There’s the fear of the American Polygraph Association that this show will reinforce the stereotype that lie detectors are pseudoscience (or voodoo, as I prefer).  Then there’s the polar extreme fear, that poly’s are infallible, since the show doesn’t work unless the lie detector is beyond challenge.  Any way you look at it, this show has the potential of influencing the public’s perception of polygraphs one way or the other, but certainly not educating anyone on its potential for abuse in inducing false confessions. 

Personally, I see no more harm in this show than in letting thousands (hundreds?) of potential members of jury pools watch Star Jones discuss the law.  This world is replete with thoughtless, vapid and simplistic discussion of complex and important issues, mostly for the purpose of personal entertainment and amusement.  So now we can add polygraphs to the mix. 

Maybe one day they will have a game show where they will pick members of the public and let them decide whether another human being should live or die.  Hey, we already have that.  It’s called a jury trial.