"The only hope for peace is to teach people who are full of pep and unbound force to enjoy being bound... Only when the control of self by others is more pleasant than the unbound assertion of self in human relationships can we hope for stable, peaceful human society." William Moulton Marston, the quirky psychologist who created Wonder Woman, had a bondage thing. He also had a PhD from Harvard, lived in an openly polyamorous relationship -- with one wife, one mistress, and four kids -- and invented the precursor to the lie detector (more at /. and of course, youtube).
posted by jessamyn on Jan 3, 2007 - 13 comments

Don't Even Think About Lying fMRI is poised to transform the security industry, the judicial system, and our fundamental notions of privacy. I'm in a lab at Columbia University, where scientists are using the technology to analyze the cognitive differences between truth and lies. By mapping the neural circuits behind deception, researchers are turning fMRI into a new kind of lie detector that's more probing and accurate than the polygraph, the standard lie-detection tool employed by law enforcement and intelligence agencies for nearly a century.
posted by robbyrobs on Jan 5, 2006 - 62 comments

Brain fingerprinting is about to take centre stage in a last-chance court appeal against a death-row conviction in the US." The technology was developed by Dr. Lawrence Farwell, one of Time Magazine's "100 Innovators who may be the Picassos or Einsteins of the 21st century." Is this a positive development for humankind (after all, it may clear innocent accused of their alleged crimes, or uncover dangerous terrorists), or is it yet another scary advancement in the government's encroachment on our privacy ? I personally think Philip K. Dick, author of "Minority Report" may have been more of a prophet than we ever knew. (See this link as well).
posted by F4B2 on Feb 18, 2004 - 10 comments

Fake lie-detector reveals women's sex lies - "Women are more likely than men to lie about their sex lives, reveals a new study ... Women who thought their responses might be read said they had had an average of 2.6 sexual partners, compared with 3.4 partners for those who thought their answers were anonymous. But those who thought they would be caught out by the polygraph reported an average of 4.4 partners." I'm guessing a similar study done on men would reveal that as the likelihood of getting caught in a lie increases, the number of partners claimed would decrease...
posted by RylandDotNet on Jul 14, 2003 - 25 comments