James Ball

Will there ever be a reliable lie detector?

The polygram’s failures in the 1920s had drastic results. But there’s no guarantee ‘brain fingerprinting’ will prove any more dependable

Henry Wilkens, strongly suspected of organising his wife’s murder, takes the polygraph test in San Francisco in 1922 and passes. It would prove to be the machine’s first public failure. [Getty Images] 
issue 16 April 2022

  • Tremors in the Blood: Murder, Obsession andthe Birth of the Lie Detector

    Amit Katwala

    Mudlark, pp. 352, £25

For as long as we have been human we have looked for some way of telling when we are being told the truth. We tried dunking witches, only to find that buoyancy is not connected to the supernatural. We tried torture, but discovered that people will eventually say just about anything to make it stop.

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