Sample Argument and Refutation



Sample Argument and Refutation

(Adapted from Verderber[1] 307-310)

RESOLVED:

That the Use of Lie Detector Tests Shall Be Prohibited for Employment Purposes

Aff. Speech in Favor of Prohibiting the Use of Lie Detector Tests

Lie detector or polygraph tests used either to screen job applicants or to uncover thefts by employees have become a big business. Hundreds of thousands are given each year, and the number is steadily rising. What I propose to you today is that employers should be prohibited from administering lie detector tests to their employees either as a condition of employment or as a condition of maintaining their job. I support this proposition for two reasons. First, despite technological improvement in equipment, the accuracy of results is open to question; and second, even if the tests are accurate, use of lie detector tests is an invasion of privacy.

First, let’s consider their accuracy. Lie detector tests just have not proved to be very accurate. According to Senator Birch Bayh, tests are only 70 percent accurate. And equally important, even the results of this 70 percent can be misleading. Let’s look at two examples of the kinds of harm that come from these misleading results.

One case involves a young girl named Linda Boycose. She was at the time of the incident a bookkeeper for Kresge’s. One day she reported $1.50 missing from the previous day’s receipts. A few weeks later, the store’s security man gave her a lie detector test. He first used the equipment with all its intimidating wiring, and then the used persuasion to get information. He accused her of deceiving him and actually stealing the money. After this test, Boycose was so upset she quit her job—she then spent the next two years indulging in Valium at an almost suicidal level. A Detroit jury found Boycose’s story so convincing that it ordered the department store chain to award her $100,000. Now, almost six years later, she is still afraid to handle the bookkeeping at the doctor’s office she manages.

The next example is of a supermarket clerk in Los Angeles. She was fired after an emotional response to the question “Have you ever given discount groceries to your mother?” It was later discovered that her mother had been dead for five years, thus showing that her response was clearly an emotional one.

Much of the inaccuracy of the tests has to do with the examiner’s competence. Jerry Wall, a Los Angeles tester, said that out of an estimated 3,000 U. S. examiners, only 50 are competent. Some polygraph operators tell an interviewee that he or she has lied at one point even if the person has not, just to see how the person will handle the stress. This strategy can destroy a person’s poise, leading to inaccuracies. With these examples of stress situations and inefficient examiners, the facts point to the inaccuracy of polygraph test results.

My second reason for abolishing the use of these tests is that they are an invasion of privacy. Examiners can and do ask job applicants about such things as sexual habits and how often they change their underwear. The supposed purpose of lie detector tests is to determine whether an employee is stealing. These irrelevant questions are an invasion of privacy, and not a way to indicate whether someone is breaking the law.

Excesses are such that the federal government has been conducting hearings on misuse. Congress is considering ways to curtail their use.

That they are an invasion of privacy seems to be admitted by the companies that use them. Employers are afraid to reveal too much information from tests because they have a fear of being sued. Because of an examiner’s prying questions on an employee’s background, and because government has shown such concern about the continued use of polygraphs, we can conclude that they are an invasion of privacy.

In conclusion, let me ask you how, as an employee, you would feel taking such a test. You’d probably feel nervous and reluctant to take the test. Couldn’t you see yourself standing something that would be misconstrued, not because of the truth but because of your nervousness? Also, how would you feel about having to answer very personal and intimate questions about yourself in order to get a job?

Because lie detector tests are inaccurate and an invasion of privacy, I believe their use should be prohibited.

Refutation

“Speech of Refutation: Using Lie Detector Tests” (Verderber 309-310)

My opponent has stated that the use of lie detector tests by employers should be abolished. I strongly disagree; I believe employers have to use these tests.

Before examining the two reasons she presented, I’d like to take a look at why more than 20 percent of the nation’s largest businesses feel a need to use these tests to help curb employee theft. According to the National Retail Merchants Association, employees steal as much as $40 billion of goods each year. Moreover, the figure increases markedly each year. The average merchant doesn’t recognize that he loses more to employees than to outsiders—50 to 70 percent of theft losses go to employees, not to shoplifters. This use of lie detector tests is a necessity to curb this internal theft.

Now, I do not believe that my opponent ever tried to show that there is not a problem that lie detector testing solves; nor did she try to show that lie detector testing doesn’t help to deter internal theft. Notice that the two reasons she presented are both about abuses. Let’s take a closer look at those two reasons.

First, my opponent said that the accuracy of results is open to question; in contrast, I would argue that these tests are remarkably accurate. She mentioned that Senator Bayh reported a 70-percent level of accuracy. Yet the literature on these tests as reported by Ty Kelley, vice president of government affairs of the National Association of Chain Drug Stores, argues that the level is around 90 percent, not 70 percent.

She went on to give two examples of people who were intimidated and/or became emotional and upset when subjected to the test. And on this basis she calls for them to be abolished. I would agree that some people do become emotional, but this is hardly reason for stopping their use. Unless she can show a real problem among many people taking the test, I think we’ll have to go along with the need for the tests.

If these tests are so inaccurate, why are one-fifth of the nation’s largest companies using them? According to an article in Business Week, “Business Buys the Lie Detector,” more and more businesses each year see a necessity for using the tests because they deter crime. These tests are now being used by nearly every type of company—banks, businesses, drug stores, as well as retail department stores.

Her second reason for why the tests should be abolished is that they are an invasion of privacy. I believe, with Mr. Kelley, whom I quoted earlier, that there must be some sort of balance maintained between an individual’s right to privacy and an employer’s right to protect his property. In Illinois, for instance, a state judge ruled that examiners could ask prying questions—there has yet to be any official ruling that the use is “an invasion of privacy.”

My opponent used the example of asking questions about sexual habits and change of underwear. In that regard, I agree with her, I think that a person is probably very sick who is asking these kinds of questions—and I think these abuses should be checked. But asking questions to screen out thieves, junkies, liars, alcoholics, and psychotics is necessary. For instance, an Atlanta nursing home uses polygraph tests to screen out potentially sadistic and disturbed nurses and orderlies. Is this an invasion of privacy? I don’t think so.

It is obvious to me that some type of lie detector test is needed. Too much theft has gone on, and something must be done to curtail this. I say that lie detector tests are the answers. First, they are accurate. Companies have been using them for a long time, and more and more companies are starting to use them. And second, it is only an invasion of privacy when the wrong types of questions are asked. I agree that these abuses should be curbed, but not by doing away with the tests. Employers cannot do away with these tests and control theft; the benefits outweigh the risks.

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[1] The two sample speeches are quoted in Chapter Fourteen of Verderber’s The Challenge of Effective Speaking. According to the chapter notes, these two speeches are based on a debate between Sheila Kohler and Martha Feinberg, which was presented at the University of Cincinnati. Permission needs to be granted by the author and speakers.

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