The Ledger
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Economist Peter Leeson Calls Polygraph Tests Scientifically Invalid Horseshit Like Astrology
“Totally horseshit. Like astrology, there are people who believe that polygraph tests are actually capable of physiologically measuring whether or not someone is lying or telling the truth, but the scientific community overwhelmingly and correctly rejects them.”
Polygraphs Work by Manipulating Incentives Through Shared Belief, Not Biological Measurement
“You can't physiologically measure whether or not someone is lying or telling the truth. But the thing is, as long as people believe that they're real, then just like ordeals, they have the power to affect our incentives.”
Seemingly Irrational Historical Rituals Are Actually Rational Economic Behaviors
“People engage in all kinds of stuff that seems batshit crazy, but if you examine it through the lens of economics, if you just think about it in terms of basic constraints, you know, the limitations that people confront given their environments and the incenti…”
Most Defendants in Medieval Boiling Water Trials Were Actually Exonerated
“If you look at the historical evidence, it turns out the overwhelming majority of people who supposedly plunged their arms into boiling water were in fact exonerated.”
Medieval Priest Manuals Instructed Clergy to Secretly Manipulate Ordeal Water Temperatures
“Instruction manuals that priests of this era had for conducting ordeals, what you'll find is a whole bunch of fishy business where they essentially tell you to do things like, you know, you'll boil the water in private so that nobody can see, which means you m…”
18th-Century Pirate Constitutions Included Workman's Compensation for Limbs Lost in Battle
“Another key thing was piratical social insurance, a kind of workman's comp system. You know, if you lost your left arm in battle with a potential prize, you would receive out of the crew's common booty that he'd seized, compensation of a certain number of piec…”
Historical Superstitious Beliefs Functioned as Substitute Technologies for Social Governance
“You can kind of think about, in part, beliefs as a substitute technology for the sort of physical technologies that we take for granted in the modern world, many of which, as you point out, historically didn't exist. So naturally, they relied more on beliefs a…”
Medieval Ordeals Sought Facts While Witch Trials Extorted Forced Confessions
“Ordeals are about finding fact when you don't know. They're about doing the same thing that contemporary legal systems do. But witch trials were about basically extorting confessions from people that you wanted to hear.”
Early Caribbean Pirates Governed Their Ships Using Constitutional Democracy
“Pirates used a form of early constitutional democracy in order to govern their ships.”