Of course, since most people use the two terms interchangably, it’s easy to see where the “he invented the polygraph” crowd gets confused. Heck, I didn’t even know the modern lie detector was a combination of four tests (though, really, the “poly” should have given that away).

However, semantics come in not in the facts of the case, but the way you choose to phrase the legend in question. You chose “polygraph test” over “lie detector,” so it’s false. Or at least three-fourths false, which constitutes a majority. Doing this Snopes-style, the legend would have a yellow circle next to it, splitting the difference. Have you got a header for “False-ish?”

Just as Marston did not invent the polygraph test.

Giving credit to Marston for the polygraph would be akin to crediting the invention of the car to the fellow who invented the wheel.

It’s merely one aspect of the polygraph test, and yet, do a simple google search on Marston and the polygraph test, and you will find dozens of citations of Marston as “inventor of the polygraph test,” which is just as incorrect as denying Otto Binder the creation of Supergirl, because the idea “came from Superman.”

It’s no more semantics as calling anyone the inventor of anything.

This, like the Black Canary/Longbow Hunters legend, is more a matter of semantics leading to true or false. The usual legend is that WMM invented the lie detector, which he did. That detector is now used as part of a larger test, which he did not invent…

Martin Cooper invented the cellular telephone.

Two different things.

Just like the polygraph test and Marston’s lie detector.

Still, one out of four is very impressive!”

Seems really, VERY clear to me. A polygraph test HAS to test for all four changes in biological feedback in order to be a polygraph test.

Marston invented a lie detector. That lie detector was not a polygraph test.

Apparently, you read nothing of my first posting–which makes the point irrefutably clear, IMHO–but the bottom line. If you did read more, explain what there is about it that you feel doesn’t work or that you didn’t follow, but don’t just ignore it.

Wonder Woman creator William Moulton Marston invented the polygraph test!

NOT a false statement?

I had the following placed on the old site’s message board for this Urban Legends edition, and have finally decided to repost it here (greatly revised to amplify and clarify the point), though I have no idea if anybody, other than Brian, checks in on these old ones (*I* haven’t been here since well before the move). I feel that this idea just needs to be covered.

There is only one difference between saying that Marston did not (co–)invent (he had a partner) the polygraph and Alexander Graham Bell did not invent the telephone, and that is the fact that the current technical name for the lie detector comes from developments/improvements made subsequently by other people while the other is still called the same thing. Today’s telephones actually bear less of a resemblance to Bell’s invention than today’s polygraphs do to Marston’s. If cell phones eventually become the only kind of telephone in existence, the situation would be completely analogous. Just as Bell invented the telephone but not the cell phone, Marston did (co–)invent the lie detector but not the polygraph. Therefore, this is NOT a false urban legend.