The truth is out now: We're a pack of liars

By Hugh Wilson
THE GUARDIAN , LONDON
Saturday, May 01, 2004,Page 9

The recently published Lies and The Lying Liars Who Tell Them is an attack on right-wing propagandists in the US, but the title could just as easily apply to... well, the rest of us.

Human beings are not born liars, but the moment we can form complete sentences we begin lying to protect the feelings of others, to avoid punishment and confrontation, and most frequently because lying confers advantages the truth wouldn't get a sniff at.

Lying gets results.

"Lying has evolved for the same reasons as any other ability," says Richard Wiseman, a psychologist at the University of Hertfordshire. "It gives us a competitive edge, providing we get away with it."

Which might explain why evidence suggests we are lying more, on a regular basis.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/edit/archives/2004/05/01/2003138763

Way off mark Wilson. Who's doing most of the lying? Repukelicans and American Media Shadow Government. Get your facts straight.

i've seen similar studies years ago, and they were likely being done years before. humans lie for a lot of reasons. most of them, however, don't get thousands of people killed.

a very young, increasingly verbal child catches on to the idea of self and non-omniscient others. If the "others" were not in the room when you did something, like touching a forbidden object, then they wouldn't know that you touched the forbidden object.

The fact that a marker for a 3 or a 4 year old's intellectual development has become a lifestyle or career path or policy option says more about adults than about preschoolers.