Lying

Lying isn't all black and white. There are grey areas. for example, what's a white lie? a lie told to save someone else's feelings. But that could lead to other lies and this could get quite tangled.

There are other forms of lies told too. How about the sort of lie that you tell to protect someone, for example someone lying to the nazis in order to protect a Jewish family.

But what harm can lies do, whether the lie was with good or bad intentions?
The person being deceived, if they find out, tends to feel manipulated and their self esteem may go down as they see their ability to see truth as not very good. Also, it may cause them to have trust issues in the future.
Even if the person does not find out, it can still cause problems. For instance, they may make a decision they might not have made if they hadn't been lied to - they lose some control over their future. See http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/lying/lying_1.shtml for more information.

If the world lost the ability to deceive and conceal - as in the film, The Invention of Lying - it would be a very different place. We would be very upfront and frank people, and although we might be able to refrain from mentioning something if not directly asked (loophole!), we could not necessarily conceal embarrassing or unsavoury things about ourselves that we do not want people to know.

When it comes to gender differences, i think that most women tend to be better at lying, and utilize lying in a more moral way - for example to save someone's feelings, and a study from 2008 showed that men are more likely to lie for their own (i.e.) monetary gain. (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V84-4P37JC2-M&_user=1644469&_coverDate=04%2F30%2F2008&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1322523548&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000054077&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=1644469&md5=171959543a9641912dcd9bbab5845bcd)

To conclude, I believe that lying is an integral part of human nature, and it can be a very dangerous weapon, so it needs to be used carefully and with careful thought.