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Ten Strangely Cruel Science Experiments
aalobode writes "The Times of London has a current story based on the review of a book by Alex Boase, Elephants on Acid and Other Bizarre Experiments. There they list the top science experiments — including the one from which the book gets its name — that were conducted by otherwise sane humans who tragically or otherwise ignored the effect of their research on the subjects themselves. Nowadays, most institutions have a review board for research on human subjects which would flag most proposals that could lead to harm for the subjects, but not so in the past. 'Another 1960s experiment, in which ten soldiers on a training flight were told by the pilot that the aircraft was disabled, and about to ditch in the ocean. They were then required to fill in insurance forms before the crash -- ostensibly so the Army was not financially liable for any deaths or injuries. They were actually unwitting participants in an experiment: the plane was not crippled at all. It revealed that fear of imminent death indeed causes soldiers to make more mistakes than usual when filling in forms.'"
http://weblogs.marylandweather.com/2007/11/first_earthling_in_space_died.html
RIP Laika
It could be worse, it could be Monday.
I think conducting a study lacking informed consent where they denied syphilis treatment to over 300 people tops those in the list. And this went on until 1972. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_Study_of_Untreated_Syphilis_in_the_Negro_Male
When I read that they administered 3000 times the amount of a human dose to an elephant, it got me curious. http://www.sandiegozoo.org/animalbytes/t-elephant.html It says males can reach up to 15000 lbs, and females 8000 lbs. I assumed that the average male is 180 lbs and the average female is 130 lbs (I know I'm not really being accurate, but I just wanted ball park figures). That means that the average male elephant is about 83.33 times the weight of a human male, and the average female elephant is about 61.54 times the size of a human female. So the administered about thirty-six times what they needed for a relative average male elephant dose. YIKES! Let me know if my math or assumptions were silly, and correct them if you can. I think it's no surprise that the elephant died with that much of an overdose.
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/Top/experiments/P0 This site details some more crazy experiments culled from the same book.
Thomas edison and the war of the currents. Edison did some very cruel experiments on animals to show that AC was more dangerous than DC. He electrocuted dogs, elephants and even advocated for the use of the electric chair powered specifically by AC current.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_currents
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
To Croatian army, it does matter.
We nearsighted ones are considered incapable of serving in the military, which is just as well as far as I'm concerned.
Though from 2008 on, the army is going pro anyway, so I no longer care at all.
Anyway, I agree with you as far as marksmanship goes; I wasn't too bad myself when I tried.
Oh, forgot one more thing: my friend was assigned to sharpshooters because of his psych profile: he's just psychotic enough to be able to kill someone from far away and not care, which is apparently how our sharpshooters are selected.
Ignore this signature. By order.
I had a set of books once illustrating the range of the crimes perpetrated by the government of nazi Germany. One volume was purely of experiments documented by German scientists with (mostly) Jewish test subjects. Not volunteers apparently. I won't even list any of the horror show from that book, but it's as if some comic-book editor was inventing mad-scientist crime. As near as I could tell, the ONLY useful knowledge gained was when they timed how long a human could remain viable in freezing water. As in a pilot ditching in the North sea or a sailor overboard. Ghastly.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
That's funny if true, because in German, the word "böse" (also spelled "boese" when umlauts are not available) means "evil".
If it's so secret, then how come I've never heard of it?
Some smart French guy said "The downfall of every government begins when its citizens find out they can vote themselves money from the common fund"
As for socialized medicine, When a Canadian finds out they have something serious they come to the USA to get it fixed. If they stay in Canada and wait for the socialized medicine there, they die of their ailment before their turn comes up.
I think someone needs to correct the units in the Wiki article. Is Wikipedia at fault, or is Slashdot at fault? Specifically, "1,200 g (1.2 mg)" suggests that Slashdot is deleting characters outside of ASCII, such as the micro sign.
Cutting off the entire cock reduces the chances of transmitting HIV by almost 100%. Clearly chopping off everyones penis at birth is the only ETHICAL thing to do.
As you can clearly see, the counseling, testing, and even treatment available to the study members was superior to the generally available treatment at the time.
Please do everyone a favor and save such clearly incitatory comments for the experimentations on subjects which are actually conducted in an unethical fashion, instead of merely those whose study population fits in with your preconceived notions of racism.
http://www.donarmstrong.com
Anyone can see HIV/Intactness link is unproven
Wow, your comment had me convinced until I read the link provided by an AC:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/5/1/125028/8808
Very good argument that it was poorly done science in search of a pre-ordained conclusion by an interested party. I read through all the opposing comments as well, and they certainly don't seem satisfactory and are mainly just the Courtier's Reply. To be more explicit, The author of the article points out several ways in which the experiment did not have a sufficient control group and the counter-argument was that some of these are accounted for statistically. However it seems that list of things accounted for doesn't include all of the problems, and the counter-arguer just repeats himself more vehemently and seems to have absolute faith that sufficient rigor was taken despite lack of support from the research paper and multiple instances of other scientists and groups of scientists pointint out the exact same problems brought up in the article. Given the available options, we should in fact not trust the one scientist who has probable cause to fake the results and as the article points out, has already been suspiciously injudicious in his methodology. That's not just an ad hominem attack, the study itself has been attacked successfully, with a large variance on trustworthiness, and the circumstantial evidence only serves to point out that prudence urges caution in accepting the results. That some scientists agree with the research paper is not good support, as people (even scientists) who don't know tend to go with whoever's loudest, which creates false consensus.
(BTW, joe, this long reply is just to summarize the linked article and address possible concerns, not because of anything you said. I'm certainly interested in hearing any rebuttal if anyone has one)
Ah yes; hello Godwin. Were that a civilized discussion were still possible.
First off, it's not exactly difficult to demonstrate the proper use of a condom in 15 to 20 minutes and explain that failure to wear one during intercourse will result in a higher likelyhood of contracting an STD and dying. Furthermore, that was the individualized, mandatory counseling session; participants were recommended to attend other sessions as well. Secondly, these individuals were not "dragged" off the street; they had to volunteer for the study, give informed consent, and were renumerated for their participation.
So you think that instead of attempting to find methods which may decrease the risk of STD transmission, scientists should do nothing?
Since there seems to be some confusion here, I don't particularly have a strong opinion on the actual treatment methodology used in this study or actually agree that the results are likely to be replicable. Those are valid things to attack this study for. What I completely disagree with is the characterization of this study as unethical on the grounds that it some how incited individuals in the control group to have unprotected sex (or failed to provide opportunities for the control group to minimize their risk of contracting HIV) without evidence indicating that that is the case. Is it bad science? Probably. Is the study design inherently unethical? Assuming informed consent was obtained before the treatment modality, not in my opinion.
http://www.donarmstrong.com