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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.
Vista as among the cruelest experiments wrought on unsuspecting test subjects?
Monstar L
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
That most of our scientific advances were made with experiments that would now be classified as cruel. Particularly psychological, Zimbardo et al, Harlowe et al etc etc. Not suggesting that these are morally fine, but we should be careful about criticizing experiments that have contributed to our understanding. On a different note however, the experiments mentioned don't seem to have contributed an awful lot :P
i know not what weapons the next world war will be fought with, but world war IV will be fought with sticks and stones.
fear of imminent death indeed causes soldiers to make more mistakes than usual
Yes, mistakenly shitting one's pants instead of standard-operating-procedure use of latrine.
Oh, yeah, it's not easy to pad these out to 120 characters.
1) I would assume I had already signed such a waiver when I first enlisted.
2) What was the Army going to do if they didn't? Suddenly save the plane to avoid any lawsuits?
they made this massive social experiemt about how a poor population, which has a 1000 year long history of ethnic conflict, reacts when you take over their country by military force.
Until today researchers have found no clear answer as to why the population neglects the truth, that it actually has been fried,äh freed.
High-school chemestry, on a geek-pr0n scale:
20,000 lbs of metallic Sodium being dropped in a lake.
Oh yeah baby, you roll those barrels in there!
Help save the critically endangered Blue Iguana
Sugar Experiments Of Mental Patients.
In 1947-1949 a group of mental patients in Sweden were used as subjects in a full-scale experiment designed to bring about tooth decay. They were fed copious amounts of candy, and many of them had their teeth completely ruined. But, scientifically speaking, the experiment was a huge success.
You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. -- Harlan Ellison
Report here. Select a random group of ignorant African men, circumcise some of them. Give them vague advice on safe sex, then tell them to go out and have sex. See how many of them come back with HIV.
It was concluded that you're about 50% more likely to catch HIV if you're uncircumcised. I'd say, especially in a society where circumcision is not standard (i.e. not Israel, USA, Philippines, etc.), if you've just had part of your cock lobbed off, you're very likely to change your sexual habits and people are less likely to have sex with you. If you're just given advice and then told to go away, you're more likely to carry on as usual.
Experimentation on the negro is not exactly new, of course.
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.
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.
What about the Milgram Experiment of 1961, in which nearly 2/3rds of subjects were prepared to administer a lethal electrical shock to a partner hidden in another room, just because the scientist conducting the experiment said it was necessary? While no one was actually being shocked, many of the participants who inflicted the fake shocks were emotionally distressed by the ordeal. Derren Brown repeated the experiment in 2006, and obtained essentially the same results. Youtube videos of this are available.
What about the risks taken by the patients and surgeons who pioneered open heart surgery? A great recount of those gruesome days is provided by the book "King of Hearts", which details the career of Dr. C. Walton Lillehei?
My favourite along these lines is Jack Barnes who discovered the extremely poisonous box Irukandji jellyfish (Carukia barnesi): "The jellyfish itself was identified in 1964 by Dr. Jack Barnes; in order to prove it was the cause of Irukandji syndrome, he captured the tiny jelly and stung himself and his son." from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carukia_barnesi They were both hospitalized, as was a life gaurd he also stung to make triply sure.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Perhaps more scientifically relevant than the rest, with better anesthesia, but freakish nonetheless:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdJGlYOL0r4
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_transplant
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/1263758.stm
http://www.freetimes.com/stories/14/46/whites-anatomy
In other news, Dr. White was my neurosurgeon once a long time ago. I suspect that's where my extra head came from, but you can never really know.
http://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
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.
I built a news site for software developers and other geeks, which every 12 seconds flashes a message saying "Blow-up dolls are fun!" The goal is to see if I can substantially increase the sales of blow-up dolls world wide through subliminal advertising.
So far it's been quite a success. The cruel part is that dependency on blow-up dolls seems to dramatically decrease the subject's aptitude when dealing with the (living) opposite sex, but hey, all science exacts a price.
Ignore that.
That works right up until you are diagnosed with a potentially expensive medical condition. Not when you have treatment for it mind you but when you are diagnosed. Try getting affordable private health insurance with rheumatoid arthritis. Or having ever had a bout with clinical depression. Or even something like severe excema. Your individual insurance premium for any of those conditions can run into multiple thousands a month, something you very likely won't be able to afford on 32K a year.
None of these are lifestyle diseases, there is nothing you can do to avoid them except be lucky. If you're unlucky, and don't have employeer provided health insurance, you're pretty much screwed.
Several of the womenfolk in my family worked as nurses to bring in a second salary. They gave up their positions in the health service after Mrs. Thatcher decided to partially privatize the health service (to create the "internal market").
One of the first things that she privatized was the ward cleaning services. In particular, Mrs. Thatcher was outraged that cleaners were using three different sets of disinfectants as well as spending what seemed to be half their time cleaning door handles. But there were sound scientific reasons for doing all of this. NHS scientists had determined that three levels of disinfectant were required. A high concentration disinfectant was used for cleaning floors where bandages, blood and outdoor shoes would bring in contamination. A middle concentration disinfectant for cleaning frequently contacted surface (door handles, panels etc.. ) and a low concentration disinfectant for clean walls and ceilings. As cleaners were part of the ward team, they got to know which areas needed the most attention
To stop this "waste", the government decided to privatize the cleaning services so that they would be specified only by a contract and not through team-work. Consequently we have all the problems we have now with infection.
For this reaon alone, many experienced nurses who have retired will not consider going back into the profession.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
Oddly enough this is starting to happen elsewhere in Europe. Not because nobody learned from that fiasco. Rather because they learned that there was lots of money to be made.
Which is why on some continental southern neighbours of the UK people are rather attached to the concept of public service because for all of its deficiencies there are a number of areas where it works much better than the private sector.
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
Actually, that's exactly what The U.S. Constitution (or any, for that matter)is for--for specifically outlining what the job of of the government is. Federal constitutions describe federal governments; state constitutions define state governments--and so on. The last thing that the government should be doing is everything the people tell it to do. People can, do, and will give away their own freedoms for what, in the end, amounts to nothing. That nothing takes many forms, usually safety from terrorists, and, as in this case, safety from (death by) illness. Worse yet, people can, do, and will give away other people's freedoms for the same reasons! Don't believe me? Remember the Japanese internments of the 1940s, or Nazi Germany, or sex-offender laws that ruin people's lives for the stupid, mostly harmless things that they did when they were fifteen.
And when the money is created from thin air, because of rampant inflation, or demanded from the citizens at an ever-increasing rate, again due to inflation, to pay for it all, how is this any different than not providing those services? Instead of some people having quality health care while others don't, no one will have it. Will you be happy to pay so much in taxes that someone else, who may not have your work ethic, freeloads off the government while your quality of life takes a swim in the crapper? Let's see what you say when that possibility comes up, as it most certainly will if this country (the United States) continues its current course.
No, it's not okay for people to be forced to live on the streets, starving to death, being treated as criminals for daring to be alive. Yes, it is the human thing to do to help those in need, for the strong to assist the weak. Should it be forced by law? No. Freedom does include the right to be an ass to the rest of society, so long as you don't actively seek to destroy it. Just as is the rule with free speech, only permitting "popular" freedoms does not count as preserving freedom at all.
You say it is cruel to ignore those who have lesser means to get by, to throw them under the bus for your own gain. That is true. Do realize, though, that it is just as cruel to force someone to take care of another person without an implied or explicit agreement to do so (such as would be made in the case of parenthood). Legally, I have no responsibility for anyone other than myself, any children I help create, or anyone for whom I take legal guardianship of. Morally, I should help those in need, but the government has no place legislating based on all but the most basic moralities (such as the prohibition of murder). And yes, it is as morally wrong to force someone to degrade his own life to support the life of someone else, agreed-to commitments aside, as it is to leave a homeless man to die.
"osake no hou ga, biiru yori ii" to omotteiru.
Good thing something like this could never happen in the US, say in Tuskegee.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck