

Unethical human experimentation in the United States - MrBra
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_experimentation_in_the_United_States

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lutusp
1\. Please do not write your own headlines!

Your title: "Human experimentation in the United States"

The article title: "Unethical human experimentation in the United States"

Notice the crucial missing word?

2\. The article unfortunately left out pre-frontal lobotomy, a disastrous
procedure that was almost always administered without informed consent.

~~~
MrBra
You are right but I did not do that on the purpose of alterning the original
meaning, I just copied it straight off the link url which is:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_experimentation_in_the_Un...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_experimentation_in_the_United_States)
Then when I noticed it, I thought that even in this form it evocates an
unpleasant feeling...

~~~
dalke
You'll see that it says "redirected from ...". If Wikipedia redirects you from
X to Y it will still use the URL for X. To get the canonical name for the
page, I click on "Talk" and then back to "Article."

Human experimentation is extremely common. Why does it give you an unpleasant
feeling? I volunteer for a couple experiments while in psychology class in
college. I've done human factors studies on people. Both of these are human
experiments. In both, the experiments follow ethical practices, like informing
the subject that they can quit at any time.

When the city tests out different traffic light patterns, perhaps to improve
traffic flow, it's also doing experiments on humans. A/B testing of a web site
is yet another common form of human testing.

These are all acceptable and ethical examples of human experimentation. That's
why you need to include "unethical" in your statement.

~~~
MrBra
My answer is.. implicitness through common sense.

"Human Experimentation" commonly evocate something wrong, and guess why?

That's exactly because of what you can read in that article..

Or more generally because of the kind of world we live in, which, I am sad to
remind you, it's not perfect.

So I guess there is nothing wrong in titling something for what's commonly
expected to refer to.

Nonetheless I've edited the title :)

~~~
dalke
We need ways to do human experimentation. Without it, medical research would
be dead, as would many other fields. For that matter, a chef wouldn't even be
able to get others to do a taste test.

That's why we've thought long and hard about the ethics of the topic. There
are supposed to be policies in place, like an institutional review board, with
the goal of protecting human subjects from physical or psychological harm,
ensuring privacy, and making sure that the human subjects can make an informed
consent.

That's not saying the system is perfect. There's the worry that "many for-
profit IRB's routinely approve the design and conduct of clinical trials for
clients without adequately monitoring the safety of patients", like Coast IRB.

Academic researchers working on humans and animals must go through the IRB
process. This does help instill a strong sense of caution whenever humans
subjects are involved. Here's a recent posting to show how strong that sense
might be:

[http://boundarylayerphysiology.com/2013/02/17/why-im-
worried...](http://boundarylayerphysiology.com/2013/02/17/why-im-worried-
about-ethical-shenanigans-in-the-citizen-science-movement/)

~~~
MrBra
This is how things should be... But the whole point in posting a link to that
wikipedia page is not condemning ethical and risk free human experimentation
but the following: are sure that in this exact moment the american government
isn't carrying on any other crazy human experimentation? I would spend a
minute thinkin about that, instead of playing with words... (not trying to be
offensive, but the topic is of such importance that this whole argumentation
just feels redundant...) Again, think about what the goverment (togheter with
private entities) could be doing RIGHT NOW.

~~~
dalke
By not including the important word - Unethical - in the original title you
weaken that argument, because you commingle ethical and unethical
experimentation. Most human experimentation is done under rules to help keep
them ethical.

By focusing only on the "human experimentation" part, it is you playing with
words.

I gave a link to an example of how a private company RIGHT NOW might be doing
things which are not ethical, under the rules for academic and pharmaceutical
research.

~~~
MrBra
Quoting myself (you seem to have missed a part of what I said):

Implicitness through common sense. "Human Experimentation" commonly evokes
something wrong, and guess why? That's exactly because of what you can read in
the article I linked. __So I guess there is nothing wrong in titling something
for what's commonly expected to refer to.__

\---

I am not weakening it, because the expression "human experimentation" is
commonly already firing an alarm-bell given what happened and the resonance
it's getting.

So I'm sorry but get your mind over it.. while your terminology is, in its
whole, perfectly appropriate to describe the subject we are discussing, times
have changed in a way that simply dropping off word from it doesn't weaken the
message it's sending, at least to a generic audience, which also makes up for
a context (HN not being a niche-academic-medical-research website). So given
humans interpret things based on context, I'd guess that the majority of HN
readers would get along with that title, again given the moment in time we are
living.

But there is much more... and I thank you for letting me think about it:

I came to the conclusion that the most big and implicit reason that made me
avoid the "unethical" word is that even in a civil and modern society, ethics
is questionably subjective, to an extent. So adding that word I could have put
off some readers whose ethics threeshold is lower than average, who could have
then not given enough attention to the article, thinking: "yea, here comes
another human rights hippie.."

Instead, whoever does not consider these experiment unethical is to my eyes
not an human being, so yea, no need to add "unethical"... it's clear already
that these experimentations are so, and you (any reader) should agree with
that. Otherwise I made you waste 10 seconds of browsing for something you
didn't want to by tricking you, because you need to learn.

My deepest worry is: I hope that in your arguments there isn't a little black
spot in where you are trying to hide the fact that part of you (maybe due to
professional figure, are you a medical researcher?) tends from time to time to
be a bit more tolerating toward some borderline experimentation.. and a bit
pissed off by those "human/animal right hippies".. (or a given IRB resolution)

If that's the case, say it clear, don't be scared... Don't turn around with
words, make your full and whole point about this matter... Of course, if you
think it's good for you...

If that's not the case, IMO the first part of my argument is still valid to
explain how a word can be omitted and still point to its original meaning,
based on social events affecting the meaning of words, and context.

------
bostonpete
I wonder why the Milgram Experiment made the list but not the Stanford Prison
Experiment...

~~~
n3rdy
The Milgram Experiment does happen to shine a bright light on collectivism (it
only takes one person to do the right thing, for everyone else to follow their
example), while the Stanford Prison Experiment shines a darker light (or
violet i guess?) on collectivism.

Maybe it could have been omitted due to a bias, or the editors just didn't
think to add it?

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DanBC
The book[1] "Men who stare at goats" gives an insight into some of the, uh,
unusual programs the US military ran.

[1] Not the film, which skips a lot of the detail.

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protome
unbelievable.. gives chills, we need not to forget these atrocities and spread
these reports over and over and again and again.

