Over in the Cesario thread, he contends that the only reason kids are harmed by sex is that we tell them they are harmed. Fine - I don’t want to debate that (especially not with an 18 page thread)
What I would like to know is HOW would / could we set up an experiment to test such an hypothesis? At the current time its not possible.
But if you could design such an experiment from scratch, how would you go about it? I would imagine cloning would need to have something to do with it for a proper control group, and also some form of “hyper maturing” of the brain to make the time frame reasonable.
I suggest cloning to see if there’s some way we could do the testing with other than “real” people - so test this part as well.
Well if not cloning then some form of genetic engineering?
Essentially, what I would like to see explored, would be how could some form of experiment be set up that would isolate the participants from current society from birth. Create two parallel “biospheres” that can be used to test ideas such as what Cesario is suggesting.
I don’t know how such a thing is possible. But if it were - how would you set up an experiment?
Well, ok… but it seems to me that any test subject that’s capable of experiencing human psychological damage-- and you need them to be able to suffer that damage, since that’s what you’re testing for-- is a test subject that for all practical purposes is human. And one that deserves rights as much as I do.
I’m not unsympathetic to your desire to have a bull session on the subject, and I’m not trying to paint you as some kind of Dr. Mengele type. But I gotta say, I think this one might be a brick wall even in the totally hypothetical realm. I can’t think of a meaningful way to engineer a test subject for emotional trauma that I wouldn’t have sympathy for, and ethical concerns about, precisely because he/she/it IS capable of experiencing emotional trauma.
I suppose we could get a signed note from God, saying we could use a tincture of handwavium to wipe the subjects’ memories, and He would guarantee no harm would be done. But in that case we might as well save ourselves the trouble of of engineering subjects and just use our own kids.
There’s no perfect experiment when it comes to the human mind because our brains are still so complex and so much of it is unknown.
One way I would do it would be by volume. Get thousands of kids who have been molested and divide them into 2 groups. In one group, they are told that they are harmed. In the other group, they are not. Then wait a decade and see how they turn out.
Identical twins are clones, clones are identical twins (or triplets or whatever - in theory you could wind up with quite a few genetically identical people). Since it is indisputable that identical twins are not identical in personality or any other mental trait I’m not sure what good using genetically identical people would be in this case.
As pointed out, clones would be just as real and human as anyone else. I think I get what you’re going for here, but humans just don’t work that way.
To make a human being into nothing more than a test subject voids their humanity - rendering any results meaningless.
Any test that does not make them into a lab rat contains too many variables to be valid.
The options:
Put the subjects (cloning is unneccesary and would invalidate the results to having meaning to all humans) into a controlled environment - basically a big mouse cage. Control every aspect of their lives from feeding to sleep to excersise and limit human to human contact except for the sex. This will produce scientific results between two groups - those with sexual exposure and those without, but will not produce human results as the beings would at that point be only biologically human.
Somehow create a “Stepford Wives” Neighborhood where each mother acts exactly the same. Again control every aspect of life where the only difference is sexual exposure. It’s possible to produce human results but the costs of the project are prohibitive as and any variation in the environment (social or physical) will invalidate the test. Basically it requires the “Truman Show” copied for each test subject.
Ethically, it’s wrong in either case. It’s about 60 years too late for this kind of experimentation.
A study could be done on the *behavioral * aspects of people who have either been told they were hurt by sex, or not. Cloning isn’t necessary in proving theories on how a human would react in limited and controlled biospheres, perhaps more appropriately, social-spheres, either. Remember Jane Elliot? She told the kids in her class the were going to learn about “Negros”, this was right after the untimely death of MLK Jr. Firstly, the blue eyed children were given the chance to play the white man. They were given more praise for classwork and homework, were treated with more respect, given more helpings of lunch, they even had their own water fountains. The brown eyed children on the other hand, were treated quite the opposite. They were made to wear ribbons, told they were worthless and expendable, and given less general respect. She even used pseudoscience to explain how they were inferior. “The melanin which gives the blue pigment, is actually linked to intelligence and success, therefore, the “brownies” cannot be as smart, and are less equal to the blue eyed children,” or some such nonsense.
What do you think happened? Well, the “blues” obviously realized much greater success in class and even felt the potential of being a superior human being, taking all the “extra” treatment for granted, that they were just born better. And for that first group of “lesser” people, well thats probably why this was controversial and would be hard to repeat. They’re grades dropped, their demeanor and and attitudes were severely soured, some even just accepted the fate they were not given better chances, and had to deal with non-equality forever. Even the smartest and happiest kids before, were now sullen, shy and bitter.
So if you tell a child he is smarter, will he not believe it? If someone is told something hurts, is wrong or shameful, will they not act on it?
Separation from birth or how old a person is doesn’t seem to have much bearing on it as well. The Stanford Prison Experiment was a new spin on the same frightening old tale. Volunteer college students were selected for an experiment that was so sadistic they cut it short after six days. By coin toss, prison guards, and prisoners were selected, without “” because they really got into it. The researchers hired the police to show up at the houses of people who drew the unlucky card of being prisoner. They were degraded to such extremes, it was noted some them displayed genuine trauma case symptoms for the rest of their lives. The social structure was so out of control at one point the prisoners turned on each other and got sprayed with fire extinguishers. Being a guard was not much better unless you really want to get jacked up in the head. Power trips galore, and a darkness we ought not to want to see.
You see how this kind of thing is cool in a way that it shows us who we are, and who we could become if given a chance.
But I wouldn’t these carried out unless it’s a simple candid camera thing were you have adults apply for jobs or something and mess with their heads a little bit tell them only people who act like chickens have ever been hired or something.
What you are asking for is ethically challenged but has been done and has been proven to be very dangerous.
My grandmoghter had her first child when she was 14 years old; would have been about 1890 or so.
I don’t recall her manifesting any harm from having been a sex partner at about age 13.
One way to conduct the experiment might be to get records and create a large database of persons like my grandmother and compare them to today’s populations.