This was spawned to save a GQ thread. This one, to be specific, right here. The question is simple, but the ramifications are not: Are we justified to do anything but burn the results of Nazi ‘medical experiments’? To use them implies that the Nazis did something worth doing. To burn them implies that the prisoners were tortured in vain. Can anyone reach a conclusion here?
This is an easy one, or maye that’s just the researcher in me talking. yes, the Nazis did horrible things. And though i usuallu don’t believe the ends justify the means, we can’t exactly go back and change the means. We shouldn’t discard useful information that may actually help humanity just because it was obtained through not-so-nice means.
Now, things would be different if the experiments had yet to be performed, and some mad-scientist type said, “Well, my research design looks unethical, but in the end it would benefit all! Isn’t the welfare of society as a whole worth a few (dozen, hundred, thousand, million) lives?” Obviously, the answer is a resounding NO.
I think we’d first have to determine if anything useful came out of those “experiments”.
Somehow, I don’t see how it could. What useful information could be derived from the heinous acts the Nazis committed?
If there is no useful information, then the debate is moot. If there is, perhaps we could take the data and reinvent the experiment with humane and scientifically accepted means to reach our own results. If their records are accurate and true the results should be easy to reproduce.
Virtually nothing of worth CAN be ascertained from Nazi “research.” The only even partially useful information has been used, and even the information provided by this was the most basic.
Everything else was uniquely cruel, do not be fooled into thinking that there was any sort of valid question being approached through the scientific method by Nazi “researchers”.
How about a related question?
The Nazis had prisoners working to build structures, roads and so forth. Is it morally justifiable to use those structures? Does it make a difference if the structure is in Germany itself versus a country that had been occupied by the Nazis?
When examining the “results” of morally void individuals performing dubious “experiments” it is a fairly simple matter to reach one conclusion.
Individuals who are capable of such callous disregard will hardly feel compelled to adhere to strict scientific method in the pursuit of their intended goals. Consequently, the product of their efforts is suspect in a twofold fashion. Neither the results nor their methods can be trusted. People capable of torture and mayhem will be less than likely to hold themselves to such niceities as accuracy or reproducability.
The complete dismissal of such cruelty, its fruit and the perpetrators of such horrors is the best and only way to honor those who perished at their hands. Any recognition of such two legged vermin merely lends a false sense of validity to what was and could only be mindless, viscious thuggery.
Sorry Zenster, but I have to disagree,
This is a very sensitive subject and probably no two people on earth will agree on every point, so I can only offer my humble opinion and sincerely apoligize to anyone I offend.
If I were to die as a result of these hidious experiments, my skin being peeled off inch by inch while being injected with untested chemical compounds. I could only pray that future generations would read every word of the reports in the hope that something of value could be obtained so that my death …indeed my life … might not have been in vain.
As repugnant as it might seem, I feel that any knowledge we can possibly gain and/or use from these so called “medical experiments” is not so much a validation of the animals that performed them as it is a duty to the poor victoms to in some way allow them to rise above the inhumanity that befell them and to allow them to say that in spite of the bastards that subjected them to this, “some good came of my life”.
My opinion, Hermit
Of course that doesent mean that anything did. Like he said, Nazies were torturing not researching.
IN Germany, the allies had already run several “Millienium” raids with the big b-29 SuperForts. Twern’t much left of Dresden, Berlin, et al by the time we finished with it.
On the other hand, we use facilities here in Mississippi built by German POW’s during WWII. Course, most of the German POW’s were very grateful to be here, rather than there.
In the end, it’s just a building or a road. It’s not like we tortured the innocent limestone, iron ore or whatnot before we turned it into a bridge abutement or section of highway.
Well, I admit to not knowing the actual nature of the experimentation under question beyond the fact that it was sadistic and unethical. Therefore, I cannot say whether there is information of value in them. However, I don’t believe it’s possible to say that there can be no useful information due solely to the cruelty employed in the experiments.
I will say, however, that I think we would be wrong to burn the results regardless of whether any of the information is valid or not. Forgetting the horrors of the Nazi regime is not a proper response to them. This stuff, with all its cruelty and inhumanity laid bare, should remain in the public record for all time.
Nazi eugenic research was screwed from the git-go, based on the false premise that evolution can be hurried along by human intervention. Utter nonsense, of course. Interestingly enough, Stalin believed the same bull-pucky, and put his support behind a moron named Lysenko, who claimed to be able to alter inherited characteristics. Since experimenters had to produce results that confirmed that nonsense, Soviet biology was screwed for years.
Same applies to Nazi “research”. There is no information to be gained, since there is no information. However, I recognize that this distinction borders on sophistry.
Suppose a terrorist has planted an antrax bomb at a kindergarten, but you don’t know which one. Someone else has inhumanly tortured said terrorist, and he has divulged the location. Obviously, it is impossible to say that you would not take steps to protect those children, regardless of how you may feel about the steps taken to get the info.
Hence, info is morally neutral, it is an abstract, it has no moral burden to carry. Only we have will, and moral judgement. It is a moral question what you do with the info, the info itself has no such quality. Only we can be evil, only we can be good. The Black Plague baccillus is as innocent as any lamb.
Aside: I recall reading once that Nazi cosmology was founded on the presumption that the stars were made of ice, and that German textbooks and scientists reflected that. Anybody know anything about that, where I can find out more? Evidently, Hitler was equally brilliant as an astrophysicist as well as a military strategist.
Some of the comments above suggest that folks have heard something about Nazi experiments, but don’t have all the facts in their possession. A thoughtful discussion of just what the medical experiments entailed, as well as the ethics of using the data derived from them, was written by Baruch Cohen and may be found here.
I would like to point out there the is a basic logical fallacy in stating that the “research” is invailid because the people who did the research were “bad people”. The research must be invalidated on its on merits. Now if you want to say it wasnt research in the first place thats different. As it stands… if there is any valid data that is useful, use it. Not using the data will not undo any bad things that happened in the past, nor will using the data endorse those actions and make them right. The source of the data is irrelavent (after you have it). That doesnt mean its ok to get data through unethical means and it doesnt mean that those who get useful data this way should not be punished.
Fillet.
Thanks for the link. Grim stuff and should not be read before bedtime.
Wasn’t there information about hypothermia gained from the Nazi “experiments?” Such as how to treat a victim?
NOT that the Nazis were in any way justified, but didn’t some doctors say that they gathered some important info on hypothermia treatments from the Nazi “experiments?”