I’m still waiting to hear a news story about how some mad scientist kidnapped twins and raised them in Skinner boxes, etc.,etc… The closest thing we’ve had is Mengele and he didn’t even find out anything too terribly interesting/useful except a bit about how the body responds to low temperatures. I can’t imagine that there is a direct correlation between morality/ethics and an interest in science. Have their been any instances of a scientist performing horribly cruel/unethical experiments on humans where the results would be of interest to science? Is Zimbardo the best we can do? If we did uncover such experiments, the method was deemed to be scientific, and the results were of interest/use to science, would the results be allowed to be published?
I’ve got no links, you can research it. Just a guess, but in the old days, scientists were not as careful with the experimental drugs they were testing. They usually used themselves as test experiments, and suffered the consequences. The ones who pioneered the use of anesthetics often became a little nuts, or addicted to what they were testing.
The reason that you’ve never heard news stories about mad scientists is that there have never really been such things. There were cases of scientific research under the Nazis where hopelessly cruel experiments were carried out, but that was because the whole society had gone crazy. There was nothing special about what the scientists did. There were cases in the past where what they did wouldn’t pass any current research protocol, but again these were cases where that sort of casual interference with the lives of patients was acceptable in that society. Scientists are no more or less enlightened than most people in their attitudes toward cruelty or casual interference with other people’s lives.
There’s the [url=http://www.dc.peachnet.edu/~shale/humanities/composition/assignments/experiment/tuskegee.html]Tuskegee Syphilis Study[/link].
I’m a gonna try that again.
That’s the problem with lack of standardization :smack:
and lack of previewing…
When I was learning to SCUBA dive, our instructor told us that each black mark on our Dive table represented a person who died of decompression sickness, this is how we know what the limits are, So you could argue that the black marks on your dive table represent unwitting participants in a study of things that can kill you.
Here’s a site that discusses the morality of utilizing data collected by the nazi doctors.
http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/Judaism/naziexp.html
and another one…
http://216.239.57.104/search?q=cache:h1npmOLmOtcJ:htawa.iinet.net.au/hindsight/nazimedicine00.pdf+inhumane+human+experimentation&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
Let’s not forget Ishii’s vaccines and biowarfare development. He was actually granted immunity in exchange for his data.
http://pw1.netcom.com/~aguldo/agga/bt/txt/bt1933.htm
http://shenware.virtualave.net/his_unit731.shtml
To publish in one of the seminal scientific journals (Science, Cell, Nature, PLoS, etc.), manuscripts must undergo a rather strict process. First, they’re reviewed by in house editors. If the manuscript meets their criteria, the next step is peer review. The manuscript will be sent to 3-5 other researchers, usually, though not always, involved in the same basic type of work. These peer reviewers offer feedback on a number of different things such as quality of data, relevance, other data needed, discrepancies in data given, etc. They then return the manuscript along with their critique to the journal who sends everything along to the author. Once the author has made any changes needed, the process is repeated until all parties involved feel it’s suitable for publication.
One of the many advantages of the peer review system is that it holds everyone to the same degree of morality. I won’t say it’s impossible to publish something which is deemed unacceptable to society, but I do believe it would be highly unlikely, as even if it passes the editors’ review, the odds are that it won’t pass the peer review process.
For example, if I were to conduct an experiment wherein I collected day old fly larvae, extracted DNA from them, and then analyzed it for the presence or absence of a certain gene, the odds that one of the peer reviewers would be opposed would be virtually nill. If I were to do the same experiment, collecting day old humans, extracting DNA, and analyzing it for the presence of a gene, the odds that one of the peer reviewers would NOT be opposed to it would be virtually nill.
The problem is that in IRL, popular fiction and Hollywood aside, being a successful scientist requires a mindset and skillset that is highly incompatible with being truly nuts. Not to say it’s impossible, but being a crackpot these days is harder than it used to be.
Actually, in the latter case, since blood is routinely drawn from neonates in the USA in order to do medical screening, there would be very little moral or ethical outcry, so long as one went through the proper bureaucratic steps and likewise obtained parental consent.
As for the original post, the reason that one doesn’t hear about “mad scientists” is that they are extremely rare. Part of becoming a scientist at all requires willingness to jump through an amazing amount of hoops. A complete sociopath would have a hard time putting up with all the social and subcultural requirements of getting to the point wherein one is able to lead experiments. Likewise, science is expensive. Where can one get that money? One has to go begging for it. There are, no doubt, “black” projects funded by various governments, but the majority of scientific funding comes with a great big “You have to tell us everything you are doing on a quarterly basis or we pull the plug.” attached.
When a society goes bad or is bad, then things change. Consider all three of the aforementioned “examples”:
Concentration Camp Experiments: Performed for Nazi Germany on “racial undesirables”.
Harbin Biowarfare Experiments: Performed for Hirohito/Tojo Japan on “racial undesirables”.
Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment: Performed in a US Southern state on “racial undesirables”.
In each case, it was scientists who were part of a sick society acting within the general parameters of that society’s etic and emic.
And even when we look at these experiments, none of them can qualify as being real “mad scientist” experiments. Each was carried out very methodically by large teams. There was no wild-eyed rebel who sought to personally rule the world with his scientific discoveries. Instead, in each case, the teams told themselves that they worked for some “greater good”.
I don’t agree. History is replete with nutty scientists : Nikola Tesla, John Nash, Jeremy Bentham (analytic philosophy) etc… The only thing you need to be a successful mad scientist is a grip on logic and a dash of sociopathy. Those traits certainly aren’t mutually exclusive - they’re just called “cold and calculating.” Even people plagued by OCD do some incredibly irrational things while maintaing a perfect grip on logic. Granted, most of the genius of weird scientists has thankfully been channeled into the theoretical areas of science but wait. Muhaaahhahhhahhhaha.
1: Tesla was germ phobic and a bit odd but during his productive years he was not “mad”. His “death beam” claims did not come until he was well into the grips of senility and way past his productive scientific years.
2: Nash was not coherent when in the grips of schizophrenic delusions so I don’t think he had a coherent grip on “logic” or much of anything during these episodes
3:Bentham may have been a bit odd, but how exactly was he “mad”?
About two weeks ago there was an article in the Washington Post about South Africa’s (now defunct) apartheid government’s program to develop biological weapons that would only kill negroes. I will run along now and find the article, and post a link to it.
KidCharlemagne, you are aware, aren’t you, that virtually every scene in the movie A Beautiful Mind is a lie? If you want to learn about John Nash, read the book A Beautiful Mind by Sylvia Nasar. And, in general, don’t assume that you know about a person’s life when you’ve seen a movie based on it. John Nash was quite sane till he turned 30. He had already done all his important research by that time.
In general, someone who’s gone insane can’t do acceptable scientific research. Their thinking is too disordered to allow them to do the sort of systematic thinking that scientific research requires. This is not to say that there haven’t been some nasty, mean people who were competent scientists. There have doubtlessly been a few who were murderers, but they were sane murderers.
Did you decide on this question by watching a bunch of “mad scientist” films? Well, it’s time to learn that movies are not a useful place to learn detailed information about the way that the world works. They might be enjoyable to watch, but too often they are inaccurate.
I couldn’t find the Washington Post article, but here’s a link to a site that covers the whole story very well. The program was called Project Coast.
Thanks so much for your sage advice. And to think I’ve wasted all this time trying to get my hands on that DeLorean that could travel through time. A sociopath is not “insane” in a legal or psychiatric sense (even though the term doesn’t really exist they “know what you mean”). They can function on an extremely high level. Leopold and Loeb were both sociopathic, capable of logic, and interested in science. John Nash may have been a bad example of a nutty scientist though that’s the only claim I made about him. If you have nothing to contribute of worth then don’t contribute.
bluethree, I’ve looked through the article on the link that you give and I can’t find any reference to biological weapons that only kill blacks. Did I miss it? Incidentally, you can’t look for free at articles in the archives of The Washington Post that are more than two weeks old.
Agreed, but sociopaths don’t have to be “truly nuts.” Perhaps the use of the term “mad scientist” provoked the wrong image - it was just convenient.
Sigh… shifting definitions on me this late in the game. Well if we’re going to change from “mad scientist” to “can be highly disagreeable and potentially capable of anti-social acting out scientist” then yeah, I’ll grant you there are a few in that category.
If what you mean is “sociopath,” then say “sociopath.” A sociopath (in so far as such things exist, and that’s disputed) is not insane. There are no cases of insane, functioning scientists. My contribution was to ask you to learn to do good research, and relying on the existence of a bunch of bad “mad scientist” films is not good research. Bentham and Tesla are not good examples of mad scientists either.
I didn’t know there was a definition for “mad scientist.” You guys don’t infer defintions from movies do you? 
If you noticed in my post above your own I clarified what I meant -
“The only thing you need to be a successful mad scientist is a grip on logic and a dash of sociopathy.”