Ethics in Research
After watching the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment in class today I started thinking about other unethical and harmful experiments undertaken in the name of scientific research. The syphilis experiment concluded in 1973 and the one positive result of the experiment, as reported by the video, was a more stringent set of ethical codes to regulate research involving human subjects. The Philip Zimbardo Prison Experiment conducted at Stanford University in the summer of 1971 evidences that ethics was lacking in all realms of human research including psychological. If you are unfamiliar with the specifics of the experiment feel free to click on the link in the last sentence for a really cool informational on it. Here's the short version, some college students volunteered for a psych experiment for a small cash compensation. They were not informed of the nature of the experiment before agreeing to participate. The volunteers were randomly split into two groups, prisoners and prison guards. The experiment took place in a school building that was decorated to simulate a prison. There were no instructions given to the participants, just their interactions were to be observed. For some unexplainable reason, the prison guards got a superiority complex and started verbally and physically assaulting the prisoners and the prisoners just took it. The facilitator of the experiment would not pull the plug on the experiment because he wanted it to run its full course for the sake of complete data yet was commanded to stop the experiment when one of his superiors looked in and witnessed the atrocity going on. The experiment only lasted six days.
This made me think about the necessity of a hypothesis before starting a scientific experiment. Both the Zimbardo prison experiment and the Tuskegee Syphilis experiment did not start out with a clear hypothesis and wanted to just see how it went. However, the weak point of this method is, there is never a clear stopping point because there isn't an exact thing the experimenters are looking for. I think that in the realm of human experimentation, there is a necessity for experimenters to have a clear stopping point or a quick way to indicate that their experiment has taken a negative turn because there is some thing finite to be tested.
This made me think about the necessity of a hypothesis before starting a scientific experiment. Both the Zimbardo prison experiment and the Tuskegee Syphilis experiment did not start out with a clear hypothesis and wanted to just see how it went. However, the weak point of this method is, there is never a clear stopping point because there isn't an exact thing the experimenters are looking for. I think that in the realm of human experimentation, there is a necessity for experimenters to have a clear stopping point or a quick way to indicate that their experiment has taken a negative turn because there is some thing finite to be tested.
posted by Kristian at 12:35 AM
2 Comments:
While I recognize the existence of failed and dangerous human experiments, I do not agree that there should always be a finite and definite goal in experiments. Primarily, experiments that are addressing the long term progress of a disease must be indefinate. Research into the effect of cigarettes or advil on the human body can only be understood by long periods of observation. I agree that if a cure exists, the study should end. However, it is simply impossible to have a definate ending point for a study of the impact of cigarettes on the human heart, for example.
Maybe there doesn’t always have to be “finite and definite goals” in an experiment, but I do think that there should be regular "progress reports." Every so often an experimenter should step back and take account of what work has been done and what is yet to be done. For a long term study, I agree that when starting off, it is impossible to know exactly where the research may lead. But in my opinion, a good research endeavor is made up of many small hypothesizes each of which may serve as a good stopping point or place for self reflection upon completion.
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