The Dark Side Of Hell : When Scientists Stopped Being Ethical

Scientists pride themselves in the fact that they help minimize suffering, make the world happier and a better place to live in. And of all these goals are worthwhile, but at what costs? What happens when science and technology, in its search for improving our lives, come clashing with our core values and beliefs? The result is the dilemma of ethic and morality that has shrouded scientists and their work for year.

Here, I look into ten of such occasions, where science stopped being ethical.

1.War on Twins
The idea of separating twins after birth and determining every move of their,would seem to be a very fascinating idea. It would give us insight into our nature and nurture interplay and work together in real life. Obviously, psychologists would most benefit from this,giving insights into personality and temperaments types and tests. Ain't that great?

Actually,during the Second World War, Evil Dr Mengele carried out this research. He would place requests to German officers asking that identical twins, most especially children, being sent to a concentration camp be brought to him. His plan was to conduct all sorts of experiments on one of the twin,while he kept the other as a "control". History tells us that he obtained about 1500 sets of twins between 1943 - 1944.

Of all the twins he experimented on,only about 200 of them survived. Lots of his experiments were actually very cruel. At a time, he conducted and studied incestuous pregnancies. Aside that,he would inject chemicals into their eyes to change the color,chopping off limbs, removing internal organs. Imagine someone trying this on your child.

Worst part? He lived a freeman for 35 years and died as such in 1979 after fleeing. He was never brought to book.

2. Ape Man

Have you ever thought of a cross breed between a human and a chimpanzee? Our biologist Stephen Jay Gould,called it "the most potentially interesting and ethically unacceptable experiment I can imagine". Obviously, it is sch a fascinating and mouth watering prospect.

Actually,it won't be that complicated. Are you thinking of a man having sex with a female chimp? Or vice versa? I thought so for once. Actually the same process used for in vitro fertilization would most probably yield an human-chimp embryo. And since chimps are born slightly smaller than human,scientist would obviously want to grow the embryo in a human uterus.

This experiment will answer a lot of unanswered questions about the two,according to science, species with genomes. While there,technically ,has been no action yet towards such experiment, with the craze going on and the frenzy for knowledge amongst scientists, it should not be a farfetched experiment/reality.

3. Unknowing and Innocent Civilian

A study called the Tuskegee Study was conducted for a 40 year period between 1932 and 1972 on 399 individuals. Guess what, only 74 survived. These people were poor,illiterate, black sharecroppers with no access to medical help. This men had syphilis, which at the beginning of the "experiment" was hard to treat and often fatal. But,at the end,it was very treatable, but they were never told that. As a matter of fact,they did not know that they had syphilis,they only were told they had "bad blood". The researchers methodically watched as the disease progressed and eventually killed them. Over 40 wives contracted this so-called "bad blood". And 19 children were born with congenital syphilis. So much for science helping lives.

The unit 731 chemical and biological weapons research team of the Japanese government were responsible for the death of or 200,000 humans - their own people. What for? For obviously unknown medical experimentation. Wells were contaminated with disease, plague-ridden fleas were spread across cities. Cases were recorded of people being told to march through the cold so to get frostbite and then warmed up to observe for the effects of untreated gangrene. Some had their limbs amputated and sewn to other parts of their body. Pregnant women who were raped by experimenters were dissected alive. Some were raped merely as a means of spread of syphilis and gonorrhea. While countless others were used as living targets for grenades.

Horrific & Pathetic!

Cases like these make me get really pissed at scientists at times.

Looking forward to hearing from you about cases where you may have been failed by science,or maybe you even have contrary opinions.

Part 2 coming soon...maybe tomorrow or the day after.

Sources:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/8702999/Unethical-scientific-experiments-going-to-extremes.html&hl=en-NG

https://owlcation.com/humanities/The-Most-Unethical-Science-Experiments-Conducted-on-the-Unwitting-and-Vulnerable

https://www.newscientist.com/round-up/ethics-issue/