Pit of despair(en.wikipedia.org)
en.wikipedia.org
Pit of despair
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pit_of_despair
14 comments
> anybody that willfully places an animal in such conditions just to see what damage will occur ought to be shot
Are you talking about sadism or scientific curiosity? I detest the former but I'm comfortable with the latter.
Are you talking about sadism or scientific curiosity? I detest the former but I'm comfortable with the latter.
Not to sound pedantic but you do realize that those two qualities are not necessarily mutually exclusive in people right?
If we condone such cruelty to other living beings in the name of scientific curiosity, there is no limit to it. It's not ok to go around torturing others because one is 'scientifically curious'.
Our society is built on the backs of the less fortunate. We live in a country we've taken from weaker humans, we feed animals in factories until we're ready to kill them because it's cheaper than treating them humanely. We get our energy from coal mines where hundreds of thousands of workers have died and we stand by as genocides and famines wipe out entire regions. We buy products made by children who work all day every day in factories.
Given the circumstances, cruel experiments on animals (or even humans) to speed up scientific progress (and therefore welfare) looks like a really good deal to me.
Victims of science are just another statistic.
Given the circumstances, cruel experiments on animals (or even humans) to speed up scientific progress (and therefore welfare) looks like a really good deal to me.
Victims of science are just another statistic.
Well, then I hope for you you never become a statistic!
"anybody that willfully places an animal in such conditions just to see what damage will occur ought to be shot." - agreed.
A warning for those of a sensitive nature, that's some disturbing reading about animal experiments, mostly psychological torture of young primates.
Shit, it's making me depressed just reading about it.
Same here. And I was expecting some levity (I thought it might be a Princess Bride reference).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z05StkAKKF0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z05StkAKKF0
This ... words fail me. I'm not against reasonable experimentation in animals (for drug research and related) but this seems just like some sick psycho's idea of research. The article says the experiments were controversial but check out Harlow's biography, he got two awards after conducting these experiments. My view of psychiatry (clueless people trying random drugs to cure things they don't fully understand) has sunk to a new low. To me this is no different than Mengele's experiments. Do we take pity on him because he was depressed.
Jeez, this article ruined a perfectly good morning for me.
Jeez, this article ruined a perfectly good morning for me.
It really sounds like Harry Harlow was a sociopath (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy). I know a handful of academic science-types (some of which do experiments with animals) and I can't imagine any of them condoning so cruel a study. Ugh.
That is unbelievable. The scientist in question exhibited a profound lack of empathy; he probably would have been an interesting subject for experimentation himself.
What incredibly creepy experiments. Makes you glad we have ethics committees these days.
It doesn't make me glad. I think we could achieve much more significant progress in science if we weren't held back by ethical demagoguery.
Voting you up because I see your point, but the problem is that without ethics committees you get cases like these slipping through.
When the public hears about these cases it serves as a rallying cry for the animal rights movement and makes it harder for everyone doing animal research, even those who aren't torturing monkeys because they're emotionally disturbed.
When the public hears about these cases it serves as a rallying cry for the animal rights movement and makes it harder for everyone doing animal research, even those who aren't torturing monkeys because they're emotionally disturbed.
Immediately quotations from Spiderman ("With great power comes great responsiblity") and Jurassic Park ("Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.") come to mind.
Human progress without ethics and compassion is no progress at all.
Human progress without ethics and compassion is no progress at all.
Not really. If they derive a cure for cancer unethically, and I have cancer, I'll be the first in line for it.
Luckily for you, many PIs in the research field agree with you and have lax morals when it comes to torturing innocent defenseless animals. Compliance is a joke and doing whatever the hell you want to whatever creature you want (humans included, mind you) is as easy as checking a box on a piece of paper that nobody reads.
Our species is a virus, and we do whatever we can to protect our own kind until there is nothing else left.
Our species is a virus, and we do whatever we can to protect our own kind until there is nothing else left.
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I wish we had ethics committees for human beings that we locked up without trial for a decade in Cuba or tortured around the world.
We do: http://www.icj-cij.org/
No, the civilized world does...
"...The United States withdrew from compulsory jurisdiction in 1986, and so accepts the court's jurisdiction only on a case-to-case basis."
(from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Court_of_Justice second paragraph).
"...The United States withdrew from compulsory jurisdiction in 1986, and so accepts the court's jurisdiction only on a case-to-case basis."
(from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Court_of_Justice second paragraph).
"Much of Harlow's scientific career was spent studying maternal bonding, what he described as the "nature of love"."
Apparently he was not very successful with his research - did he try to research that because he had no feelings to begin with?
Probably horrors like that and worse happen every day in a lot of research institutions. Some of the research is probably important and interesting. Still I have a hard time imagining how anybody can come up with and conduct such experiments.
Apparently he was not very successful with his research - did he try to research that because he had no feelings to begin with?
Probably horrors like that and worse happen every day in a lot of research institutions. Some of the research is probably important and interesting. Still I have a hard time imagining how anybody can come up with and conduct such experiments.
From the article itself:
In 1971, Harlow's wife died of cancer and he began to suffer from depression. He submitted to electro-shock treatment and returned to work but, as Lauren Slater writes, his colleagues noticed a difference in his demeanor. [6] He abandoned his research into maternal attachment and developed an interest in isolation and depression.
His wife died, he got depressed and switched to the unpleasant experiments described in the article.
In 1971, Harlow's wife died of cancer and he began to suffer from depression. He submitted to electro-shock treatment and returned to work but, as Lauren Slater writes, his colleagues noticed a difference in his demeanor. [6] He abandoned his research into maternal attachment and developed an interest in isolation and depression.
His wife died, he got depressed and switched to the unpleasant experiments described in the article.
Wow. Yes, it seems like an awful lot of psychologists are in the field because they're trying to understand their own problems. This, ladies and gentlemen, is why you should never date a psychology student.
My psychology lecturer at the university told exactly that: many of those choosing psychology to study do that in hope to solve their problems.
Have you read about his maternal bonding experiments in the 60s? He was clearly messed up before he switched to looking at isolation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Harlow#Surrogate_mother_e...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Harlow#Surrogate_mother_e...
Yeah I was reading about those. But if you look at that, there's clearly some point to his previous experiments (studying maternal attachment) whereas it's incredibly hard to see the value in the "pit of despair" stuff he switched to after his wife died.
His experiments on maternal bonding were already disturbing. Fake mechanical mothers that tormented their babies with spikes and blasts of cold air? Yikes. The man had issues.
It's terrible that his wife died, but I think it is not a good excuse for tormenting animals for years.
Unlike other commenters I actually do see some useful results from this study. At what cost though? I can understand the argument for animal testing but something seems just that little extra bit off; when you're trying to study depression you end up having to inflict emotional pain, which is as literally torture as you can get. I've seen enough of the Internet not to be shocked often but this managed.
I have long held that the worst way to die (IMO) would be to fall down a tube of gradually decreasing width, head first of course. It's appalling that someone actually did this to animals.
Why didn't he just setup experiments where he forced monkeys through a fine mesh screen to prove that their psychological disposition is less than satisfactory when their physical state is reduced to a puddle of goo. Lots of great science to unearth there.
Of course, like mice, perhaps he just hated monkeys for the sake of it: http://www.theonion.com/articles/worlds-scientists-admit-the...
Why didn't he just setup experiments where he forced monkeys through a fine mesh screen to prove that their psychological disposition is less than satisfactory when their physical state is reduced to a puddle of goo. Lots of great science to unearth there.
Of course, like mice, perhaps he just hated monkeys for the sake of it: http://www.theonion.com/articles/worlds-scientists-admit-the...
Oddly enough, your first sentence describes human birth.
The interesting thing for me was the effects, not the ethics of the research itself. It is interesting that the torturous aspects of this were primarily mental not physical and still disgust people. Contrast with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unnecessary_Fuss (linked from that article) and you'll get what I consider a true idea of torture. That is not to say there aren't ethical concerns etc., but most of the horrible actions were committed by the monkeys themselves and were presumably unexpected, in contrast with something like in Unnecessary Fuss where there was intentional infliction of harm.
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So is the internet a new age "pit of despair"? Is there enough social interaction for children these days or do they replace it with WOW and other "almost" social situations?
I'm not sure that those two situations are in any way comparable.
Actually the point was that lack of direct social contact leads to depression. Interacting with people though a digital interface also probably leads to a similar, albeit not drastic, of an effect.
Personally, even though I have access to more people and more information over the net, I am less social and that does have an effect on my mood. I have to make an effort to spend face-to-face time with family and friends to become "normal" again. (By "normal" here I just mean "not depressed"). Digital interface just doesn't cut it, there is some physical aspect to the interaction that cannot be transmitted even through a video conference. Anyway, I don't have anything to support this, just a personal opinion.
Personally, even though I have access to more people and more information over the net, I am less social and that does have an effect on my mood. I have to make an effort to spend face-to-face time with family and friends to become "normal" again. (By "normal" here I just mean "not depressed"). Digital interface just doesn't cut it, there is some physical aspect to the interaction that cannot be transmitted even through a video conference. Anyway, I don't have anything to support this, just a personal opinion.
Wow, I was just asking a question not making a point. I think that it is fair to do that.
No, you were making a point but you phrased it as a question, which is annoying. That added together with the inanity of said point (my opinion, but probably one I share with others) caused one person (not me) to mod you down.
I guess I was making an unintentional point, but mainly I was trying to ask others their opinions. I don't play alot of online games or use facebook but my wife and others around me are always online and they are taking up alot of the time that they could be actually socializing by looking at pictures on facebook of someone who they went to high school with that they haven't talked to in 10 years, and even then they weren't friends.
Torturing monkeys to prove points about depression?
Depression sucks, and the worst versions of it could certainly be compared to torture in terms of the misery inflicted on the suffer, but I find it questionable that one could link externally-inflicted torture and depression in such a way that these experiments would have any value.
Depression sucks, and the worst versions of it could certainly be compared to torture in terms of the misery inflicted on the suffer, but I find it questionable that one could link externally-inflicted torture and depression in such a way that these experiments would have any value.
When moving back from Canada to the Netherlands we took our dogs that we had acquired while in Canada back with us. Sarah, a three year old Irish wolfhound and Lisa, a 2 year old labrador / husky mix.
They went by plane, in crates specifically designed for the purpose.
On arrival the wolfhound had completely lost it, didn't recognize any of us and was totally out of it for at least two weeks, after which she slowly recovered. That was just 8 hours in a crate, not even close to the 'pit of despair' shown in the article, and anybody that willfully places an animal in such conditions just to see what damage will occur ought to be shot.
If I had had any idea something like that could have happened I would have gladly taken a boat with her, no matter how much longer that would have taken. It was incredibly sad to see her in that state, eventually she completely recovered though.
The other dog didn't show anything strange at all and took the whole thing in stride.