# If ethics wouldn't be a problem, what experiment would you really like to carry out?



## Sarin (Aug 30, 2011)

A lot of scientific experiments are bound by ethics and and therefore cannot be carried out.
E.g. you cannot determine the exact MAC value of a chemical on humans, because it's unethical (and cruel) to expose humans to chemicals up to the point that they'll die.

BUT.. if there would be no ethical boundaries and you where given all the freedom and recources that you need, what experiment would you like to conduct and what do you hope to find out?
(Even your own conscience may be ignored and and your experiment may be conducted on any scale you like).


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## LotusBlossom (Apr 2, 2011)

I'll probably do something Fight Club-style: finding ways to convert liposucked fat into usable energy.

If successful, then find ways to harvest human fat for fuel and energy. Hey, think about it, two birds killed with one stone: it helps with the obesity epidemic and we have a new source of renewable energy!


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## TreeBob (Oct 11, 2008)

Kayness said:


> I'll probably do something Fight Club-style: finding ways to convert liposucked fat into usable energy.
> 
> If successful, then find ways to harvest human fat for fuel and energy. Hey, think about it, two birds killed with one stone: it helps with the obesity epidemic and we have a new source of renewable energy!


You would need to fight the cosmetics companies over the fat.


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## LotusBlossom (Apr 2, 2011)

TreeBob said:


> You would need to fight the cosmetics companies over the fat.


 I'm sure there would be plenty to go around


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## dalsgaard (Aug 14, 2010)

I'd like to drop a lot of babies off on an island to see how they'd develop.


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## TreeBob (Oct 11, 2008)

Kayness said:


> I'm sure there would be plenty to go around


It's pretty nasty what the cosmetics company use. I used to work at McDs and we dumped all our fat in a very large bin outside. They would come by every month and get it. In the summer the bin would be infested with maggots by the time they came to get it.


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## LotusBlossom (Apr 2, 2011)

TreeBob said:


> It's pretty nasty what the cosmetics company use. I used to work at McDs and we dumped all our fat in a very large bin outside. They would come by every month and get it. In the summer the bin would be infested with maggots by the time they came to get it.


OMG. What the effin' EFF?!

I'll never look at my cosmetics the same way again *sniff*


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## Sarin (Aug 30, 2011)

Maybe I should contribute to the cause as well myself 


Let's see if this "test" could be the sollution of our economic trouble.

For a periode of 5 years, cut budgets on health care for elderly people and on birthcontrol.. lower the legal age for drinking, and maintain the budget on education and childsupport.
Within 20 years, the economic baby-boom problem should be solved and there should be a whole new generation of taxpayers starting to become economically active.

Let's see what this will bring us.


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## snail (Oct 13, 2008)

I would raise tribes of wild children in the woods from birth, living a non-technological lifestyle like hunter-gatherers, where they would not be exposed to any external cultural influences. They would have to create their own cultures completely from scratch, with minimal intervention except to ensure they reached an age where they would be capable of surviving independently like free animals. They would have to make their own language and rules. They would never see any kind of clothing aside from whatever simple blankets would be required to keep them from freezing to death, or hear any kind of language at all until they created their own. They wouldn't necessarily know I was there observing, especially after they were old enough to be independent. I would watch them grow to adulthood, observing their progress, documenting everything significant so future generations of researchers could observe how they progressed over time, and how their children and grandchildren modified the culture they created. The point of this would be to see which behaviors are natural and which are learned by exposure. I would like to see if the different tribes develop distinct traditions, and how they learn to interact with each other if they are mixed. I would be interested to find out what kind of group dynamics would emerge on their own without needing to be based on any kind of preexisting example. 

Something vaguely similar was attempted at least once, In 1954, in eastern Oklahoma, but in an all male group, with children who had already absorbed enough cultural information to corrupt the experiment. All that was learned was something about team identification leading to violence. Before the boys even began, they shared a common culture, and everyone spoke the same language, knew what flags, baseball, cabins, knives, and clothing were. In my version of the experiment, they would start from scratch with nothing. They would be allowed to kill each other off without intervention. Everything would progress completely naturally.

Unfortunately, while doing this in a manner that would give untainted results, the experiment would be cruel and dangerous.


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## Einstein (Aug 10, 2011)

I would try to clone myself and use the clones to replace my organs.

Also, a cannibal utopia where all the stupid people are ground up for food.


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## Donkey D Kong (Feb 14, 2011)

I'd love to put 50 people (one including a rich wall-street yuppie) on an island that all speak different languages and come from different heritages. I'd Also leave off 5,000 bears for them to hunt and corn, marijuana, carrot, apple, and tomato seeds for them to grow. Will they work together to survive, or be killed off, or just starve because of their greedy nature?

I'd also love to see what kind of language they would develop and what kind of government would exist. I would probably leave off a few political books including The Communist Manifesto, Anarcho-syndicalism, Atlas Shrugged, and Mein Kampf for diversity.

Finally, I'd love to see what kind of culture would come out of that. It'd be interesting to see a new culture that we've never seen before arise from a mixture of 50 people. Imagine what kind of stuff would come out of that? Since they would probably have to live off of bear meat for a while until they are able to build ships, they would probably have a lot of culture surrounding bears. Also, you may have noticed that I said marijuana earlier. Hemp can be used to make clothing. Since they wouldn't exactly have sheep to use wool, they could use hemp to make clothing and other fabrics such as towels and blankets. Now, a lot of this may seem stupid, but it's just something that I'd personally love to experiment with. It would be beyond interesting for me to see how this would develop over time.


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## MiriMiriAru (May 1, 2011)

snail said:


> I would raise tribes of wild children in the woods from birth, living a non-technological lifestyle like hunter-gatherers, where they would not be exposed to any external cultural influences. They would have to create their own cultures completely from scratch, with minimal intervention except to ensure they reached an age where they would be capable of surviving independently like free animals. They would have to make their own language and rules. They would never see any kind of clothing aside from whatever simple blankets would be required to keep them from freezing to death, or hear any kind of language at all until they created their own. They wouldn't necessarily know I was there observing, especially after they were old enough to be independent. I would watch them grow to adulthood, observing their progress, documenting everything significant so future generations of researchers could observe how they progressed over time, and how their children and grandchildren modified the culture they created. The point of this would be to see which behaviors are natural and which are learned by exposure. I would like to see if the different tribes develop distinct traditions, and how they learn to interact with each other if they are mixed. I would be interested to find out what kind of group dynamics would emerge on their own without needing to be based on any kind of preexisting example.
> 
> Something vaguely similar was attempted at least once, In 1954, in eastern Oklahoma, but in an all male group, with children who had already absorbed enough cultural information to corrupt the experiment. All that was learned was something about team identification leading to violence. Before the boys even began, they shared a common culture, and everyone spoke the same language, knew what flags, baseball, cabins, knives, and clothing were. In my version of the experiment, they would start from scratch with nothing. They would be allowed to kill each other off without intervention. Everything would progress completely naturally.


This is pretty much my dream experiment. What would happen? I so want to know. To come back after 20 years and see the society they've formed (assuming they didn't all kill each other) would be amazing.


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## Bote (Jun 16, 2010)

Attempt brain transplants.

Test the effects of radiation poisoning and tolerance levels of the body.

Remove brain parts bit by bit so as to see what identity and behavioral changes happen.

Experiments which attempt to increase brain mass without the loss of intelligence, whether it be genetic manipulation or surgical connections with additional synthetically bred brain tissue.

Various extreme nutritional experiments with the goal to increase brain potential.

Uhm yah Mengele is a nobody. xD


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## sprinkles (Feb 7, 2010)

Erase everyone's memory but leave a conspicuous artifact behind which will be found, which chronicles in pure logical language how everyone's memory was erased, and then see what happens.


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## clicheguevara (Jul 27, 2011)

None that I couldn't carry out within reasonable ethical boundaries just as well.


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## Sarin (Aug 30, 2011)

Bote said:


> Attempt brain transplants.
> 
> Test the effects of radiation poisoning and tolerance levels of the body.
> 
> ...


 
hehe

Well actually.. some data that has been gathered by Josef Mengele is still used today.
Normally, nobody would conduct the experiments he did.. but since the information became available after the war, people decided to use it because it was already done.

Most residual-current devices have a safetylimit based on the maximum tolerance of electric current through the human body.
That knowledge was gained by mengele.. he tested the limits of the human body by slowly increasing an electric current through it until the subject died.
Today's safetymeasures on high-voltage electrical devices are based on that knowledge.

He also did some research on hypothermia.. besides inflicting pain on humans, he wanted to find out the best way to combat hypothermia for pilots who where shot down above the North sea.
Some of that information is still used today to treat people, suffering from hypothermia.

I was wondering when the "Josef Mengele" would pop up.. 
When I started this thread, he was the first one that came to mind.


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## MXZCCT (May 29, 2011)

So, an expirement that would be ethically insane?

I would remove PerC from existence, and watch the chaotic aftermath with amusement.

Society would crumble.


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