The Tuskegee study on syphilis is one of the most known ethical controversies related to psychology. It was a forty year study on 399 African-American men who had syphilis left untreated. During the study over 125 men died of syphilis related complications and many other people were infected with syphilis.
It is amazing how this study was allowed to happen. According to the Tuskegee University website the men in the study had no idea what kind of study they were in or what the name of the study was. The men that were involved were not given informed consent of the procedures which is against research protocol.
Also many people have problems with animal research. They don't like the fact that some of the procedures are invasive which will cause physical harm to the animals. In my opinion animal research can be very helpful in many different fields of science including psychology. The brains of the animals are able to help psychologists by seeing how the brain relates to behavior. I also think that some animal research is too invasive. These invasive procedures lead to the death of these animals where they would still be healthy if the procedure wasn't done.
From the story of the Tuskegee study to many of the invasive animal studies many ethical problems have come about in research. Although some of the research can be very useful, is it worth the cost?
Ethical Issues in Research
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What's interesting is that we wouldn't know a lot of things without invasive, unethical research...during the holocaust there were many experiments performed on the people in the concentration camps, and we actually learned a lot of information about the human body during the experiments. I'm NOT saying I agree with what they did (I don't, at all!) but it's interesting to hear what people think is ethical/unethical when it comes to research. If it saves billions of lives and only harms one, does that make it unethical, or ethical? And like you said, is it worth the cost?
Good stuff mate, its funny that as humans we have all the power in the animal world, we can use animals as much as we want. But just because we are capable of using all these animals doesn't mean we should. Unfortunately as of right now the best way we have to test is animals. Hopefully in the future we can develop the technology to test/observe psychological concepts without having to harm living beings.
Awesome topic...not a great thing, but syphilis is one of my favorite subjects because it's so simply ridiculous that it even still exists! Just like it's totally ridiculous for that study to have happened. To me it just shows the dangers of science (I'm not a religious zealot or anything) but seriously, icky things have and continue to be done in the name of research, science, religion, and "progress" in general. Icksville.
Hello,
I thought this topic was really interesting when I read it. I agree with you that it is really amazing how much people can get away with. I also felt that it was suspicious that all the men who were a part of that "study" were African Americans.
Other than that, I also agree with you that animal research is wrong to a certain extent, but sometimes we do need it. That's why I feel that to some extent it is worth the cost, but not in all cases.
Great blog!
Yer