Human experimentation
I have been unethically experimented on, so of course I have a morbid fascination with the subject as a whole. My personal interests are mainly in the realm of documented military/government experiments, but also extend to "underground" experimentation performed by various cults, syndicates, corporations, and other unknown entities in the universe and include medical, psychological, technological, parapsychological, and psychotronic experimentation.
MEDICAL EXPERIMENTATION
Medical experimentation involves systematic, scientific investigation where human beings serve as subjects in medical research. Usually, the intention is to improve conditions of human health and well-being, but of course there is also the case of medical weaponization, which has the opposite intention. Documented experiments have been conducted both ethically with, and unethically without the knowledge or consent of the subjects. Types of research include observational research, interventional research, and quasi-experiments. Observational research is conducted by investigators who record observations and analyze data without intervening, focusing on aspects such as risk factors, disease progression, and disease treatments. Interventional research is conducted by investigators who manipulate the subjects or their environment in order to modify specific processes or results. The most common examples of this are clinical trials for new drugs and vaccines. A quasi-experiment is a type of interventional experiment where the participants are not randomly assigned, but fall under certain criteria, which can cause problems if the groups are different in ways that might affect the results, meaning they can't be compared fairly to prove cause and effect as strongly, but are still useful when a regular experiment isn't possible or ethical. Other ethical interventional research studies include Pragmatic Randomized Controlled Trials, designed to evaluate the effectiveness of interventions in the real world, and involve usual care interventions, Non-Randomized Studies on Intervention Effects, such as case-control studies (where two selected groups of people are compared, those with a condition or "cases", and those without or "controls") and observational cohort studies (where a group of people are studied over time that have a characteristic or lived experience in common, such as a birth year or geographic area), and Multi-Faceted Interventions, which involve more than one intervention strategy. Unethical studies often involve deception, lack of informed consent, and disregard for participants' well-being. Examples of this include the Tuskegee Syphilis Study (also known as "The Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male", where treatment was withheld from back men with syphilis without their informed consent), the Willowbrook Hepatitis Experiments (researchers deliberately infected mentally disabled children with hepatitis), and the Guatemala Syphilis Study (U.S. researchers intentionally infected Guatemalan prisoners, soldiers, and psychiatric patients with syphilis and gonorrhea without their consent).
PSYCHOLOGICAL EXPERIMENTATION
Psychological experimentation involves the use of scientific methods to collect data and interpret the impact of certain variables on the behavior and mental processes of individuals. This can involve manipulating one variable to determine if it influences another variable in the lab or in the "field" (public). Examples of documented ethical psychological experiments include the A Class Divided Study (conducted by Jane Elliot in 1968, designed to help her white students understand the effects of racism and prejudice. Elliot divided her class into separate groups based on eye color and the groups were treated differently based on their eye color to simulate discrimination), the Asch Conformity Study (conducted by Dr. Solomon Asch in 1951, designed to evaluate a person's likelihood to conform to a standard when there is pressure to do so, revealing that individuals often conform to the majority even when the majority is objectively wrong), the Robbers Cave Experiment (conducted by Muzafer Sherif, designed to demonstrate how prejudice and conflict can emerge between groups, but also how they can be overcome by focusing on common goals), The Halo Effect (cognitive bias based on a trait observed and how it influences assumption of character and sways judgement), and Cognitive Dissonance (the inner drive to hold all our attitudes and beliefs in harmony and avoid disharmony), all performed ethically with the informed consent of the participants. Documented examples of unethical psychological experimentation include The Monster Study (giving negative speech therapy to orphans, which resulted in psychological harm), and MKUltra (a CIA project that involved the use of LSD and other methods to attempt mind control). One interesting experiment that falls into an ethical grey area was The Stanford Prison Experiment. 24 male students were selected for their psychological stability and health and randomly assigned to play the role of either a prisoner or guard. The participants were fully aware that they were part of a study, but not of how it would unfold. A mock prison was set up in the basement of the Stanford University Psychology Department. The 'prisoners' were 'arrested' by actual police officers, fingerprinted, blindfolded, then taken to the 'prison'. The 'guards' were given uniforms, mirrored sunglasses, and batons, and were instructed to maintain order. The experiment was supposed to last two weeks, but it was terminated after six days due to the disturing behavior that emerged. The guards began to display authoritarian and abusive behavior, while the prisoners showed signs of extreme stress and anxiety. The experiment has been widely criticized for the mental and emotional harm caused to the participants, but has also had a significant impact on the field of social psychology. Other very common and mundane grey-area types of psychological experimentation and manipulation include the use of propaganda and advertising techniques.
TECHNOLOGICAL EXPERIMENTATION
Technological experimentation involves the application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes, and includes the design, production, and use of devices, machines, and techniques. Everyday experiments include beta testing software, medical devices, and public consultations on new infrastructure projects, but also the collection and analysis of personal data, such as online behavior and biometric information. Experiments in science also fall under this category. Less known to the public are various technological warfare experiments, especially playing around with the electromagnetic spectrum to produce various effects on populations. Both Russia and the U.S. have documented research on this subject, and if you live in Eugene, Oregon, you might know something about the Eugene Signal of the mid-1900s. That is a fascinating story about a microwave signal that was discovered in Eugene and found to be the cause of many disturbing experiences by the public, including burning skin and hearing voices.
PARAPSYCHOLOGICAL EXPERIMENTATION
Parapsychological experimentation is the study of alleged psychic and other paranormal phenomena such as ESP, telepathy, precognition, clairvoyance, reincarnation, and life after death. Examples of this kind of experimentation include Dr. Jim Tucker's Reincarnation Studies (working with children who have inexplicably recounted memories that were not their own and often linked with real-life individuals who lived before them in other places in the world), The Stargate Project (1978-late 1980s, a top-secret CIA experiment in remote viewing, the ability to see or sense events from a distance), Daryl Bem's Psi Experiments (2011, nine experiments were published showing evidence of retrocausal information transfer, and in 2016 a meta-analysis containing 81 independent replications of the original Bern experiments was published), and Robert Hare's Mediumship Studies (1853, experiments with mediums that reported positive results but were later criticized as flawed due to lack of controls to prevent trickery).
PSYCHOTRONIC EXPERIMENTATION
Psychotronics is a field of study that mixes psychology, parapsychology, and technology. Some of these experiments include computer assisted and synthetic telepathy, and using various forms of technology to influence human behavior. There is not a lot of official documentation on this field, and in general, people who report personal experiences are dismissed as either paranoid or delusional. In their defense, nobody wants to believe that anyone would do such a thing, or that they would get away with it if they tried (unless of course nobody was aware of such a possibility or willing to put the effort and resources into investigating it, and those who were thought it best not to make it into the public's awareness until further research could be obtained without intervention... something that has never before happened in the history of humanity ever). Hypnosis would also fall under the psychotronics category, as it can be induced with technology, with or without the subject's consent or awareness and used to obtain information, and manipulate behavior and perception, for therapeutic, purely experimental, or even tactical reasons.
Part of why I am so interested in both sides of human experimentation is that, objectively (moral and cultural values aside), you can learn a lot from both ethical and unethical experimentation, and sometimes the results are actually significant enough to impact civilization for the better, even if that result is simply to raise the general public's awareness enough that evidence of unethical experimentation conducted by legitimate and illegitimate organizations can be discovered and dealt with accordingly in the future. Also, accidents happen, and the universe is full of serendipitous moments, and it fascinates me how both good and bad intentions can pull both miraculous and terrifying results. If you ask me how I feel about experimentation today, I'd say it's a moral grey area, but it's something I want to know about if it's still happening right now. And it is, both ethically and unethically, privately and commercially, for a myriad of reasons; some altruistic for the sake of civilization, some strategic and defensive or offensive for the sake of winning some future war, some just lucrative and for the love of power and control. I focused here on documented cases, but these cases highlight the human tendency to mess around and find out, and that goes far beyond and below the tip of the iceberg we know as mainstream society, business and government. If I choose to continue this blog, I will also get into the worlds of amateur and criminal experimentation, but for now I think this has been educational enough.
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