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Michael Pollen talks about this in his book, How To Change Your Mind. It's insane how irresponsible Leary was. A good example is what's commonly called the Good

Michael Pollen talks about this in his book, How To Change Your Mind. It's insane how irresponsible Leary was. A good example is what's commonly called the Good Friday Experiment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_Chapel_Experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_Chapel_Experiment

dekhn 5y ago
I'm more concerned about the lack of random sampling: Leary and Alpert taught a class that was required for graduation and colleagues felt they were abusing their power by pressuring graduate students to take hallucinogens in the experiments. Leary and Alpert also went against policy by giving psychedelics to undergraduate students, and did not select participants through random sampling. It was also problematic that the researchers sometimes took hallucinogens along with the subjects they were supposed to be studying
gremloni 5y ago
Intuitively, we learnt a lot about human behavior when we were able to do those unethical experiments back in the 60s and 70s. Set us back yes, but “set us back” by being moving us forward unsustainably.
- Enginerrrd 5y ago
  The last several years, I've noticed there's been a lot of effort to debunk and discredit a lot of those unethical experiments. I'm still inclined to agree with you though.
- dekhn 5y ago
  I am not aware of any long-term legitimate findings in psychology research from the 60s or 70s (that would not be allowed today). Are you? My guess is all, or nearly all, have been debunked, or are non-reproducible for silly technical reasons.
  - gremloni 5y ago
    Just off the top of my head, the monkey in the dark funnel study, the mit prison experiment, the Stanley milgram experiment, the rat utopia/dystopia experiment, the little Albert experiment (1919), Leuba’s tickling experiment involving his son (1930s) etc.
    - dekhn 5y ago
      All of those studies are basically scientific garbage. They're just pop-culture tripe at this point. Each one has been invalidated, repeatedly, and for reasons that have nothing to do with medical ethics. Also the prison experiment was at Stanford.
      - roddyrockets 5y ago
        the Silver Spring monkeys experiment made inroads on treatments for stroke patients I believe
        dekhn 5y ago
        Thanks, I wasn't able to find that experiment based on the previous person's description. That experiment doesn't qualify, as we still do experiments more or less like that, it's animals not humans, and it's neuroscience, not psychiatry.
      - gremloni 5y ago
        That’s not true. At best you can say the Stanley milgram experiment was reanalyzed with a poor reproduction involving various amounts of money. Not nearly the same and definitely not conclusive. The little Albert study holds, the tickling study findings are still true, the Stanford prison experiment hasn’t been repudiated, the rat experiment has literally been reproduced outside of the US and the pit of despair findings still hold true. And yes, it was Stanford but it was off the top, I made a mistake.
        dekhn 5y ago
- colechristensen 5y ago
  Most of them didn’t really need to be unethical though. There are things you can learn either extremely slowly or extremely unethically, but it didn’t really seem to be the case with psychedelics. Things which could have been done responsibly were done recklessly, and not all that much time or effort was saved.
pvarangot 5y ago
It's hard to blame it on a single person. The Stanford Prison Experiment didn't involve any drugs and was as or even more irresponsible than Leary's messianic psychedelic mania fueled binge. The Stanford Prison Experiment was in 1971, Leary had already been indicted of multiple charges by that year if not in prison already, according to Wikipedia he was fired from Harvard in 1963. So eight whole years after Learys irresponsibility the ethical standards for human experimentation in psychology were still nowhere near to what they are today.
tayo42 5y ago
The perspective given in this book was really interesting to read. Way different the typical story you get out of drug communities

dekhn 5y ago

I'm more concerned about the lack of random sampling: Leary and Alpert taught a class that was required for graduation and colleagues felt they were abusing their power by pressuring graduate students to take hallucinogens in the experiments. Leary and Alpert also went against policy by giving psychedelics to undergraduate students, and did not select participants through random sampling. It was also problematic that the researchers sometimes took hallucinogens along with the subjects they were supposed to be studying

gremloni 5y ago

Intuitively, we learnt a lot about human behavior when we were able to do those unethical experiments back in the 60s and 70s. Set us back yes, but “set us back” by being moving us forward unsustainably.

Enginerrrd 5y ago
The last several years, I've noticed there's been a lot of effort to debunk and discredit a lot of those unethical experiments. I'm still inclined to agree with you though.
dekhn 5y ago
I am not aware of any long-term legitimate findings in psychology research from the 60s or 70s (that would not be allowed today). Are you? My guess is all, or nearly all, have been debunked, or are non-reproducible for silly technical reasons.
- gremloni 5y ago
  Just off the top of my head, the monkey in the dark funnel study, the mit prison experiment, the Stanley milgram experiment, the rat utopia/dystopia experiment, the little Albert experiment (1919), Leuba’s tickling experiment involving his son (1930s) etc.
  - dekhn 5y ago
    All of those studies are basically scientific garbage. They're just pop-culture tripe at this point. Each one has been invalidated, repeatedly, and for reasons that have nothing to do with medical ethics. Also the prison experiment was at Stanford.
    - roddyrockets 5y ago
      the Silver Spring monkeys experiment made inroads on treatments for stroke patients I believe
      - dekhn 5y ago
        Thanks, I wasn't able to find that experiment based on the previous person's description. That experiment doesn't qualify, as we still do experiments more or less like that, it's animals not humans, and it's neuroscience, not psychiatry.
    - gremloni 5y ago
      That’s not true. At best you can say the Stanley milgram experiment was reanalyzed with a poor reproduction involving various amounts of money. Not nearly the same and definitely not conclusive. The little Albert study holds, the tickling study findings are still true, the Stanford prison experiment hasn’t been repudiated, the rat experiment has literally been reproduced outside of the US and the pit of despair findings still hold true. And yes, it was Stanford but it was off the top, I made a mistake.
      - dekhn 5y ago
colechristensen 5y ago
Most of them didn’t really need to be unethical though. There are things you can learn either extremely slowly or extremely unethically, but it didn’t really seem to be the case with psychedelics. Things which could have been done responsibly were done recklessly, and not all that much time or effort was saved.

pvarangot 5y ago

It's hard to blame it on a single person. The Stanford Prison Experiment didn't involve any drugs and was as or even more irresponsible than Leary's messianic psychedelic mania fueled binge. The Stanford Prison Experiment was in 1971, Leary had already been indicted of multiple charges by that year if not in prison already, according to Wikipedia he was fired from Harvard in 1963. So eight whole years after Learys irresponsibility the ethical standards for human experimentation in psychology were still nowhere near to what they are today.

tayo42 5y ago

The perspective given in this book was really interesting to read. Way different the typical story you get out of drug communities