4 ms·
Presumably the fact that experimenting on oneself is not considered particularly ethical or repeatable for science?
by forestrywat 2mo ago
Presumably the fact that experimenting on oneself is not considered particularly ethical or repeatable for science?
- leni536 2mo agoIt's probably not ethical. How repeatable it is is for an experiment to decide, if it was possible to arrange ethically.
- yreg 2mo agoWhat's unethical about it? It sounds the locals consume it anyway. If the experiment is blind you can even tell the participants what is it about beforehand without losing too much validity.
- leni536 2mo agoI don't know much about standard ethical frameworks used in these kinds of experiments, but giving hallucinogens with unknown long term health effects to participants feels somewhat unethical to me. Also, to get stronger results you would probably want to conduct the experiment on participants who don't have an expectation of seeing little people, so that rules out locals or people who heard of or eaten the mushroom before.
- bonoboTP 2mo ago[flagged]
- UpsideDownRide 2mo agoThere were some very questionable experiments done in the name of science that lead to development of ethics guidelines. Being respectful of other people is hardly pearl clutching
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- anon48293 2mo agoEthics are just someone else’s opinion. Something isn’t ethical or unethical, somebody just doesn’t like it. They might have a reason for it at best.
- reichstein 2mo agoEthics is what people agree on. Not doing unnecessary harm is usually easily agreed on. Don't exploit people who know less it's also on the list. Doesn't mean we didn't learn something valuable from KZ camp experiments, we just don't think it outweighed the costs. And we don't like, or want to encourage, people who think it did. There are very strict rules for scientific experiments _because_ we know that without them, just guided by "common sense" or "be reasonable", someone would get blinded by ambition or "the potential" and go further than the majority want to accept. Anyone can "experiment" without it being an accepted scientific experiment. But then they're personally responsible for any and all bad outcomes. If you follow the rules and get the experiment pre-approved, you'll likely be covered by your employer's insurance and free from criminal liability . That's a very good incentive.
- anon48293 2mo agoBut people don’t agree on ethics. That’s the whole reason you have ethics boards. Otherwise the scientists wouldn’t need one since they already thought the same. I agree there ought to be rules, but ethics is just a word to make things sound fair when it’s just an authoritative decision, often taking bad arguments (like religious ones or public misconceptions) unnecessarily into account.
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- yreg 2mo agoThat's the feeling I got, that they've tried it out on themselves, but (understandably) neglect to mention it. Which is a shame, because the self-censorship isn't helpful in regards of getting to the bottom of this. But maybe I'm reading too much into it.
- dwattttt 2mo agoI'm not sure what ethical considerations come up when testing a medical hypothesis by self-administration. Famously Barry Marshall overturned decades of medical doctrine when he ingested helicobacter pylori, and demonstrated its role in gastritis (and I think providing evidence for peptic ulcers).
- derektank 2mo agoThere’s nothing unethical about self experimentation. There are many notable examples of it in the history of science. Most notable is probably Barry Marshall’s decision to self-dose with helicobacter pylori, in an effort to prove that the bacteria caused ulcers. They did, he treated himself with antibiotics, and he was later awarded a Nobel for the research. Werner Forssman also won a Nobel for work partially derived from self-applying a cardiac catheter.
- wraptile 2mo agoBarry Marshall's story is so iconic that I read it every time despite knowing it very well. That being said one claim here would be that allowing self-experimentation would pressure people into self experimenting due to how our academia and labs are structured these days i.e. a junior scientists could be pressured into self experimentation by their superiors. So this is definitely not as clear-cut as one might think.
- VBprogrammer 2mo ago> Barry Marshall's story is so iconic that I read it every time despite As someone who suffered badly with ulcers in my teens I'm particularly grateful for his work. One course of antibiotics and I never had that problem again.
- Zobat 2mo ago> Barry Marshall's story is so iconic... More so for him and his collaborator having dinner each year when the Nobel prizes were announced in anticipation of the call from the Nobel Prize Committee. Legends.
- kapep 2mo ago> There’s nothing unethical about self experimentation. If people get rewarded for self experimentation, either directly with prices or indirectly with fame and success, more people will try do it. That certainly does raise ethical concerns. It worked out for people you mentioned but there will be many others who might harm themselves doing it.
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- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- _joel 2mo agoYou need to learn about this guy then https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Shulgin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Shulgin
- mrgriscom 2mo agoSelf-experimentation allows one to conduct science without the imprimatur of the IRB. IRBs, in the name of ethics, fashion themselves as the sole arbiter of what science may be done. Ergo, any loophole that circumvents their authority is prima facie "unethical".