20 Studies That Would Be Immensely Valuable, If Wildly Unethical

‘Human head transplant onto a gorilla body’
20 Studies That Would Be Immensely Valuable, If Wildly Unethical

Back in its early days, science was a bit of a wild west, both in terms of men in funny hats shooting at each other and also a lack of laws and regulations. You wanna cut open some poor people and see what’s inside? Go for it. Traumatize children for life? They’ll toughen up. Give some minorities some diseases? You’ll have to fight the government to get there first.

Nowadays, we have silly little “ethics boards” and “human rights,” which is a good thing. Mostly. It does mean there’s a whole lot of questions we’ll never have the answers to because it would mean doing horrific things to living beings, but their lives are more important than science, right? Right. Right?

User numbnesstolife must have been feeling similarly conflicted, because they asked r/AskReddit, “What’s a scientific experiment you’d be fascinated to see the results of but could never be conducted due ethical concerns?”

ylf_nac_i 3y ago Nuking the moon
3y ago Human head transplant onto a gorilla body.
Зу ago I'm not sure that it's unethical, but I'd like to train gorillas to lift weights. Just to see how big they can get
HumanGomJabbar Зу ago Start modifying random genes to see if we could create super powers.
Зу ago Concieving and rising a baby in space to see the effects on the body...
SmegmaLollipop Зу ago The maximum height you can safely let a baby fall on its head with little to no permanent damage
nickolas16 3y ago I'd like to see if a plant could grow inside an animal being fully integrated but without harming the host
Hashtag_buttstuff 3y ago How many 6 year olds could a grown man beat in a fight at the same time?
lamcryingontheinside Зу ago How many people would i need to throw off the empire state building before the pile is big enough for them to survive the fall
scarydan365 3y ago Clone a serial killer ten times. Put each baby in a different family with different upbringings. See if any of them become serial killers.
popejubal 3y ago I'd love to see the results of more twins studies done under controlled circumstances, but splitting up twins just because I'm curious about what makes people tick.
Historical_Collar_33 3y ago How a child would turn out with exactly 0 human contact, just very basic necessities met by robots. It would be interesting to see exactly how animalistic we are at the core
jackiepoo0804 Зу ago It would be cool if we could somehow bring back different species of human that went extinct. Like Neanderthals, denisovans, etc. and see how they'd differ, if at all, from us if raised in a modern society. It's been talked about, but likely will never happen due to ethical concerns.
Зу ago My brother and I have talked a lot about a special version of the Olympics where the competitors can use whatever and however many performance enhancing drugs they want just to push the absolute limits of what humans can do. We figure it probably wouldn't pan out though, since most of the athletes would probably just push themselves to death.
3y ago Edited Зу ago Finding out more about the Sentinelese language and culture. Yes, I agree that we should leave them alone, not force them to integrate into our society etc., but it would be fascinating to send a drone or drones with hidden cameras and sound recorders there. Perhaps this would have to be a very well- disguised drone, maybe disguised as a bird or fly or something. Maybe that would work as the neighbouring tribes are known to have a taboo against eating birds, and we are somewhat certain that the Sentinelese have some degree of
10sansari Зу ago I'd like to see an experiment where a child is brought up believing a fictional piece of work like Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings is a real religion. Think of it like the Truman Show, but instead of a show it's just a household that worships Nic Cage or something. It would be interesting to see how behaviour would deviate and/or be similar to other religious groups.
mbrogan4 3y ago Push the limits of death. Find out what happens the moment of death, and how that is different for different forms of death. The closest thing we can get to currently is put dying cancer patient under a huge battery of tests, brain scans, MRI scans all at the moment she/he is passing away. Absolutely disgusting thought. But, death is arguably the largest fear of any and all peoples. And we know next to nothing about it. Apart from the best possible ways to avoid it which is basically modern medicine in a nutshell.
Cyractacus Зу ago I am interested to know how much you can spread a human being out and still keep them alive and concious. If you had a way to keep the connections and blood flowing fast enough, could a mans lungs be kept in one case while his nose is kept on a shelf across the room? Could his eyes be connected via artificially extended nerves such that they are 5 ft apart? 50 ft? Could medical science sustain functional intestines if they were spread out lengthwise instead of all bunched up? Could science keep such a man alive
3y ago Any experiment that checks to see if a medicine is safe for pregnant ladies to consume... Would require trials of pregnant ladies consuming the medications before we knew the medications were completely safe. There are precious few Pregnancy Category A medicines. Most medications (like acetaminophen aka tylenol) given to pregnant women are under Category B, Animal reproduction studies have failed to demonstrate a risk to the fetus and there are no adequate and well-controlled studies in pregnant women.
Readinll Зу ago See if we can persuade a group of wolves to raise a child.

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