Camryn Franke

Dr. Katherine Maloney

Theory of knowledge

24 March 2017

What limits should ethics place on social science research?

In recent years, the ethical limits placed on social science research have become more extensive. Today there are many rules that need to be followed when carrying out an experiment. These rules could be seen as both positive and negative. Positive because they protect the rights of living organisms but yet they are also negative as they limit us from advancing our knowledge in very specific areas. For example: the effect that extreme stress can have on a living being. The knowledge gained from this example would be extremely helpful in terms of determining ways to help living beings suffering from stress, however in order to gain this knowledge living beings would have to be put through extreme stress which could be viewed as unethical and harmful. Looking at past research experiments, it is evident that there weren’t always this many rules when it came to experimentation and many of these experiments have been labeled as unethical and cruel yet they made groundbreaking discoveries that still benefit us today and from them, we can also advance this knowledge. It can be seen that some researchers felt the only way to gain new, accurate, beneficial knowledge, was to be unethical. Perhaps they felt that the number of living beings harmed would be a lot less than the number of people or animals that would benefit from the study and so overall it would be a win rather than a loss. Nowadays, our society seems to have a clear understanding of what we should not do in terms of ethics however, it cannot be ignored that in the past, ‘unethical’ research experiments made huge breakthroughs and gained us valuable information. Furthermore, one could question the limits that ethics should place on social science research especially if the findings will be beneficial to society and that by placing caps on research methods, we may not be able to advance our knowledge in the field of human beings. Personally, I feel that hurtful or harmful studies can be done only if permission is given from the test subjects and more importantly I feel that no animal should be used to replace a human and that the organism being tested on should be the organism that researchers are trying to find out about.

Claim:

Ethics should place limits on the use of living beings in research done in the social science field. Nowadays, Animals testing has skyrocketed. Many people argue that animals are not an accurate way of attaining knowledge about humans as they are very different in terms of genetics and therefore it is very unethical to use them as test subjects. Some researchers say that it is a good way as the animal they are using shares 99% of our genetic material but clearly, even that minute difference makes us completely different and therefore there is no reason for us to harm animals for no reason. One may ask what the point is in harming hundreds or even thousands of animals when the results won’t necessarily be enough to help humans because the animal used is not identical to ourselves. Also, many believe that it is greatly unethical to use animals in experimentation because they are living beings too meaning that feel pain just as much as we do and can even die from stress. Most importantly, animals cannot vouch for themselves not to be tested on and so it is not right for us to decide for them. It is not ethical for us to harm animals for the sake of gaining new knowledge, but also it is not ethical to harm humans for the sake of gaining new knowledge. For example, in 1969 there was an experiment conducted on a group of monkeys to determine the effect of addiction and drug use. The monkeys were taught how to inject themselves with harmful drugs such as cocaine and morphine. After learning how to inject themselves, the monkeys were supplied with large quantities of such drugs. The harmful effect of the drugs could be seen clearly. Some of the monkeys that were heavily dosing themselves showed disturbing symptoms, were experiencing strong hallucinations and even broke and tore their limbs while attempting to escape. Within two weeks, all the monkeys had died from an overdose. (Listverse, 2017) This experiment was conducted in order to better understand the effects of drugs, however, the way in which it was conducted can be viewed as unethical and unnecessary to put such animals through pain when there were other ways of collecting such information. They simply could have taken actual drug addicts and monitored them.

Counter claim:

Ethics should not place limits on the use of living beings in research in the social science field. In order to be able to accurately understand how we are programmed and the living beings around us, sometimes it is necessary to carry out unpleasant experiments to obtain knowledge that will help many people. For example, in 1939 a research experiment was conducted on a group of orphaned children in Iowa to determine if labeling someone, could impact their speech. Twenty-two orphaned children were split into two groups: an experimental group and a controlled group. Prior to the experiment some of these children were normal speakers, while others were already stutterers. Both normal speakers and stutterers were placed in each group. 11 children received praise for their ability to articulate and the good way in which they spoke, while the other 11 were told that their speech was not of the correct standard and that they were stutterers. The outcome: some of the normal speaking children that received negative comments, developed speech difficulties. The children who were stutterers to begin with and received the negative comments became progressively worse. Neither the orphanage, nor the children were told the true intent of the experiment. This experiment is now known as the monster study as it was unethical. (Listverse, 2017) However, the lack of ethical limits was the reason why it was so successful in answering the research question and because of this study, we know the negative impacts of labelling and perhaps we might have never acquired if this experiment wasn’t done. It is important that we test on living beings

Conclusion:

Nowadays, certain American associations, dealing with ethics in psychology experiments, have become stricter and have listed many rules that experimenters must respect. These rules ensure that no humans are harmed at all, however the rules regarding animal testing are not so prominent. Testing on living beings is ultimately unethical and should limit research in the social sciences however I feel that it is important to test on living beings in order to obtain valuable and helpful knowledge as long as animals aren’t being supplemented for humans.

 Works cited:

"Top 10 Unethical Psychological Experiments - Listverse". Listverse. N. p., 2008. Web. 16 Mar. 2017

Camryn Franke

Dr. Katherine Maloney

Theory of knowledge

18 November 2016

What limits should ethics place on social science research?

In recent years, the ethical limits placed on social science research have become more extensive. Today there are many rules that need to be followed when carrying out an experiment. These rules could be seen as both positive and negative. Positive because they protect the rights of living organisms but yet they are also negative as they limit us from advancing our knowledge in very specific areas. For example, the effect that extreme stress can have on a living being. The knowledge gained from this example would be extremely helpful in terms of determining ways to help living beings suffering from stress, however in order to gain this knowledge living beings would have to be put through extreme stress which could be viewed as unethical and harmful. Looking at past research experiments, it is evident that there weren’t always this many rules when it came to experimentation and many of these experiments have been labeled as unethical and cruel yet they made groundbreaking discoveries that still benefit us today and from them we can also advance this knowledge. It can be seen that some researchers felt the only way to gain new, accurate, beneficial knowledge, was to be unethical. Perhaps they felt that the number of living beings harmed would be a lot less than the number of people or animals that would benefit from the study and so overall it would be a win rather than a loss. Nowadays, our society seems to have a clear understanding of what we should not do in terms of ethics however, it cannot be ignored that in the past, ‘unethical’ research experiments made huge breakthroughs and gained us valuable information. Furthermore, one could question the limits that ethics should place on social science research especially if the findings will be beneficial to society and that by placing caps on research methods, we may not be able to advance our knowledge in the field of human beings. Personally, I feel that hurtful or harmful studies can be done only if permission is given from the test subjects and more importantly I feel that no animal should be used to replace a human and that the organism being tested on should be the organism that researchers are trying to find out about.

Claim:

Ethics should place limits on the use of living beings in research done in the social science field. Nowadays, Animals testing has sky rocketed. Many people argue that animals are not an accurate way of attaining knowledge about humans as they are very different in terms of genetics and therefore it is very unethical to use them as test subjects. Some researchers say that it is a good way as the animal they are using shares 99% of our genetic material but clearly, even that minute difference makes us completely different and therefore there is no reason for us to harm animals for no reason. One may ask what the point is in harming hundreds or even thousands of animals when the results won’t necessarily enough to help humans because they animal used I not identical to ourselves. Also, many believe that it is greatly unethical to use animals in experimentation because they are living beings too meaning that feel pain just as much as we do and can even die from stress. Most importantly, animals cannot vouch for themselves not to be tested on and so it is not right for us to decide for them. It is not ethical for us to harm animals for the sake of gaining new knowledge, but also it is not ethical to harm humans for the sake of gaining new knowledge. For example, in 1969 there was an experiment conducted on a group of monkeys to determine the effect of addiction and drug use. The monkeys were taught how to inject themselves with harmful drugs such as cocaine and morphine. After learning how to inject themselves, the monkeys were supplied with large quantities of such drugs. The harmful effect of the drugs could be seen clearly. Some of the monkeys that were heavily dosing themselves showed disturbing symptoms, were experiencing strong hallucinations and even broke and tore their limbs while attempting to escape. Within two weeks, all the monkeys had died from an overdose. This experiment was conducted in order to better understand the effects of drugs, however, the way in which it was conducted can be viewed as unethical and unnecessary to put such animals through pain when there were other ways of collecting such information. They simply could have taken actual drug addicts and monitored them.

Counter claim:

Ethics should not place limits on the use of living beings in research in the social science field. In order to be able to accurately understand how we are programmed and the living beings around us, sometimes it is necessary to carry out unpleasant experiments to obtain knowledge that will help many people. For example, in 1939 a research experiment was conducted on a group of orphaned children in Iowa to determine if labeling someone, could impact their speech. Twenty-two orphaned children were split into two groups: an experimental group and a controlled group. Prior to the experiment some of these children were normal speakers, while others were already stutterers. Both normal speakers and stutterers were placed in each group. 11 children received praise for their ability to articulate and the good way in which they spoke, while the other 11 were told that their speech was not of the correct standard and that they were stutterers. The outcome: some of the normal speaking children that received negative comments, developed speech difficulties. The children who were stutterers to begin with and received the negative comments became progressively worse. Neither the orphanage, nor the children were told the true intent of the experiment. This experiment is now known as the monster study as it was unethical. However, the lack of ethical limits was the reason why it was so successful in answering the research question and because of this study, we know the negative impacts of labeling and perhaps we might have never acquired if this experiment wasn’t done. It is important that we test on living beings

Conclusion:

Nowadays, certain American associations, dealing with ethics in psychology experiments, have become stricter and have listed many rules that experimenters must respect. These rules ensure that no humans are harmed at all, however the rules regarding animal testing are not so prominent. Testing on living beings is ultimately unethical and should limit research in the social sciences however I feel that it is important to test on living beings in order to obtain valuable and helpful knowledge as long as animals aren’t being supplemented for humans.

 Works cited:

"Top 10 Unethical Psychological Experiments - Listverse". Listverse. N. p., 2008. Web. 16 Mar. 2017

Camryn Franke

Dr. Katherine Maloney

Theory of knowledge

18 November 2016

What limits should ethics place on social science research?

In recent years, the ethical limits placed on social science research have become more extensive. Today there are many rules that need to be followed when carrying out an experiment. These rules could be seen as both positive and negative. Positive because they protect the rights of living organism but yet they are also negative as they limit us from advancing our knowledge in very specific areas. For example, the effect that extreme stress can have on a living being. The knowledge gained from this example would be extremely helpful in terms of determining ways to help living beings suffering from stress, however in order to gain this knowledge living beings would have to be put through extreme stress which could be viewed as unethical and harmful. Looking at past research experiments, it is evident that there weren’t always this many rules when it came to experimentation and many of these experiments have been labeled as unethical and cruel yet they made groundbreaking discoveries that still benefit us today and from them, we can also advance this knowledge. It can be seen that some researchers felt the only way to gain new, accurate, beneficial knowledge, was to be unethical. Perhaps they felt that the number of living beings harmed would be a lot less than the number of people or animals that would benefit from the study and so overall it would be a win rather than a loss. Nowadays, our society seems to have a clear understanding of what we should not do in terms of ethics however, it cannot be ignored that in the past, ‘unethical’ research experiments made huge breakthroughs and gained us valuable information. Furthermore, one could question the limits that ethics should place on social science research especially if the findings will be beneficial to society and that by placing caps on research methods, we may not be able to advance our knowledge in the field of human beings. Personally, I feel that hurtful or harmful studies can be done only if permission is given from the test subjects and more importantly I feel that no animal should be used to replace a human and that the organism being tested on should be the organism that researchers are trying to find out about.

Claim:

Ethics should place limits on the use of living beings in research done in the social science field. Nowadays, Animals testing has skyrocketed. Many people argue that animals are not an accurate way of attaining knowledge about humans as they are very different in terms of genetics and therefore it is very unethical to use them as test subjects. Some researchers say that it is a good way as the animal they are using shares 99% of our genetic material but clearly, even that minute difference makes us completely different and therefore there is no reason for us to harm animals for no reason. One may ask what the point is in harming hundreds or even thousands of animals when the results won’t necessarily enough to help humans because they animal used I not identical to ourselves. Also, many believe that it is greatly unethical to use animals in experimentation because they are living beings too meaning that feel pain just as much as we do and can even die from stress. Most importantly, animals cannot vouch for themselves not to be tested on and so it is not right for us to decide for them. It is not ethical for us to harm animals for the sake of gaining new knowledge, but also it is not ethical to harm humans for the sake of gaining new knowledge. For example, in 1969 there was an experiment conducted on a group of monkeys to determine the effect of addiction and drug use. The group was trained to inject themselves with an assortment of drugs such as morphine and cocaine. Once they learned how to injected themselves, the monkeys were left with a large supply of each drug. Some of the monkeys were so disturbed that they broke their arms while trying to escape and others tore off their own fingers. Within two weeks all the monkeys had died from an overdose. The point of the experiment was simply to understand the effects of addiction and drug use; a point which many rational and ethical people would know did not require such horrendous treatment of animals. They simply could have taken actual drug addicts and monitored them.

Counter claim:

Ethics should not place limits on the use of living beings in research in the social science field. In order to be able to accurately understand how we are programmed and the living beings around us, sometimes it is necessary to carry out unpleasant experiments to obtain knowledge that will help many people. For example, in 1939 a research experiment was conducted on a group of orphaned children in Iowa to determine if labeling someone, could impact their speech. Twenty-two orphaned children were placed in control and experimental groups. Half received positive speech therapy, praising the fluency of their speech, while the other half received negative speech therapy, belittling them for every speech imperfection and telling them they were stutterers. The outcome: many of the normal speaking children who received negative speech therapy suffered negative psychological effects and others retained speech difficulties in their later lives. The children who were stutterers to begin with and received the negative speech therapy became progressively worse. Neither the orphanage nor the children were told the true intent of the experiment. This experiment is now known as the monster study as it was unethical. However, the lack of ethical limits was the reason why it was so successful in answering the research question and because of this study, we know the negative impacts of labeling and perhaps we might have never acquired if this experiment wasn’t done. It is important that we test on living beings

Conclusion:

Nowadays, the American Psychological Association has a Code of Conduct in place when it comes to ethics in psychological experiments. Experimenters must adhere to various rules pertaining to everything from confidentiality to consent to overall beneficence. These rules ensure that no humans are harmed at all, however, the rules regarding animal testing are not so prominent. Testing on living beings is ultimately unethical and should limit research in the social sciences however I feel that it is important to test on living beings in order to obtain valuable and helpful knowledge as long as animals aren’t being supplemented for humans.

 Works cited:

"Top 10 Unethical Psychological Experiments - Listverse". Listverse. N. p., 2008. Web. 16 Mar. 2017

To what extent was this study "scientific"? What does it mean for something to be "scientific"?

I feel that is 'experiment' was not scientific at all. The only scientific characteristic of this 'experiment' is that there was a research question which asked if an ape could be taught to communicate, other than that there was no kind of data collection or observational data that was physically recorded. I feel that for something to be scientific, it needs to be: methodical, systematic, well-organized, orderly, meticulous, rigorous and controlled. Furthermore, it should also consider the ethical implications before carrying out any experiments. The Nim project definitely did not consider ethics and because of this, there were consequences as we saw in the documentary, Nim started to become very aggressive and dangerous. Overall I feel that it was a cruel project that gained lots money making them continue for pleasure rather than it resembling anything of a scientific experiment.  

Am I a confident idiot ?

I would like to agree that I'm not a confident idiot, but by saying I'm not one….doesn't that mean I'm probably being one ?.  The article mentions that 'The American author and aphorist William Feather once wrote that being educated means “being able to differentiate between what you know and what you don’t.” As it turns out, this simple ideal is extremely hard to achieve' I'd like to believe that I know what I don’t know, for example….I don’t know anything about math, math and……..math but then again I can count to 100 and add numbers between 1-10….I mean that’s pretty impressive come on ! 

Sadly, if I were to analyse myself truthfully I most certainly am a confident idiot. In fact when I was younger, I had no problem acting like I knew everything when actually all I knew for certain was that you should never talk to strangers and not to eat food off the ground…well because that’s disgusting! Even currently I feel that I tend to overestimate my knowledge on topics that I have only touched on. But even though one is simply scraping the surface of those topics, don’t you still know something about them ? Or am I just being a confident idiot ? 

I think as human beings we stretch our knowledge because we hate the feeling of not knowing. We'd rather make something up and tell ourselves that we know everything than admit that we actually know nothing and that we are just a speck of dust in the universe. If you really think about it, if you were to disappear from the earth nothing would really change, I mean your family and friends would be affected but the world wouldn’t end just because you're gone and that fact scares people. It scares people to know just how unnoticed we actually are and somehow people just don’t want to accept that, we want the whole world to know who we are so we try to make ourselves stand out and be more superior by showing our intellect and knowledge. We are all trying to prove something…. the only problem is that everyone is ….so really  we are actually proving nothing. 

We as humans don’t like to feel insignificant and for that reason we try to show that we are important than others by saying we have all this knowledge that no one else has. All we want to do is stand out…even if that means claiming to know about the scientific concepts of 'plates of parallax, ultra-lipid, and cholarine.' so yes, I most certainly am a confident idiot and so are you.

I most closely identify with the sentiment "Ignorance is bliss". I was so happy about so many things until I learned about them. Here are some examples:

1: I thought that I was eating a healthy diet. I ate lots of fresh fruit and vegetables such as tomatoes and avocados. My idea that I was eating healthfully came to an abrupt halt when a I learned about the "Eat right for your blood type diet". My blood type is O positive. I am not supposed to be eating, among other foods, avocados and tomatoes. Knowledge shattered my feeling of bliss that I was eating a healthy diet.

2: Until I was about ten, I truly believed that Santa Claus and the Easter bunny were real. It was so great to think that they brought joy to children all over the world and that Santa was always only too glad to lend a listening ear to my Christmas wishes. It was only when late one Christmas Eve when I busted by parents putting gifts under the Christmas tree (they tried to say that they were helping Santa's Elves but I did not buy it) and when I found my mother's Easter Bunny footprint maker that I learned that Santa and the Easter Bunny did not exist. It was more fun and magical when I was ignorant of this.

3: Before I knew any better, I used to love jelly worms. I loved their texture and enjoyable it was to squish them between my teeth. But then I found out that they were made out of gelatin and, even worse, I found out what gelatin is made of. According to food expert website popsugar.com, gelatin is a tasteless and odourless substance that is made up by boiling the leftovers of meat processors: skin, cartilage and bones from animals. Yuk! Once I knew what jelly worms are made of, I could no longer eat them. I was much happier not knowing! 

TED talk reflection

 what are Shermer's primary claims?

• We have a tendency to see faces
• Humans are pattern seeking
• Auditory allusions - people hear what they want to hear

which real-life situations/examples did you find most powerful in terms of illustrating these claims?

• The face on mars.

In 1976 there was a large movement for NASA to photograph an area of the moon as people thought it was a piece of architecture made by extra-terrestrial life forms, when actually it was just a mound with protruding parts making it appear as a face

• The Virgin Mary in Clearwater Florida.

The silhouette of the Virgin Mary appeared to be on the side of the building. Many people of the religious community came to see this holy sight . Thousands of candles were laid out in front of the building and lit in tribute of the Virgin Mary. After an investigation of the building, Shermer, Dawkins and Randi concluded that wherever there was a palm tree and sprinkler, the image would appear

• Film white noise with Michael Keaton about the dead talking back. Supposedly there is a hidden demonic message in the song 'stairway to heaven'. Shermer plays a snippet of the song. The songs reads:

Keaton then plays the snippet backwards without displaying the words of the reversed version, the only clear word that can be hear is 'Satan'. He then plays it again, displaying the 'supposed' massage:

Now that the audience can see the words that they are supposed to hear, the words can be heard clearly. 

which areas of knowledge were the real-life situations/examples primarily drawn from?

• Our search for meaning in terms of not being the only intelligent life form in the galaxy and that intelligent life would 'resemble us'
• Religious knowledge: In the Christian faith the Virgin Mary  is and always has been a symbol of hope.
• The belief that evil exists and the belief that everything has a deeper meaning.

do you agree or disagree with Shermer's primary claims and why?

Yes I definitely agree with Shermer's claims

According to research, one reason could just be that we see so many faces in our day-to-day lives, we’re expecting to see them everywhere. 

“Starting from childhood, they are the most common stimuli that we encounter in everyday life,” There could also be deeper, evolutionary reasons for why we are especially prone to see faces. Human survival depends so heavily on others – whether we need their help,

Other research suggests that the brain, being hard-wired to understand people and their motivations, tries to look for human-like intention in everything around us. In a bid to make sense of our fears, we begin to personify them, filling the world with gods and demons.

Interesting study that contributes to this:

A study was done on the appearance of cars, these two images were shown

Two groups of people were asked; Europeans and Ethiopians. The Ethiopian group had never seen any Disney movies about cars yet both groups' results were the same. The top car looks like a happy face and that cars with big windscreen, round headlights and a small grill tend to be considered young and feminine while the second car appeared to be angry and that cars with flatter headlights and a bigger, squarer under-body are older and more masculine.

From the moment of birth, the brain is trained to search for and recognise patterns. We are always looking for patterns and then connect a meaning to it. For example: putting a bird in a box with two buttons, after pecking each one it receives a treat. It does that again and gets another. The bird now associates that sequence with getting food so it will continue this pattern.  Humans are the same, in fact, it is highly unlikely that baby will reply/react without a goofy grin from a human. The brain has no restrictions on this pattern seeking, it sees patterns where there is almost no information to present one, and it sees patterns when there are not any, palm reading, for instance. In his book “ How we Believe” Michael Shermer argues that human brains are belief engines- kind of pattern recognition machines that connect the dots and create meaning out of the patterns that they see, observe and come across in nature.

The brain can be fooled by the ears just as it can be fooled by the eyes. The main difference is, we're quicker to realise that our eyes are fooling us. Humans hear what they want to hear or what they think they are hearing. An experiment was done to prove this: a man was filmed saying the word 'bar, bar, bar'. He then says 'far, far, far' In fact the audio didn’t change between the two takes. In the second he was silently saying 'far, far, far' but the word 'bar' was being played. Because he make the 'f'  sound with his lips we heard 'far'. The clip then plays the two next to each other. Depending on the one you look at is the thing your hear. It shows that we hear what we think we are hearing and seeing. 

 <http://io9.gizmodo.com/the-science-of-audio-illusions-or-fooling-peoples-ear-1530377318>

<http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140730-why-do-we-see-faces-in-objects>

<https://www.quora.com/What-does-this-quote-mean-Humans-are-pattern-seeking-animals-and-we-are-adept-at-finding-patterns-whether-they-exist-or-not%E2%80%9D>
 <http://matus1976.com/science/pattern_seeking/page1.htm>