Most Shocking Scientific Experiments
1. UCLA study of schizophrenia. A group of scientists in UCLA University were testing new medications on patients with schizophrenia. The scientists promised to stop the study and return patients back to hospitals if the medications would have a significant side effects. However, it seems that the word “significant” is very subjective - one patieent almost killed his parents, another patient jumped out the window.
2. Blue/Brown Eyes Experiment. Jane Elliott became known for her "Blue eyes/Brown eyes" exercise, which she first conducted with her third-grade class on April 5, 1968, the day after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. She divided students in her class in two groups. A group of students with brown eyes and a group with blue eyes. She asked students with brown eyes to sit in the back and students with blue eyes had to sit in the front. The students with blue yes would also get more time for break, better lunches etc. As a result of the experiment, academic performance of students with brown eyes significantly dicreased.
3. Jail. Long time ago there was a lab in Soviet Union named “Jail”. In this study center scientists were conducting experiemnts on prisoners who were sentenced to death. They used poison, drugs and other methods to test their effectiveness on prisoners. The strongest poison that they used was K-2. According to the witnesses, after injecting K-2, prisoners would become shorter in height, weaker, and silent. In 15 minutes they would die. Inteerestingly, it was impossible to detect K-2 in the organism.
4. MK-ULTRA. It was an experiment conducted by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The goal of the experiement was to find if we can control human consciousness. To find the answer, the scientists were injecting LSD into prostitutes.
5. Free Will. The experiments conducted by Benjamin Libet showed that the decisions to behave in a particular way are influenced by unconscious process in our brain. Though the experiement is controversial, the scientist managed to prove that “free will” is simply an illusion.
6. Feeling the Future. In 2010, Daryl Bem, a psychologst, published a study based on 8 years of observations. Bem argued that a person can predict the future. Moreover, the events that havent happened yet influence our behavior in present.
7. David Reimer. David and his twin brother Brian were referred for circumcision at the age of seven months. The procedure did not go as doctors had planned, and David's penis was burned beyond surgical repair. The doctors chose not to operate on Brian, whose phimosis soon cleared without surgical intervention. The doctor recommended parents to raise David as a girl. He prescribed medications and therapy. Later, it appeared that the doctor was conducting an experiment. He wanted to prove that the gender is influenced by nurture not nature. David found out about the experiment when he was 14 years old. He returned to being male. However, because of the psychological trauma, David committed suicide.
8. Group Effect. A group of scientists were trying to find out why one person are willing to help more often than a group of people. The participants were put in a room that would be gradually filled with smoke. When there was one person in a room he would immediately start screaming, notifying scientists about the smoke. However, a group of people kept silence longer. The scientists argued that each person in a group is observing others waiting for their action.