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Least extreme biophysics phd (lemmy.dbzer0.com)

submitted 1 day ago by fossilesque@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/science_memes@mander.xyz

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[-] Endymion_Mallorn@kbin.melroy.org 161 points 1 day ago

If a person's criticism is of "ethics" in general, that individual should not be allowed in a position of authority or trust. If you have a specific constraint for which you can make a case that it goes too far and hinders responsible science and growth (and would have repeatable, reliable results), then state the specific point clearly and the arguments in your favor.

[-] militaryintelligence@lemmy.world 8 points 21 hours ago

Best I can do is generalization

[-] ricecake@sh.itjust.works 30 points 1 day ago

And we already have a safety valve for when conventional ethics is standing in the way of vital research: the researchers test on themselves.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-experimentation_in_medicine

If it's that vital, surely you would do it to yourself?

It's not terribly common because most useful research is perfectly ethical, but we have a good number of cases of researchers deciding that there's no way for someone to ethically volunteer for what they need to do, so they do it to themselves. Sometimes they die. Sometimes they make very valuable discoveries. Sometimes both.

So the next time someone wantz to strap someone to a rocket engine and fire it into a wall, all they have to do is go first and be part of the testing pool.

[-] kuberoot@discuss.tchncs.de 10 points 23 hours ago

If it's that vital, surely you would do it to yourself?

You can't really do the kind of experiments being done genetically modifying growing infants on yourself, I imagine. Not that that should be an excuse, of course.

[-] Nursery2787@lemmy.ml 3 points 17 hours ago

You can work your way through all the different animal models, showing that you have a clear understanding of every single bio mechanism. Then start off with a small change to a human baby THAT WOULD OBVIOUSLY BENEFIT showing that nothing bad happens. Like we figured out this specific sequence leads to deformed hands, we have plenty of control babies with the deformed hands.

By this guys own logic, he didn’t even get usable fucking data. Crispr changes DNA, yeah no shit we all knew that. He gave them a slight boost to HIV. How the fuck are we supposed to find out without exposing them. A high likelihood that they would have grown up never worrying about HIV in the first place.

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[-] hikuro93@lemmy.ca 70 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Ironic thing, we already tried this approach multiple times before, specially on war times. And each time humanity concluded that some knowledge has too high a price and we're better off not finding out some things.

Knowledge for the sake of knowledge, especially with a heavy blood cost, isn't the way to progress as a species.

And I should know, as a person greatly defined by curiosity about everything and more limited emotional capacity than other people due to mental limitations.

[-] angrystego@lemmy.world 15 points 1 day ago

Also the motivation of such research is usually not purely scientific, if at all, so the data gathered is often useless.

[-] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 5 points 20 hours ago

Also people like him tend to be shit at getting useful data.

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[-] notsoshaihulud@lemmy.world 25 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Holy shit, this guy managed to have 3 of the first 10 papers listed on google scholar about his shenanigans.

https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.4337

[-] frezik@midwest.social 33 points 1 day ago

Ethics mean we don't know what the average human male erect penis size is.

No, really. The ethics of the studies say that a researcher can't be in the presence of a sexually aroused erect penis. Having the testee measure their own penis is prone to error. There are ways to induce an erection with an injection, so they use that.

Is the size of an induced erection the same as a sexually aroused erection? Probably in the same ballpark, but we don't really know.

Source: Dr Nicole Prause, neurologist specializing in sexuality, on Holly Randall's podcast.

[-] Whats_your_reasoning@lemmy.world 50 points 1 day ago

Having the testee measure their own penis is prone to error.

To be fair, testicles aren't designed for that task.

[-] Grimy@lemmy.world 24 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

A quick trip on Google scholar turns up a lot of studies on the size of male erections.

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/553598c1e4b0a7f854584291/t/55ee4a5ee4b025d99f73150e/1441679966732/Penis+Size+Study+-+Veale+et+al+2015+BJUI.pdf

It is acknowledged that some of the volunteers across different studies may have taken part in a study because they were more confident with their penis size than the general male population.

Ha, poisoned data tho

[-] kameecoding@lemmy.world 6 points 22 hours ago

Of course it was biased, those numbers are huge on there, it was men confident in their size skewing the data, at least that's what I will tell myself

[-] frezik@midwest.social 1 points 15 hours ago

Sure, they exist, but they have the flaws outlined above.

[-] Grimy@lemmy.world 1 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago)

The study I linked seems to include both self stimulated erections and erections due to injection. They also limit themselves to clinical measurements. They mention self measured results but point out that they are unreliable, as you said. They do point out however that there might be a difference between self stimulation and an erection with a partner.

But all in all, there isn't a barrier because of the ethics involved in touching a penis and masturbation.

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[-] psmgx@lemmy.world 22 points 1 day ago

Do you want BioShock? Cuz this is how you get BioShock

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[-] AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works 31 points 1 day ago

Not that I support it in any way of course, but he's not wrong. There's probably a lot of medical knowledge to be gained by seeing how the babies he experimented on develop in the future. It's just that the ends don't justify the means.

[-] AnyOldName3@lemmy.world 44 points 1 day ago

It depends on the specifics of the experiment. Throughout the 20th century, the people most keen on unethical medical experiments seemed the least able to design useful experiments. Sometimes people claim that we learned lots from the horrific medical experiments taking place at Nazi concentration camps or Japanese facilities under Unit 731, but at best, it's stuff like how long does it take a horribly malnourished person to die if their organs are removed without anaesthesia or how long does it take a horribly malnourished person who's been beaten for weeks to freeze to death, which aren't much use.

[-] Grimpen@lemmy.ca 15 points 1 day ago

I'm pretty sure that 80% if what we learned from the Nazi/Imperial Japan super unethical experiments was "what can a psychotic doctor justify in order to have an excuse to torture people to death."

Maybe 20% was arguably useful, and most of that could have been researched ethically with other methods.