The scientific method and rules of ethics are important tools when researching and experimenting. When researchers abide by these guidelines, experimentation is considered to be safe for the test subjects, as well as the person conducting the research is considered reputable. Experiments go awry, however, when researchers ignore the scientific method and rules of ethics. The experiments of Alfred Kinsey and the scientific team of William Masters and Virginia Johnson have been criticized for their methods of research and sense of ethics. Both scientific teams researched human sexuality, a topic in which is perpetually scrutinized. Kinsey and Masters and Johnson were not always ethical in their studies, and did not always follow the scientific method. Alfred Kinsey is best known for his research in male and female sexual behaviors (Brown and Fee). His research and interest in this topic, however, did not start until he began teaching a marriage course at Indiana University (Discovery Fit and Health). Kinsey realized that there was very little information on human sexuality, so he decided to research it. With the help of his colleagues, Kinsey founded the Institute for Sex Research at Indiana University (Discovery Fit and Health). In order to understand whether the research Alfred Kinsey, or any researcher, conducted was scientifically acceptable, one has to understand the rules of ethics and the scientific method. The rules of ethics include informed consent of the participants; voluntary participation; restricting the use of deception and debriefing the participants after the experiment; keeping the information about the participants confidential; and providing alternative activities (Huffman 18-19). The scientific method i... ... middle of paper ... ...ce the times of Kinsey and Masters and Johnson have improved their techniques, so as not to fall in the same traps as their predecessors. Works Cited Brown, Theodore, and Elizabeth Fee. “Alfred C. Kinsey: A Pioneer of Sex Research.” American Journal of Public Health. 93. 6. (2003): n.p. Web. 29 Oct 2011. “Alfred C. Kinsey: Contributions to American Sexuality.” Discovery Fit and Health. Discovery Channel, 2002. Web. 29 Oct 2011. Keith, Jim. “SEX EXPERIMENTS OF ALFRED KINSEY.” The Forbidden Knowledge. Nitronews.com, n.d. Web. 29 Oct 2011. Huffman, Karen. Psychology in Action. 9th. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2010. Print. Griffitt, William, and Elaine Hatfield. “METHODS AND ISSUES IN SEX RESEARCH.” Humboldt University. n.p., 1985. Web. 29 Oct 2011. “Masters and Johnson.” BookRags. Thompson Corporation, 2005. Web. 29 Oct 2011.
society so these experiments are not seen as heinous or inhumane. This Information is all revealed in the introduction. The author tells this from a moral standpoint. The social construct determines if a particular event is seen as good or bad. Experiment back then on people were seen as okay but if they were performed on they would be extremely tabooed. The government even participated in human experiments to show how okay it was back then. In Conclusion, I am convinced that these bias among the scientific community is what caused black people to still be afraid of the doctors to this day.
The Dr. Kevorkian case is important for medical ethics, because it brings up the issues of physician-assisted suicide and physician-assisted death. Physician-assisted suicide is where the doctor is assisting the patient in suicide, but the patient actually performs the act. Physician-assisted death, also known as euthanasia, is when the doctor does the act to bring about the patient’s death based on the patient’s request. This brings up the limitations of beneficence. Does a doctor have the right to end a patient’s life to relieve their suffering?
In the United States, the basis for ethical protection for human research subjects in clinical research trials are outlined by the Belmont Report developed in the late 1970’s. This document, published by the Nation Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research, highlights three important basic principles that are to be considered when any clinical trial will involve human research subjects. They are; respect for persons, beneficence, and justice. (Chadwick & Gunn, 2004)
According to APA’s guidelines, John Watson’s “Little Albert” study would not be allowed today because of ethical violations. One ethical violation is the lack of consent from the subject. Little Albert could never give consent because he was an infant. Watson took advantage of the fact that Albert could not tell people that he wanted to withdraw from the study. Participants should always know what the study will involve and what risks might develop.
Masters and Johnson were a pioneering team in the field of human sexuality, both in the domains of research and therapy. William Howell Masters, a gynecologist, was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1915. Virginia Eshelman Johnson, a psychologist, was born in Springfield, Montana in 1925. To fully appreciate their contribution, it is necessary to see their work in historic context. In 1948, Alfred C. Kinsey and his co-workers, responding to a request by female students at Indiana University for more information on human sexual behavior, published the book Sexual Behavior in the Human Male. They followed this five years later with Sexual Behavior in the Human Female. These books began a revolution in social awareness of and public attention given to human sexuality. At the time, public morality severely restricted open discussion of sexuality as a human characteristic, and specific sexual practices, especially sexual behaviors that did not lead to procreation. Kinsey's books, which among other things reported findings on the frequency of various sexual practices including homosexuality, caused a furor. Some people felt that the study of sexual behavior would undermine the family structure and damage American society. It was in this climate - one of incipient efforts to break through the denial of human sexuality and considerable resistance to these efforts - that Masters and Johnson began their work. Their primary contribution has been to help define sexuality as a healthy human trait and the experience of great pleasure and deep intimacy during sex as socially acceptable goals. As a physician interested in the nature of sexuality and the sexual experience, William Masters wanted to conduct research that would lead to an objective understanding of these topics. In 1957, he hired Virgina Johnson as a research assistant to begin this research issue. Together they developed polygraph-like instruments that were designed to measure human sexual response. Using these tools, Masters and Johnson initiated a project that ultimately included direct laboratory observation and measurement of 700 men and women while they were having intercourse or masturbating. Based on the data collected in this study, they co-authored the book Human Sexual Response in 1966. In this book, they identify and describe four phases in the human sexual response cycle : excitement, plateau, orgasm, and resolution. By this point in time, the generally repressive attitude toward sexuality was beginning to lift and the book found a ready audience.
The Asch and Milgram’s experiment were not unethical in their methods of not informing the participant of the details surrounding the experiment and the unwarranted stress; their experiment portrayed the circumstances of real life situation surrounding the issues of obedience to authority and social influence. In life, we are not given the courtesy of knowledge when we are being manipulated or influenced to act or think a certain way, let us be honest here because if we did know people were watching and judging us most of us would do exactly as society sees moral, while that may sound good in ensuring that we always do the right thing that would not be true to the ways of our reality. Therefore, by not telling the participants the detail of the experiment and inflicting unwarranted stress Asch and Milgram’s were
Jakob Bronowski’s book, “Science and Human Values” argues that the scientific method of inquiry into reality provides a generally applicable foundation for moral judgement. Bronowski says, “in order to keep the study in a manageable field. I will continue to choose a society in which the principle of truth rules. Therefore the society which I will examine is that formed by scientists themselves: it is the body of scientists” (Bronowski 58). Bronowski makes it clear in his book that he is going to base his study on scientists. There are five steps in the scientific method of inquiry into reality. The first one being Observation, the second is Hypothesis, the third is Experiments, the fourth is Theory, and the fifth being Publishing.
Alfred Kinsey was an American Professor of biology and zoology at Indiana University. During his career he decided to shift his focus from studying gull wasps to that of human subjects. He embarked on a study of human sexual behavior by doing a series of interviews consisting of 18,000 people. The first installment of nine books was “Sexual Behavior in the Human Male.” This 30 year project was anything but non-controversial especially with in the realm of the FBI and the United States government. As any breakthrough research goes through, there were positive and negative critiques of his study.
In his career he posed many theories, the earliest of them: The Seduction Theory. The majority of people whom came to him in the 1890s were reported as victims of sexual abuse as children. Unfortunately, he began to see these allegations as fantasies. His first explanation was that patients were simply fighting “memories of infantile masturbation”, touching oneself as a baby or womb. He claimed patients were not aware of the repression. Experiments of this included having patient act out the events they “thought” of. As time went on, his patients did not believe they were actually abused at, even more so after reproducing their supposed abuse.
The Monster study is speech impediment experiment that was done on the children that lived in the orphanage. This experiment was conducted to find out if stuttering was inherited or did environment play a key factor. Wendell Johnson was the speech pathologist that conducted this study to find the cause and cure for stuttering. This study violated a lot of ethical issues because the children were psychological harm, informed consent was not given and the subjects were deceived. Wendell Johnson had a biased opinion in this study because he was a stutter himself and was desperate for a cure. In this paper, I will discuss the background of this experiment and the violations of ethics that were done in this study.
Dr. Kinsey pride himself on his work in regards to the advancement of sexuality. Starting from a strict religious family, he took a stand against his fathers will, and studied biology. To Dr. Kinsey human nature is natural and he was very interested in explaining to his students the science of life. He took a strong stand from the beginning and he remained forceful when trying to explain why “morality disguises fact.” (Kinsey) Further on, his ideas of spreading the true meaning of sexuality evolved into an institute which plenty did not approve of. He backed up his comments by stating that sex is a “normal biological development” which is true and if a couple did not try it then humans would not be on earth presently.
The film Kinsley was an interesting film to say the least. I must admit that I was a little uncomfortable at times while watching this movie. The study that was conducted by Alfred Kinsey was something that I believe the people of society are interested in but are conditioned to pretend like we are not. His finding in Sexual Behavior in the Human Male put many people at ease because I think inside everyone is very curious about what everyone else is doing. This is because we all have the desire to be normal and fit in with society. But as Kinsey found the sexual behaviors of males could not be further from what society thinks is normal. But what is normal really? I myself had this certain view about sexual behavior and there were certain things that I believed to be normal. But because of this movie my eyes are now open to the truth about sex.
James Harrison, who was a scientist, doctor, and society, started coming up with the resolution that there are some ways of treating the abnormality. Scientists and doctors started to conduct various kinds of abhorrence and aggressive therapies. It was implied that doctors even tried to castrate, but in conclusion none of the experiments were seem to be able to transmute sexual orientation of the people involved. The report by Alfred Kinsey in 1948, in his book “Being Homosexual”, was commented by Richard Isay, verbalizing that Kinsey and his co-workers for many years tried to find patients who had been indoctrinated from homosexuality to heterosexuality during many therapies. Inadvertently for them none of the cases gave an expected result. With these words he acknowledged that the statement that medicine is not the answer, which in its turn supports that homosexuality is not a mental condition, but genitival feature as many other above mentioned facts claim. Later on Hooper and Bruno Klopfer were performing and confirming tests to determine who would be homosexual. They notionally theorized that they would be able to differentiate homosexuals from heterosexuals by denotes of the Rorschach test. But as it turned out none of the test they were designing could genuinely reach the needed effect. The heterosexuals and homosexuals were interchangeable, demonstrating an
In the natural sciences there are always ethical norms that limit how knowledge can be produced. In the natural sciences, experimentation is an important method of producing knowledge but ethical judgments can limit the use of this method. There are areas that are considered unethical ...
Unethical experiments have occurred long before people considered it was wrong. The protagonist of the practice of human experimentation justify their views on the basis that such experiments yield results for the good of society that are unprocurable by other methods or means of study ( Vollmann 1448 ).The reasons for the experiments were to understand, prevent, and treat disease, and often there is not a substitute for a human subject. This is true for study of illnesses such as depression, delusional states that manifest themselves partly by altering human subjectivity, and impairing cognitive functioning. Concluding, some experiments have the tendency to destroy the lives of the humans that have been experimented on.