this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2025
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Science Memes

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[–] SplashJackson@lemmy.ca 13 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Wasn't he the guy who was trying to find a way for HIV-positive couples to have HIV-negative babies?

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[–] hikuro93@lemmy.ca 73 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (7 children)

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.

[–] drosophila@lemmy.blahaj.zone 23 points 1 day ago (2 children)

If you're talking about unit 731 and the nazis then there was very little, if anything, scientifically valuable there.

They had terrible research methodology that rendered what data they gathered mostly useless, and even if it wasn't, most of the information could have been surmised by other methods. Some of the things they did served no conceivable practical or scientific purpose whatsoever.

It was pretty much just sadism with a thin veneer of justification to buy them the small amount of legitimacy they needed to operate within their fascist governments.

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[–] angrystego@lemmy.world 17 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.

[–] andros_rex@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

Everyone keeps leaning on Unit 731 and the Nazis here.

What about Tuskegee and syphillis? What about the way that Huvasupai Indians blood was tested without their consent?

“Fun” fact - the chainsaw was developed to help with child birth. Lots of early US gynecology research was done on enslaved women without pain control.

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[–] frezik@midwest.social 35 points 1 day ago (15 children)

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.

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

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

[–] Grimy@lemmy.world 26 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

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

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[–] notsoshaihulud@lemmy.world 26 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

[–] psmgx@lemmy.world 22 points 1 day ago (3 children)

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

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