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Ethical and scientific considerations regarding animal testing and research
Ethical and scientific considerations regarding animal testing and research
Life of slavery for children essay
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Part A
Questions
What was your initial reaction to viewing the footage of this experiment? I watched the short video first and was appalled initially, using very young children as lab rats seemed like a terrible idea. However, after watching it completely, I could see the utility of it. The more extended version was even more enlightening, I was also happy to see Ms. Elliot was aware of the potential damage such an exercise could cause to young children. What values and ethical issues did the experiment express? The experiment exposed the children to bigotry, intolerance based solely on the color of one's eyes. This was used to simulate racial discrimination and used to educate the class on the impact of such a practice. Additionally, it exposed the result of emotional stress imposed on the discriminated, and the effect on their performance in the classroom. Furthermore, the experiment demonstrated the impact of privilege on the students as well. The similar experiment on adults in the extended video also demonstrated these same issues, with the added benefit of displaying how adults react to be placed in a discriminatory environment.
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Would it still be appropriate today? Why or why not? Initially no, it seemed inappropriate. However, once I learn the teacher was aware of the dangers of such an exercise I was ok with it. In today's litigious society overly, I do not believe an educator would expose such a young group of children to such an experiment. I do however think that it would be a useful exercise as many of the issues still
Healthcare providers have an ethical obligation to tell their patients the truth about their conditions as well as all possible treatment options. In the Tuskegee Study, this obligation was blatantly disregarded. The characters Dr. Sam Brodus, Dr. Douglas, and Eunice Evers, RN are prime examples of this disregard for transparency between the provider and the patient.
The effects of this experience, although unethical in its approach to conduct experiment without knowledge to the parents it does not rise to the level of harm. It can, however, be argued that it has had an effect on them emotionally and perhaps they may experience further complications, but far greater atrocities have occurred in the name of science and in this particular case, no credible data ever developed from this experiment due to it being
The day after Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered (in April 1968,) Jane Elliott’s third grade students were confused and upset. Growing up in a small, all-white town, they were not exposed to racism, and did not understand the meaning of it. Therefore, Jane Elliot decided to show her class what discrimination feels like. She informed the class that they were going to change the way things were done. The students were then divided by eye colour-blue eyes and brown eyes. The blue-eyed children were praised, and told that they were smarter, nicer, and better than the brown-eyed children in every way. Throughout the day, they were given special privileges that the brown-eyed children did not receive. Those privileges included extra recess time, access to the jungle gym, a second helping of food at lunch, sitting at the front of the classroom, and being allowed to participate in class discussions. In contrast, the brown-eyed children were forced to wear brown collars around their necks. They sat at the back of the classroom, and their behaviour and classroom performance was constantly criticized by the teacher. The students from the superior group (even those who were usually sweet and tolerant) became mean, and began to discriminate against the inferior group. The students from the inferior group would struggle with class assignments, and perform poorly on tests. On the second day of the experiment, the roles were reversed, making the brown-eyed children superior to the blue-eyed children. The results were similar, but the brown-eyed students didn’t treat their blue-eyed classmates quite as bad as they had treated them. When the exercise ended, the students hugged and cried with each other. Jane Elliott once said: "After you do this exercise, when the debriefing starts, when the pain is over and they're all back together, you find out how society could be if we really believed all this stuff that we
After watching the documentary, “A Class Divided,” I was very impressed by the lesson that the teacher was performing with her students. Discrimination is an issue that has been around for a long time dating back to slavery and probably before that. Over time, society has become more welcoming but discrimination still exists today and may never completely go away. By doing this exercise with her students, the teacher is changing the world. If a group of ten people went through this exercise, then they learn that everyone is the same and they stop discriminating based on race. Those ten people later go on and tell their children, friends, and family about this exercise and they may also have a change of heart. That number now changes from ten to twenty to thirty. In the documentary, the teacher mentioned that this exercise is hurtful to some people and should not be performed on everyone because of controversial issues and how it can be emotionally traumatizing for some people. A small group still does so much for a society to change and evolve. The brown eye, blue eye method has a large impact and I wish more people knew of it
...In my opinion, it’s as simple as attempting to avoid judging another individual at first glance or categorizing them into a certain stereotype or group. Removing the part of the test where the students have to bubble in their race would also serve as a beneficial gesture. I am certain that this society has done almost everything that is reasonable to prevent the growing stereotypes and racism, and the rest depends on the individuals. If one person stopped judging others based on stereotypes, then others would gradually begin to do so as well. It doesn’t sound like much, but overall, this can truly make a difference. Also, I believe that we should accept the fact that there is no such thing as immaculate perception, and work on improving ourselves, our perception of this world and how we view and analyze other human beings.
Several years ago I viewed the video of Jane Elliot’s experiment with her third graders and I was
The film A Class Divided was designed to show students why it is important not to judge people by how they look but rather who they are inside. This is a very important lesson to learn people spend too much time looking at people not for who they are but for what ETHNITICY they are. One VARIABLE that I liked about the film is that it should the children how it felt to be on both sides of the spectrum. The HYPOTHESIS of the workshop was that if you out a child and let them experience what it is like to be in the group that is not wanted because of how they look and then make the other group the better people group that the child will have a better understanding of not to judge a person because of how they look but instead who they are as people. I liked the workshop because it made everyone that participated in it even the adults that took it later on realize that you can REHABILITAE ones way of thinking. The exercise showed how a child that never had any RASIZM towards them in the exercise they turned against their friends because of the color of their eyes. The children for those two days got the chance to experience both sides of DISCRMINATION. The children once day felt SEGRIGATED and inferior to the children that were placed in the group with more privilege. Then the next day the children that were placed in the privileged group were in the SEGRIGATED group. The theory is if you can teach a child how to DISCRIMINATE against a person that you can just as easily teach them how not to. Sometimes a person needs to feel what another person feels to understand how they treat people.
Tracking is where students are identified as gifted or placed in remedial classes. By doing this, students learn about their overall success and achievements in comparison to the other groups. In the documentary, the principal, Rob Gasparello, addresses why their school is not the greatest. He states that their school has a “terrible reputation” and that the numbers do not lie. Looking at the data would assume that the overall success rate is not as high as other schools. By knowing this, it can be detrimental to the students’ education. This can be detrimental because students who attend this high school may start believing that they will never be successful so why bother trying. Other students who do not attend this high school may not have respect for these schools and assume they are better because they believe that they go to a better school. This is an example of inequality in education and studies have shown that while education benefits everyone, it does not benefit everyone equally. An inequality in education mirrors and inequality in
During this course, I had the opportunity to watch several documentaries that enlightened men on different perspectives of cultural diversity. These documentaries contained a variety of different methods used to examine several cultural diversity issues within America. Racism, sexism, ageism, and social class were the main topics that were examined in these videos and documentaries. As part of the process, researchers creatively designed experiments that uncovered how people instinctively respond when it is not apparent that they are being watched. Reports such as these must be carefully crafted and presented in an objective manner. If critical steps are overlooked, this kind of research tactic can easily been interpreted as intrusive, dishonest, bias, or unethical. That might ultimately defeat the purpose and distract the viewer from understanding, and that may become counter-productive to the message the researcher is attempting to convey. All documentaries presented were necessary for us to gain a true consideration of the cultural diversity issues this country faces. Some documentaries contained the element of surprise by using hidden camera tactics. It is no secret that cameras have a tendency to change individuals’ attitudes, if they are conscious of the fact that they are being filmed. Though all of the video and documentaries were impactful, the two documentaries that had the most impact on my learning were:
Animal testing is a controversial topic with two main sides of the argument. The side apposing animal testing states it is unethical and inhumane; that animals have a right to choose where and how they live instead of being subjected to experiments. The view is that all living organism have a right of freedom; it is a right, not a privilege. The side for animal testing thinks that it should continue, without animal testing there would be fewer medical and scientific breakthroughs. This side states that the outcome is worth the investment of testing on animals. The argument surrounding animal testing is older than the United States of America, dating back to the 1650’s when Edmund O’Meara stated that vivisection, the dissection of live animals, is an unnatural act. Although this is one of the first major oppositions to animal testing, animal testing was being practiced for millennia beforehand. There are two sides apposing each other in the argument of animal testing, and the argument is one of the oldest arguments still being debated today.
As a student in undergrad, I was young and I was focused on passing my classes versus detecting racial inequality, until it was spelled out like in the situation mentioned above. The effect this course is having on my life is that it is confirming that there are people who still treat others unfairly. When reading the course material and viewing my values, it becomes hurtful to accept such poor treatment because I am black and this could have been me. I value fairness with all people. As a human service professional it will even encourage me to speak up if I see a coworker or clients behaving unethical. As a professional it is up to me to identify and report inequality. It will be hard for me to let injustice actions take place. It takes a leader to stand up for what is
The movie “The Class Divided” was a very inspirational movie because it taught a lesson on discrimination and racism. The film covers Jane Elliot experience with the “eye-color” exercise and it shows how the participants responded to being a victim of discrimination. The teacher who came up with the exercise was a third grade –teacher that wanted to explain to her kids the reasons behind Martin Luther King death. She divided each class she taught up by their eye color and treated them according to whatever eye color was more superior that day. Her lesson influenced and inspired the younger kids and older adults because it taught them a life learning lesson that could stick with them for years to come.
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.
The history of medical research in the twentieth century provides abundant evidence which shows how easy it is to exploit individuals, especially the sick, the weak, and the vulnerable, when the only moral guide for science is a naive utilitarian dedication to the greatest good for the greatest number. Locally administered internal review boards were thought to be a solution to the need for ethical safeguards to protect the human guinea pig. However, with problems surrounding informed consent, the differentiation between experimentation and treatment, and the new advances within medicine, internal review boards were found to be inadequate for the job. This led to the establishment of the National Bioethics Advisory Commission by President Bill Clinton in the hopes of setting clear ethical standards for human research.
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.