Experiments Quotes
Central Intelligence Agency. The MKULTRA scandal involved testing LSD on unwitting American subjects. Under the influence of the powerful drug people did all kinds of unwholesome and illegal things with the CIA agents observing and in some cases participating. Several American citizens suffered permanent damage.
This noteworthy quotation illustrates a rarity in politics—a politician publicly admitting that his policy had failed. In this case it was the Embargo against England and France which cost American traders, merchants, and ship-owners a great deal, but never did have the desired effect on the target counties. See {32446} for another Jefferson quote on experimentation. He and FDR were the two presidents who admitted frankly that they were trying new unproven things. See {604829} for an FDR quotation. Also see {359804} for a general view of experimentation and {599787} for Disraeli’s disdain for political experimentation.
Proof in a scientific and mathematical context is very different from the legal concept of proof. For Feynman, proof consisted of both being able to deduce a statement in much the same way as a proof is offered in plane geometry and being able to construct an experiment which will demonstrate the validity (confirm the prediction of what will happen all cases. As a theoretical physicist, most of his proofs were of the mathematical, deductive kind. There are many phenomena in mathematics and science that were, and are, known long before someone was able to offer a proof.
The Tuskegee Experiment was a low point in medical research ethics in American history. Black men who had contracted syphilis, were experimented with and not given treatment even after penicillin was developed, while they have never given their consent or in most cases even told they had the disease. Not only did many of them die, but 40 women contracted syphilis from the men who had never been told that they had the disease. The “experiment” was run by the United States Public Health Service.
