Should we discard achievements made by unlikable people?

[bennyboy]

I think you are seeing all people as monolithic, as though psychopathy is a property like skin color.  I see people as a complex interaction of parts, and I believe that most people have the capacity to willingly do harm to others, given the right social climate or other conditions. 

I see psychopathy as a diagnosis . . . So yes you do either have it or you don't. Obviously there will be a spectrum and there are people who are almost psychopaths. But almost a psychopath is not a psychopath. The experts determine whether someone is a psychopath or not.

The fact we all might have psychopathic traits to some extent doesn't make us all psychopaths. Just as the fact that we're all on the autism spectrum to some extent doesn't mean everybody gets to be diagnosed with autism.

I'm not sure why you've made the whole thread about psychopathy.  You introduced the word then proceeded to just keep arguing about exactly what it is.

I'm talking about the fact that people aren't monolithic.  You can use whatever term you want for good and bad instincts, good and bad intent, and so on.  I believe people are different in different contexts, both internal and external.  You really have to know a lot about a person and their history to understand how they've arrived at good or bad behaviors.

[CapnAwesome]

A lot of Nazi science was pure garbage.  They regularly changed and manipulated data to for their world view.

Plus if the experiments can't be safely and ethically reproduced how can we even check to see if their results are valid??? It's only science of the results can be reproduced consistently.  Otherwise you are trusting the data collection of 70 year dead Nazis with a history of gaming data.

But these particular experiments were well conducted and documented. The fact that they tortured people does not invalidate the data. It may taint it.

If you can't repeat the data, we have no way of knowing if they were either of those things. You just have to take the word of people who regularly manipulated data.

[henryp]

But these particular experiments were well conducted and documented. The fact that they tortured people does not invalidate the data. It may taint it.

If you can't repeat the data, we have no way of knowing if they were either of those things. You just have to take the word of people who regularly manipulated data.

This is a weird argument, but even if the data/findings were suspect, you could take their findings and use it as a 'possible lead' of sorts in further experiments.

[CapnAwesome]

If you can't repeat the data, we have no way of knowing if they were either of those things. You just have to take the word of people who regularly manipulated data.

This is a weird argument, but even if the data/findings were suspect, you could take their findings and use it as a 'possible lead' of sorts in further experiments.

Is it a weird argument? I mean if you can't prove that Nazis were telling the truth in data you can't repeat, what use is it? I'm talking only about the concentration camp experiments and such. Not their early rocket science or engineering or stuff like that, because obviously we can repeat and test that.

But the experiments on humans? Seems pretty suspect. Think of all the racialist insane pseudo science these guys believed in. My default position, and that of all scientists, is a skeptical. So if you can't repeat the data, it's just useless. One of the requirements of science is that experiments are repeatable. It's not a suggestion, it's a requirement for something to be science. I don't know how anyone can say they were meticulous about their science. That's clearly not the case with tons of the crazy shit their believed in. If I'm going to be skeptical of any experiments, it's definitely going to be done by pseudo science believing NAZIS.

But that said, yes you could use it as a lead, like you can use anything you like as a lead.

[Rev. Rye]

Unit 731 might be a better example; Around the time of World War II, Japan made quite a few medical breakthroughs, including discovery of the mechanism behind frostbite, and the day-to-day progression of Anthrax and bubonic plague. How did they do this? Human experimentation. Human experimentation that often involved things like vivisection of humans, people being raped and forcibly
infected with syphilis and (I did not believe this was real the first time I heard it) freezing one person's limbs and throwing scalding hot water (over 50 centigrade) on them so the skin and muscle fell off. They took the dehumanization inherent in such an enterprise to new levels, calling the human subjects Maruta, the Japanese word for “lumber,” because even treating those subjects (mostly Chinese POWs and their families, including three-month-old infants, though they became more diverse with WW2) like animals was considered unfair even to animals. Unit 731 seems to be less prone to fudging their data for the benefit of the Emperor than the Nazis, and yet, they did much the same thing, and quite a bit of it was even more fucked up than the Nazi experiments (no small feat.) But it still had an undeniable positive effect on medicine. If there’s ever a successful biological warfare attack on America (or whichever nation you live in,) if/when scientists find a way to restore things to normal, whatever solution they find WILL inevitably use Unit 731’s findings.

[henryp]

This is a weird argument, but even if the data/findings were suspect, you could take their findings and use it as a 'possible lead' of sorts in further experiments.

Is it a weird argument?  I mean if you can't prove that Nazis were telling the truth in data you can't repeat,  what use is it? I'm talking only about the concentration camp experiments and such. Not their early rocket science or engineering or stuff like that, because obviously we can repeat and test that.

But the experiments on humans? Seems pretty suspect. Think of all the racialist insane pseudo science these guys believed in. My default position, and that of all scientists,  is a skeptical.  So if you can't repeat the data, it's just useless. One of the requirements of science is that experiments are repeatable. It's not a suggestion, it's a requirement for something to be science. I don't know how anyone can say they were meticulous about their science. That's clearly not the case with tons of the crazy shit their believed in. If I'm going to be skeptical of any experiments,  it's definitely going to be done by pseudo science believing NAZIS.

But that said, yes you could use it as a lead, like you can use anything you like as a lead.

I mean arguing about the value of nazi experiments as it relates to stuff in general is an odd topic.  Not the content of the arguments.

And I don't know the details of the nazi science experiments.  But if they had some conclusion that would be valuable if true, you could certainly look into it.  Obviously by trying to test the conclusion in a non-nazi experimental way.

[Edwardo Piet]

Whatever you say.

[Sterben]

Unit 731 might be a better example; Around the time of World War II, Japan made quite a few medical breakthroughs, including discovery of the mechanism behind frostbite, and the day-to-day progression of Anthrax and bubonic plague. How did they do this? Human experimentation. Human experimentation that often involved things like vivisection of humans, people being raped and forcibly
infected with syphilis and (I did not believe this was real the first time I heard it) freezing one person's limbs and throwing scalding hot water (over 50 centigrade) on them  so the skin and muscle fell off. They took the dehumanization inherent in such an enterprise to new levels, calling the human subjects Maruta, the Japanese word for “lumber,” because even treating those subjects (mostly Chinese POWs and their families, including three-month-old infants, though they became more diverse with WW2) like animals was considered unfair even to animals. Unit 731 seems to be less prone to fudging their data for the benefit of the Emperor than the Nazis, and yet, they did much the same thing, and quite a bit of it was even more fucked up than the Nazi experiments (no small feat.) But it still had an undeniable positive effect on medicine. If there’s ever a successful biological warfare attack on America (or whichever nation you live in,) if/when scientists find a way to restore things to normal, whatever solution they find WILL inevitably use Unit 731’s findings.

     Both the Nazi's and the Japanese did horrible things, but without these actions being done we would of not advanced has quickly as we did. After WW2, a lot of health advancements came from the research conducted on human beings as well technology came to our lives. I do wish millions of people did not to die for us to work together, it's the sad truth about humanity though. This is tough matter to discusses though, it kind of goes along lines of abortions and evolution. Has far has altering history, I would of to say no it's a terrible practice. If we forgot that we had Captain Cheto has a President of the U.S, it would be wrong to erase him from history.

[CapnAwesome]

Unit 731 might be a better example; Around the time of World War II, Japan made quite a few medical breakthroughs, including discovery of the mechanism behind frostbite, and the day-to-day progression of Anthrax and bubonic plague. How did they do this? Human experimentation. Human experimentation that often involved things like vivisection of humans, people being raped and forcibly
infected with syphilis and (I did not believe this was real the first time I heard it) freezing one person's limbs and throwing scalding hot water (over 50 centigrade) on them so the skin and muscle fell off. They took the dehumanization inherent in such an enterprise to new levels, calling the human subjects Maruta, the Japanese word for “lumber,” because even treating those subjects (mostly Chinese POWs and their families, including three-month-old infants, though they became more diverse with WW2) like animals was considered unfair even to animals. Unit 731 seems to be less prone to fudging their data for the benefit of the Emperor than the Nazis, and yet, they did much the same thing, and quite a bit of it was even more fucked up than the Nazi experiments (no small feat.) But it still had an undeniable positive effect on medicine. If there’s ever a successful biological warfare attack on America (or whichever nation you live in,) if/when scientists find a way to restore things to normal, whatever solution they find WILL inevitably use Unit 731’s findings.

I'm not doubting this story, but how do we know they didn't fudge the data if we can't recreate it ourselves. That's how we confirm science, by recreating experiments.

Also a lot of that just sounds like torturing people, not a valid controlled (repeatable) experiment.

Also what is the undeniable positive influence on medicine? Can you be more specific? I mean, antibiotics had been invented so the plague wasn't really a problem.

[Rev. Rye]

I'm not doubting this story, but how do we know they didn't fudge the data if we can't recreate it ourselves. That's how we confirm science,  by recreating experiments.

Also a lot of that just sounds like torturing people, not a valid controlled (repeatable) experiment.

Also what is the undeniable positive influence on medicine? Can you be more specific? I mean, antibiotics had been invented so the plague wasn't really a problem.

Honestly, my saying that they weren't fudging the data is a guess that exists largely because from my (admittedly meagre in comparison to my knowledge of Nazi atrocities) research not trolling up any sign that the Japanese establishment was pushing any preposterous pseudosciences like the Nazis were. I don't know for certain, but it seems plausible they weren't playing up results to curry favour with the Emperor. Also, they could theoretically be recreated; it's just that doing so would require breaking every law known to man and some of the larger canines.

Quite a bit of the memories of the experiments from the survivors have lost their context, but there's still quite a bit of information about the sort of things they were using to experiment on, from biological warfare to treatment of frostbite (seriously, the exact mechanism behind frostbite was actually discovered in Unit 731's experiments). Here's a relatively short look into the context behind the carnage (no pictures, fortunately.)

Also, the vast majority of antibiotics used to treat plague (streptomycin being the sole exception) were discovered after the US government encountered Unit 731. And it seems they had yet to connect plague to streptomycin at that point.