Any Experiment

[Shamgarr]

So my psychology professor gave us this short question today as an indication into our character and asked us:

If you were given unlimited funding/recources, and abandoned morals/ethics, what scientific experiment would you conduct?

So I pose this question to you, escapists. And it doesn't have to be anything really scientific, like just say what you'd want to research into.

 

[Aur0ra145]

Get a human into space more cheaply than the Russians do.

 

[Matt_LRR]

this is a really good question, and I can't even come up with one.

Determining a causal relationship in something we only have correlations for would be nice. (i.e. proving once and for all that cigarette smoke causes cancer in humans, as opposed to simply attributing the correlation between cancer and smoking to a causal relationship because it causes cancer in other animals).

Maybe something to do wth kids? Prove that vaccinatuions are safe by testing the assertion that the immune system of a child actually can handle in excess of 10,000 vaccinations simultaneously? Shut the anti-vax movement up.

We'd really want to use our ethical freedom to get confirmation of something we're forbidden from exploring due to the ruling of an ethics comittee. Something involving human testing.


-m

 

[Sethzard]

Working out how to mind control people, then implementing it on everyone except me, I would be able to control them.

Either that or disprove a tonne of old wives tales and bullshit like "diet drinks cause cancer" and "the MMR vaccination causes autisim"

 

[LeMusaraigne]

The effects of me having lots of money.

 

[oppp7]

See if engineering viruses to make half the causes of illness in humans and our crops extinct would work.

 

[Composer]

portal gun
cure for STDS
cure for trolls
cure for stupid

take ur pick

 

[Jark212]

Build my superhuman army and proceed to take over the world...

My army will take humanity into a new golden age of prosperity and scientific advancement, untainted by the morals of a ignorant society. We would eradicate all diseases, genetic defects, and recreate humanity as a powerful and insightful race...

 

[quiet_samurai]

The real life affects of numerous hookers and lots of cocaine has on ones social/work/family life.

 

[Jedoro]

The effects of me having lots of money.

I like the way you think

 

[Blindswordmaster]

I would give myself wolverine-like regenerative abilities.

 

[Agayek]

I would build a fucking full-sized, fully operational Gundam and probably Optimus Prime as well.

 

[teisjm]

Human cloning and organ cloning.
Or cyborg parts.

both of these are quite realistic as well.

That is, unless i just choose to research something lame and booring and grant myself a sallery of 1000000 $ pr month form the unlimitet funds... i guess i could do that and still research something cool though.

 

[Sightless Wisdom]

I think I'd have to do something crazy like extreme tests on the brains cognitive functions and mapping them correctly by experimenting on live subjects by performing surgery on specific areas of the brain. It's directly related to psychology, and I really want to know how the hell the brain works.

 

[Matt_LRR]

Spoiler: -Snip-

... I'd actually attempt to put some hard evidence in the soft-science that is psychology.

Psychology operates more like faith. Psychologists don't actively ignore contradicting evidence, but they do spend a fair bit of time explaining away contradicting evidence.

So, yea, I'd probably start by trying to confirm "tabula rasa" by kidnapping newborns and raising them in complete isolation... then go from there.

That's really not fair to psychology. I mean, It's one of the youngest sciences, large portions of study are effectively off limits because of ethical concerns, and it deals with a subject so complex and diverse that it's extraordinarily hard to model or develop hard rules in.

It still applies the scientific method.

That said - there are tons of pshycological phenomena that would be awesomely interesting to study given unlimited funding and freedom from ethical constraint.

-m

 

[Arqus_Zed]

Try to make an AI that becomes completely self-aware and see if it would actually want to destroy all of humanity.