• Question: do you think that Joseph Mengele's work (although sick and wrong) helped advance the world of science and medicine

    Asked by silberkuhl to MarkF, Mark, Michael, Panos, Sarah on 16 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Panos Soultanas

      Panos Soultanas answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      Not really. I am totally against any kind of racism in any shape or form. He was a cruel man.

    • Photo: Sarah Burl

      Sarah Burl answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      These were terrible experiments and often done without any care to the individual. He may have had some ideas that were worth pursuing but he would have been aware that the way he did the expts was completely inhumane. Fortunately now we have proper regulations in place to allow good ethical expts to be done and all human participants have a right to volunteer and to drop out at their will.

    • Photo: Mark Fogg

      Mark Fogg answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      The man was as warped and evil a monster as the human race has ever produced. The end can NEVER justify the barbaric means he used to obtain his results. His work was in no way scientific and he was no scientist. He had no hypotheses based on evidence and systematic observation for a start. That’s a fall at the first hurdle of scientific research in my book. All he used was a warped and twisted imagination.
      I haven’t come across the evidence for his work being used subsequently and have great difficulty believing or understanding that any scientists of the time were so crass as to follow it up. I would like to know the sources that inform your question.

    • Photo: Michael Loughlin

      Michael Loughlin answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      From what i know of it..which is little ..No… apart from reminding us that science compasion and humanity must alway go together

    • Photo: Mark Travis

      Mark Travis answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      What he did was totally sick and unethical and findings have never been recorded anyway. So in no way did he advance science and medicine.

Comments

  • Moderator - Craig commented on :

    I think that’s an excellent question silberkuhl. Scientists, we all know that Mengele’s work was totally sick and unethical and that he was an evil man and I believe silberkuhl knows this also. The question was did his work advance the world of science and medicine in any way? Do you think it’s acceptable to use research done by such a scientist?

  • Moderator - Nazma commented on :

    This is an excellent question silberkuhl. Although it is about something soo wrong it is still very interesting to have a discussion/debate about how it relates to science and medicine.