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Subject:More for your research From:John Gear <catalyst -at- PACIFIER -dot- COM> Date:Wed, 9 Aug 1995 19:02:00 PDT
Mr. Sawyer, here is something else for your research:
Experimenting on people without their informed consent is wrong and violates
basic standards of decency and professional ethics, not to mention ethical
guidelines for research that, no doubt, your institution claims to observe.
Apologies are not only due to Eric, but also to everyone else on the list
and to your University for associating them with useless human experimentation.
As your advisor has apparently not shared them with you, perhaps you could
ask her for a copy of the University's guidelines for human experimentation.
I urge you to read them. You have probably not received any training or
guidance on ethics and research--but it is *your* responsibility to obtain
such training nonetheless.
It is not a long jump at all from performing psychological and sociological
experimentation on unconsenting subjects to injecting them with
radionuclides or letting syphillis ravage their bodies while pretending to
treat them -- all done here in the US in the name of research. Just because
we interact electronically does not make us less human.
>Well, I have been flamed and I think I owe an explination. I posted the
>mustang question on purpose because I am doing a paper on the issues of author
>and audience in cyberspace. One of my points was that a list helps author a
>post by setting up limits of acceptability. I violated those on purpose to see
>that would happen. I got flamed--just as I expected.
>So, sorry to give you a useless post. Don't worry, I have already apologized to
>Eric.
>--Paul
>PS Thanks for the new places to look for mustang parts, too. I appreciate it.
> B)
>--
>Paul R. Sawyer
>Graduate Assistant/Console Cowboy
>Illinois State University
>Normal, Illinois 61790-4240
>"Have Macintosh. Will travel."
John Gear (catalyst -at- pacifier -dot- com)
The Bill of Rights--The Original Contract with America
Accept no substitutes. Beware of imitations. Insist on the genuine articles.