Comments on: Brain Drain http://scienceprogress.org/2009/03/brain-drain/ Tue, 13 Sep 2011 13:59:48 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: john lunstroth http://scienceprogress.org/2009/03/brain-drain/comment-page-1/#comment-4549 john lunstroth Mon, 09 Mar 2009 23:48:05 +0000 http://www.scienceprogress.org/?p=1961#comment-4549 The Common Rule says that research has to meet at least 2 criteria to be research: 1) it must be "a systematic investigation, including research development, testing and evaluation, designed 2) to develop or contribute to generalizable knowledge." (45 CFR 46.102(d)). National security interrogations, all things being equal, meet neither of these tests. Since that is so, the presence or absence of a national security exemption or exception seems irrelevant. International law in the ICCPR, CAT, the Geneva Conventions also prohibit experimentation, but again we have the problem of whether or not it is science. To be science we need the apparatus and structure of science, and the generalizable end. The Nazi and Japanese experiments qualified as science, and we acknowledged that by using the data they developed as they tortured people. Ditto the radiation experiments. The ICCPR gives the guidance we need, by making scientific experimentation a species of torture or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. We cannot torture or treat anyone in a CID way. The use of many technologies we have, are experimenting with, claim or want to have would violate at least the CID norm if used on anyone. While recognizing the very important functions of Advisory Committees and other similar bodies, they do not have the kind of authority that would give their pronouncements on law legal force. The suggestion that somehow public perception would affect the legality of using “relatively benign but invasive techniques” leaves open the door to illegal practices, since such relatively benign techniques as oxytocin use would violate international law, national security notwithstanding. If we treat such “irresistible” urges to use the benign, but illegal, technologies as the subjects of ethical discourse, are we begging the question of their ethicality? The Common Rule says that research has to meet at least 2 criteria to be research:
1) it must be “a systematic investigation, including research development, testing and evaluation, designed
2) to develop or contribute to generalizable knowledge.” (45 CFR 46.102(d)).
National security interrogations, all things being equal, meet neither of these tests. Since that is so, the presence or absence of a national security exemption or exception seems irrelevant. International law in the ICCPR, CAT, the Geneva Conventions also prohibit experimentation, but again we have the problem of whether or not it is science. To be science we need the apparatus and structure of science, and the generalizable end. The Nazi and Japanese experiments qualified as science, and we acknowledged that by using the data they developed as they tortured people. Ditto the radiation experiments. The ICCPR gives the guidance we need, by making scientific experimentation a species of torture or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. We cannot torture or treat anyone in a CID way. The use of many technologies we have, are experimenting with, claim or want to have would violate at least the CID norm if used on anyone. While recognizing the very important functions of Advisory Committees and other similar bodies, they do not have the kind of authority that would give their pronouncements on law legal force.

The suggestion that somehow public perception would affect the legality of using “relatively benign but invasive techniques” leaves open the door to illegal practices, since such relatively benign techniques as oxytocin use would violate international law, national security notwithstanding. If we treat such “irresistible” urges to use the benign, but illegal, technologies as the subjects of ethical discourse, are we begging the question of their ethicality?

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