Bartholomew Cooke


When scientists violate moral taboos, we expect horrific consequences. It's a trope that goes back at least to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein: however well-intentioned our fictional scientists may be, their disregard for ethical boundaries will produce not a peer-reviewed paper in Science but rather a new race of subhuman killers, a sucking wormhole in space-time, or a sea of malevolent goo.

In the real world, though, matters aren't so simple. Most scientists will assure you that ethical rules never hinder good research -- that there's always a virtuous path to testing any important hypothesis. But ask them in private, perhaps after a drink or three, and they'll confess that the dark side does have its appeal. Bend the rules and some of our deepest scientific conundrums could be elucidated or even resolved: nature versus nurture, the causes of mental illness, even the mystery of how humans evolved from monkeys. These discoveries are just sitting out there, waiting for us to find them, if only we were willing to lose our souls.

What follows are seven creepy experiments that show how contemporary science might advance if it were to toss away the moral compass that guides it. Don't try these at home -- or anywhere, for that matter. But also don't pretend you wouldn't like to learn the secrets that these experiments would reveal.


The experiment:

Split up twins after birth -- and then control every aspect of their environments

The premise:

In the quest to gauge the interplay of nature and nurture, science has one obvious resource: identical twins, to people whose genes are nearly 100 percent the same. But twins almost always grow up together, essentially in the same environment. A few studies have been able to track twins separated at a young age, but it's impossible to control retroactively for all the ways that the lives of even separated twins are still related. If scientists could control the siblings from the start, they could create a rigorous study. It would be one of the least ethical studies imaginable, but it might be the only way (short of cloning humans for research, which is arguably even less ethical) that we'd ever solve some big questions about genetics and upbringing.

How it works:

Expectant mothers of twins would need to be recruited ahead of time so the environments of each sibling could differ from the moment of birth. After choosing what factors to investigate, researchers could construct test homes for the children, ensuring that every aspect of their upbringing, from diet to climate, was controlled and measured

The payoff:

Several disciplines would benefit enormously, but none more than psychology, in which the role of upbringing has long been particularly hazy. Developmental psychologists could arrive at some unprecedented insights into personality -- finally explaining, for example, why twins raised together can turn out utterly different, while those raised apart can end up very alike.

Erin Biba


The experiment:

Remove brain cells from a live subject to analyse which genes are switched on and which are off

The premise:

You might donate blood or hair for scientific research, but how about a tiny slice of your brain -- while you're still alive? Medical ethics wouldn't let you consent even if you wanted to, and for good reason; it's an invasive surgery with serious risks. But it could help to answer a huge question: how does nurture affect nature, and vice versa? Although scientists recognise in principle that our environment can alter our DNA, they have few documented examples of how these so-called epigenetic changes happen and with what consequences. Animal studies suggest the consequences could be profound. A 2004 study of lab rats at McGill University, Montreal, found that certain maternal behaviours can silence a gene in the hippocampi of their pups, leaving them less able to handle stress hormones. In 2009, a McGillled team saw a hint of a similar effect in humans. In the brains of dead people who had been abused as children and then committed suicide, the analogous gene was inhibited. But what about in living brains? When does the shift happen? With brain sampling, we might understand the real neurologic toll of child abuse, and potentially far more than that.

How it works:

Researchers would obtain brain cells just as a surgeon does when conducting a biopsy. After lightly sedating the patient, they would attach a head ring with four pins, using local anaesthetic to numb the skin. A surgeon would make an incision a few millimetres wide in the scalp, drill a small hole through the skull and insert a biopsy needle to grab a tiny bit of tissue. A thin slice would be sufficient, since you need only a few micrograms of DNA. Assuming no infection or surgical error, damage to the brain would be minimal.

The payoff:

Such an experiment could answer some deep questions about how we learn. Does reading turn on genes in the prefrontal cortex, the site of higher-order cognition? Does spending lots of time at the cricket crease alter the epigenetic status of genes in the motor cortex? Does watching reality television alter genes in whatever brain you have left? By correlating experiences with the DNA in our heads, we could better understand how the lives we lead wind up tinkering with the genes we inherited.

Sharon Begley


  1. Yet another way Religion has its fingers in everything we do. if it wasn't for religion we would be able to do all this and then some.  

    Aug 5th 2011
    1. In reply to James

      " Split up twins after birth -- and then control every aspect of their environments" - you think we could really do this if it were not for religion? You think that the only thing stopping us from treating each other like animals is religion? I am glad I don't know you. I have no religion, but I do have a moral sense. Such experiments would not be moral. Most people would agree, religious or not, and would have no difficulty recognizing that their moral aversion derives from their common humanity, not from supernatural beliefs.  

      Feb 11th 2012
  2. Someone should do some reseach. The seperating twins thing has been done already, and when the twins found out they sued en massed, sealing the results for some 70 years.  

    Aug 8th 2011

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