In the name of science

Also, even if it is wrong, what if it was worth it? What if someone who can possibly find a cure for cancer but needs to injects a healthy person with cancer?

So why not just find someone who already has cancer and is willing to participate? To be honest that seems a lot more logical than to infect a perfectly healthy person, because controlled conditions don't always work the way natural ones do, and a contorlled cure might not be as accurate.

I personally CANNOT justify this kind of crap (to me it isn't even science, it's sadistic). I do not think it is fair to subject people (and animals) who are not consenting to these kinds of things because it's cruel. Whether it is for good reasons or not, it is still torture, and it can still have horrible mental and physical affects on the person/creature.

I have a severe genetic disorder myself, and when I was younger I was brought into the hospital for countless tests on my eyes. They ranged from uncomfortable to painful, and often involved x-rays or other huge scary looking machines that to this day I couldn't tell you the names of >_> As a result, I hate hospitals. Hate is an understatement, I don't evne feel comfortable visiting others in hospitals. They scare the holy pomegranate out of me.

If they had told me why they were doing those tests on me, if they gave me reasons and asked me if it was okay, I think that ALONE would have changed everything. The fact they didn't, that is waht annoys me. I think the same could be said for the rest of those "tests".

Bottom line. If the subject is willing and knows what is going on, then I'd say it's okay. Anything other than that is NOT okay, and no amount of "reasoning" will make it so.

One of the major reasons why I have chosen to focus on plant genetics is because I personally feel like I'm treading on morally ambiguous ground by pushing the boundaries on issues such as stem-cell research and other areas that use an unborn embryonic fetus as a base material to conduct experiments.

In general though, most people follow the disgust principle in that they feel what disgusts them is morally reprehensible. Therefore people come from different boundaries and background and have different ideas of what they feel is morally justified in the pursuit of science.

I personally feel that professional researchers aren't given as much credit as they are due. They work numerous hours working on designing experiments that should work and have specific goals. Animals are not expensive, but they will run an expense if poorly run experiments with no overhead are performed on a repeated basis.

There is a fine line with everything. And I think that for researchers who do choose to cross the line (causing immense harm to an individual animal or human) then they should be held responsible to bring out great results. And if they don't, then their experiments were poorly tested and their income/research grants should be restricted because of their negligence.

Many important theories have come with experimentation. Even antibodies and vaccines that we have today stem from animal experiments and theories that have led to their creation such as Griffith's Experiment.

 Spoiler

In general it's awkward for me to discuss what's right and wrong since I'm so extraordinarily biased by my time period and my life experience.

For example, people today don't find vaccines or injections wrong in the slightest. But if we were to make "super children" and gave them "good genes" from birth: "yellow hair, blue eyes, increase amino acid production" then I would find that wrong. And yet, we constantly "update" our immune system in order to increase our defenses.

I wish I could offer absolute statements such as "this is wrong" and "that is right." But it just seems so presumptious and counterinuitive when I realize that there social norms are constantly changing and my views are heavily influenced by this fluctuating bias that has no solid ground.