The Jonestown conspiracy theories are often believed by proponents to be a covert example of a program of experiments on human subjects that was at times what?
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Jonestown conspiracy theories The Jonestown conspiracy theories are conspiracy theories centering on the Peoples Temple Agricultural Project and the Jonestown massacre. Many proponents of such conspiracy theories contend that outside forces were involved in what occurred at the commune, including the massacre. These theories often include the assertion that the events in Jonestown represented CIA efforts in mind control and/or similar modes of social experimentation, often believed by proponents of such theories to be a covert example of the notorious Project MKULTRA in practice. It differs from "popular or scholarly explanations of what happened in Jonestown".
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Project MKUltra Project MKUltra, also called the CIA's mind control program, is the code name given to a program of experiments on human subjects, at times illegal, designed and undertaken by the United States Central Intelligence Agency. Experiments on humans were intended to identify and develop drugs and procedures to be used in interrogations and torture, in order to weaken the individual to force confessions through mind control.
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Rosenhan experiment The Rosenhan experiment was an experiment conducted to determine the validity of psychiatric diagnosis. The experimenters feigned hallucinations to enter psychiatric hospitals, and acted normally afterwards. They were diagnosed with psychiatric disorders and were given antipsychotic drugs. The study was conducted by psychologist David Rosenhan, a Stanford University professor, and published by the journal "Science" in 1973 under the title "On being sane in insane places". It is considered an important and influential criticism of psychiatric diagnosis.
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Ticking time bomb scenario The ticking time bomb scenario is a thought experiment that has been used in the ethics debate over whether torture can ever be justified. As a thought experiment, there is no need that the scenario be plausible; it need only serve to highlight ethical considerations. The scenario can be formulated as follows:
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9/11 conspiracy theories 9/11 conspiracy theories are conspiracy theories that attribute the planning and execution of the September 11 attacks against the United States to parties other than, or in addition to, al-Qaeda including that there was advance knowledge of the attacks among high-level government officials. Government investigations and independent reviews have found no evidence for the theories. Proponents of these theories claim there are inconsistencies in the official conclusions, or evidence that was either ignored or overlooked.
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Alien abduction claimants Alien abduction claimants (also called abductees and experiencers) are people who have claimed to have been abducted by aliens. The term "abduction phenomenon" describes claims of non-human creatures kidnapping individuals and temporarily removing them from familiar terrestrial surroundings. The abductors, usually interpreted as being extraterrestrial life forms, are said to subject experiencers to a forced medical examination that emphasizes the alleged experiencer's reproductive system.
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GMO conspiracy theories GMO conspiracy theories are conspiracy theories related to the production and sale of genetically modified crops and genetically modified food (also referred to as genetically modified organisms or "GMOs"). These conspiracy theories include claims that agribusinesses, especially Monsanto, have suppressed data showing that GMOs cause harm, deliberately cause food shortages to promote the use of GM food, or have co-opted government agencies such as the United States Food and Drug Administration or scientific societies such as the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Critics charge that GMO conspiracy theories are largely promulgated by those opposing the production and sale of GMOs, and instances of unsubstantiated conspiracy theories have lately occurred in the context of public health issues that are mostly unrelated to GMOs, including the current Zika virus outbreak and concerns over food safety at Chipotle Mexican Grill.
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Operation Freakout Operation Freakout, also known as Operation PC Freakout, was a Church of Scientology covert plan intended to have the U.S. author and journalist Paulette Cooper imprisoned or committed to a psychiatric hospital. The plan, undertaken in 1976 following years of church-initiated lawsuits and covert harassment, was meant to eliminate the perceived threat that Cooper posed to the church and obtain revenge for her publication in 1971 of a highly critical book, "The Scandal of Scientology". The Federal Bureau of Investigation discovered documentary evidence of the plot and the preceding campaign of harassment during an investigation into the Church of Scientology in 1977, eventually leading to the church compensating Cooper in an out-of-court settlement.
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Covert participant observation Covert participant observation is a method in social science research. Participant observation involves a researcher joining the group he or she is studying, and in the case of covert observation, the researcher's status is not made known to the group.
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Race and intelligence The connection between race and intelligence has been a subject of debate in both popular science and academic research since the inception of IQ testing in the early 20th century. While tests have broadly shown differences in average scores based on self-identified race, there is considerable debate as to whether (and to what extent) those differences reflect environmental or genetic factors, as well as to the definitions of "race" and "intelligence" and whether they can be objectively defined. Currently, there is no non-circumstantial evidence that these differences in test scores have a genetic component, although some researchers believe that the existing circumstantial evidence makes it plausible that hard evidence for a genetic component will eventually appear.
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History of evolutionary psychology The history of evolutionary psychology began with Charles Darwin, who said that humans have social instincts that evolved by natural selection. Darwin's work inspired later psychologists such as William James and Sigmund Freud but for most of the 20th century psychologists focused more on behaviorism and proximate explanations for human behavior. E. O. Wilson's landmark 1975 book, "", synthesized recent theoretical advances in evolutionary theory to explain social behavior in animals, including humans. Jerome Barkow, Leda Cosmides and John Tooby popularized the term "evolutionary psychology" in their 1992 book "The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and The Generation of Culture". Like sociobiology before it, evolutionary psychology has been embroiled in controversy, but evolutionary psychologists see their field as gaining increased acceptance overall.
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Politicization of science The politicization of science is the manipulation of science for political gain. It occurs when government, business, or advocacy groups use legal or economic pressure to influence the findings of scientific research or the way it is disseminated, reported or interpreted. The politicization of science may also negatively affect academic and scientific freedom. Historically, groups have conducted various campaigns to promote their interests in defiance of scientific consensus, and in an effort to manipulate public policy.
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Iraqi biological weapons program Saddam Hussein (1937–2006) initiated an extensive biological weapons (BW) program in Iraq in the early 1980s, in violation of the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) of 1972. Details of the BW program—along with a chemical weapons program—surfaced only in the wake of the Gulf War (1990–91) following investigations conducted by the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) which had been charged with the post-war disarmament of Saddam's Iraq. By the end of the war, program scientists had investigated the BW potential of five bacterial strains, one fungal strain, five types of virus, and four toxins. Of these, three—anthrax, botulinum and aflatoxin—had proceeded to weaponization for deployment. Because of the UN disarmament program that followed the war, more is known today about the once-secret bioweapons program in Iraq than that of any other nation.
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Near-death studies Near-death studies is a field of psychology and psychiatry that studies the physiology, phenomenology and after-effects of the near-death experience (NDE). The field was originally associated with a distinct group of North American researchers that followed up on the initial work of Raymond Moody, and who later established the International Association for Near-death Studies (IANDS) and the "Journal of Near-Death Studies". Since then the field has expanded, and now includes contributions from a wide range of researchers and commentators worldwide.
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Jonestown The Peoples Temple Agricultural Project, better known by its informal name "Jonestown", was a remote settlement established by the Peoples Temple, an American socialist organization under the leadership of Jim Jones, in northwestern Guyana. It became internationally notorious when, on November 18, 1978, a total of 918 people died in the settlement, at the nearby airstrip in Port Kaituma, and at a Temple-run building in Georgetown, Guyana's capital city. The name of the settlement became synonymous with the incidents at those locations.
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Case series A case series (also known as a clinical series) is a type of medical research study that tracks subjects with a known exposure, such as patients who have received a similar treatment, or examines their medical records for exposure and outcome. Case series may be "consecutive" or "non-consecutive", depending on whether all cases presenting to the reporting authors over a period were included, or only a selection.
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Lie detection Lie detection, also referred to as deception detection or polygraph test, uses questioning techniques along with technology that record physiological functions to ascertain truth and falsehood in response. It is commonly used by law enforcement in the United States, but rarely in other countries and has historically been an inexact science. There are a wide variety of technologies available for this purpose. The most common and long used measure is the polygraph, which the U.S. National Academy of Sciences states, in populations untrained in countermeasures, can discriminate lying from truth telling at rates above chance, though below perfection. They added that the results apply only to specific events and not to screening, where it is assumed that the polygraph works less well.
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History of animal testing The "history of animal" testing goes back to the writings of the Ancient Greeks in the 4th and 3rd centuries BCE, with Aristotle (384–322 BCE) and Erasistratus (304–258 BCE) one of the first to perform experiments on animals. Galen, a physician in 2nd-century Rome, dissected pigs and goats, and is known as the "Father of Vivisection." Avenzoar, an Arabic physician in 12th-century Moorish Spain who also practiced dissection, introduced animal testing as an experimental method of testing surgical procedures before applying them to human patients.
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Death by burning Deliberately causing death through the effects of combustion, or effects of exposure to extreme heat, has a long history as a form of capital punishment. Many societies have employed it as an execution method for activities considered criminal such as treason, rebellious actions by slaves, heresy, witchcraft and sexual transgressions, such as incest or homosexuality. The best known type of executions of death by burning is when the condemned is bound to a large wooden stake (this is usually called burning at the stake, or in some cases, auto-da-fé), but other forms of death resulting from exposure to extreme heat are known. For example, pouring substances such as molten metal onto a person (or down their throat or into their ears), as well as enclosing persons within, or attaching them to, metal contraptions subsequently heated. "Immersion" in a heated liquid as a form of execution is considered distinct from death by burning, and classified as death by boiling.
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Behavioural genetics Behavioural genetics (Commonwealth English) or behavioral genetics (American English), also referred to as behaviour genetics, is a field of scientific research that uses genetic methods to investigate the nature and origins of individual differences in behaviour. While the name "behavioural genetics" connotes a focus on genetic influences, the field broadly investigates genetic and environmental influences, using research designs that allow removal of the confounding of genes and environment. Behavioural genetics was founded as a scientific discipline by Francis Galton in the late 19th century, only to be discredited through association with eugenics movements before and during World War II. In the latter half of the 20th century, the field saw renewed prominence with research on inheritance of behaviour and mental illness in humans (typically using twin and family studies), as well as research on genetically informative model organisms through selective breeding and crosses. In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, technological advances in molecular genetics made it possible to measure and modify the genome directly. This led to major advances in model organism research (e.g., knockout mice) and in human studies (e.g., genome-wide association studies), leading to new scientific discoveries.
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Terre Haute prison experiments The Terre Haute prison experiments were conducted by Dr. John C. Cutler in 1943 and 1944 under Dr. John F. Mahoney, the head of the Venereal Disease Research Laboratory of the US Public Health Service, to determine the effectiveness of treatments for sexually transmitted diseases. The test subjects were prisoners at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana. They were given disclosures and consented to the experiments. A total of 241 prisoners participated in the study and received $100, a certificate of merit, and a letter of commendation to the parole board at the end of the study. The researchers deposited various strains and concentrations of gonorrhea into the penises of the test subjects. After several months, Mahoney noted that the method of inducing gonorrhea in humans was unreliable and could not provide meaningful tests of prophylactic agents.
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Medical torture Medical torture describes the involvement of, or sometimes instigation by, medical personnel in acts of torture, either to judge what victims can endure, to apply treatments which will enhance torture, or as torturers in their own right. Medical torture overlaps with medical interrogation if it involves the use of professional medical expertise to facilitate interrogation or corporal punishment, in the conduct of torturous human experimentation or in providing professional medical sanction and approval for the torture of prisoners. Medical torture also covers torturous scientific (or pseudo-scientific) experimentation upon unwilling human subjects.