The Dead Baby Experiment

Have you ever thought about how disturbing some of our science experiments must be? Everyone’s heard the “fun fact” that babies need attention to survive.

We know this because at some point a bunch of scientists hooked some newborn babies up to the right kind of machines, and made sure they had all their nutrients and their other basic needs filled, but that they couldn’t see or touch any people. The idea was to isolate companionship and see what happened if you took it away.

The babies died.

I think there are more important questions. Like, whose babies were those? And who consents to that kind of a study? I can just imagine the conversation:

Scientist: Miss, we need to use your baby in an experiment to further human knowledge.

Mother: What kind of experiment?

Scientist: We’re going to cut your baby off from human contact for a while. We think this might be the reason for American Idol.

Mother: Well, you are wearing a white coat…