2y ago

Pit of despair - Controversial experiment which subjected monkeys to prolonged isolation and depression

en.wikipedia.org

Pit of despair - Wikipedia

Today I Learned (TIL) @lemmit.online

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9mo ago

TIL about the Pit of Despair, an apparatus used in widely-condemned experiments that isolated young monkeys in a dark, smooth tank with sloped sides and a curved base. The monkeys were left isolat...

en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Pit_of_despair

7 comments

Jesus fucking christ. How did they allow this guy - clearly suffering grief from his wife's death - to torture monkeys. I am all about research but this was just cruelty from a broken man.
- Agreed. This is some Mengele level shit. Completely unethical and should have never happened.
And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why we have IACUC.
I will say though, after reading this article, the pit of despair is exactly what it feels like to have severe long term depression.. my brain is the monkey and the pit is the depression.
- There's nothing really to be gained in describing the symptoms we all know to exist.
  As his colleagues (mostly) cited and criticized during Harlow's time; reproducing or merely describing symptoms is the first baby step in solving the problem.
  Not to criticize you, but that's just reality. It'd be like force feeding someone alcohol to study the effects of the mental disease of alcoholism.
  
  I was in no way justifying or endorsing his work.
  I had never heard of him before I read this, and I have never read a more apt descriptive analogue to my own symptoms than was described in it.
What a sick broken and horrible man.

7 comments