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<v Speaker 1>Picture the precise moment just before a total disaster. You

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<v Speaker 1>are standing in the sterile, highly classified room at Los Alamos.

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<v Speaker 2>Right the heart of the Manhattan Project.

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<v Speaker 1>Exactly, and you are currently holding a flathead screwdriver. But

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<v Speaker 1>you aren't you fixing a hinge or adjusting a cabinet

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<v Speaker 1>or something.

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<v Speaker 2>You're doing something much much worse.

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<v Speaker 1>You are wedging the blade of that screwdriver between two

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<v Speaker 1>heavy beryllium hemispheres. You are trying to manually prop open

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<v Speaker 1>a casing that encloses a highly radioactive plutonium core, which

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<v Speaker 1>is just terrifying to even think about it is, or

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<v Speaker 1>I mean, imagine a completely different scene centuries earlier. You

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<v Speaker 1>are a highly educated medical professional and you are willingly

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<v Speaker 1>enthusiastically pouring the infected black vomit of a dying patient

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<v Speaker 1>directly into your own open wounds.

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<v Speaker 2>I mean it sounds like this set up to a

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<v Speaker 2>psychological thriller, right, or maybe a dark comedy about the

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<v Speaker 2>end of the world. Yes, totally, but it's not. It

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<v Speaker 2>is the actual historical record of human.

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<v Speaker 1>InCor, and it forces us to ask the ultimate question,

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<v Speaker 1>where is the line between a visionary genius and an

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<v Speaker 1>absolute catastrophic idiot?

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<v Speaker 2>That is a very thin line.

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<v Speaker 1>Sometimes it really is so welcome to thrilling threads. In

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<v Speaker 1>this deep dive, we are going to explore twenty five

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<v Speaker 1>of the most deranged, unethical, and just baffling scientific experiments

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<v Speaker 1>in human history.

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<v Speaker 2>We are going to unpack the historical records, the medical journals,

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<v Speaker 2>and the psychological case studies.

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<v Speaker 1>Right to understand exactly why these highly educated, deeply respected

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<v Speaker 1>individuals thought these horrific ideas were valid.

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<v Speaker 2>And exploring that why is so crucial because these weren't

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<v Speaker 2>cartoon villains operating in secret layers. You know, now, there

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<v Speaker 2>were real people, exactly real people driven by a genuine

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<v Speaker 2>desire to know, to push boundaries, to cure diseases, or

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<v Speaker 2>just to understand the cosmos. But they did it by

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<v Speaker 2>abandoning the very guard rails that separate rigorous science from

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<v Speaker 2>utter madness.

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<v Speaker 1>For you listening right now, we know we live in

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<v Speaker 1>an era where we rely heavily on scientific consensus, and

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<v Speaker 1>usually I mean that trust is incredibly well placed.

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<v Speaker 2>Oh absolutely, the scientific method is the best tool we have.

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<v Speaker 1>But today we are going to look at the moments

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<v Speaker 1>when that method completely derailed and to really grasp this

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<v Speaker 1>kind of scientific Hubris. We have to start at the

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<v Speaker 1>very foundation of modern science itself.

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<v Speaker 2>We need to look at the man who actually championed

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<v Speaker 2>the concept of empirical data.

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<v Speaker 1>Yes, and how his utter lack of practical foresight completely

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<v Speaker 1>killed him.

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<v Speaker 2>You were talking about Francis Bacon. Of course, he is

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<v Speaker 2>widely considered the father of empiricism.

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<v Speaker 1>Right, exactly. Bacon was a British renaissance man. He was

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<v Speaker 1>deeply involved in politics, philosophy, writing, you name it.

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<v Speaker 2>And prior to Bacon, a lot of what people called

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<v Speaker 2>science was really just inherited wisdom.

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<v Speaker 1>Like people just read Aristotle and took it as absolute gospel.

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<v Speaker 2>Right. But Bacon's core belief was radical for the time. Yeah,

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<v Speaker 2>he said knowledge actually required physical evidence.

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<v Speaker 1>You can't just doom something works because some ancient Greek

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<v Speaker 1>philosophers said, so, you have to test it.

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<v Speaker 2>You have to build knowledge from the ground up through

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<v Speaker 2>systematic observation.

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<v Speaker 1>So we go to sixteen twenty six. He is in Highgate,

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<v Speaker 1>North London. It is freezing outside, there is thick snow

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<v Speaker 1>absolutely everywhere.

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<v Speaker 2>And Bacon gets an idea about food storage.

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah, he wonders about the thermodynamics of meat preservation. Specifically,

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<v Speaker 1>could snow and ice be used to preserve flesh and

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<v Speaker 1>prevent puture.

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<v Speaker 2>Faction, which, to be fair, is actually a brilliant hypothesis.

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<v Speaker 2>He was conceptually centuries ahead of the modern freezer.

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<v Speaker 1>He really was.

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<v Speaker 2>He understood that cold might inhibit whatever processes cause meat

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<v Speaker 2>to rot, even if he didn't know fully understand bacterial

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<v Speaker 2>decomposition yet.

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<v Speaker 1>Right, the problem wasn't his hypothesis at all. The problem

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<v Speaker 1>was his methodology. He acquires a pluck ten and he

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<v Speaker 1>decides to stuff it with snow right there in the

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<v Speaker 1>freezing cold, right out in the elements, exactly. And I

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<v Speaker 1>want to pause here because this is where his immense

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<v Speaker 1>intellect completely detaches from base common sense.

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<v Speaker 2>He doesn't go inside, he.

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<v Speaker 1>Doesn't bring the snow indoors, he doesn't have an assistant

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<v Speaker 1>do it. He stands in the freezing winter air, plunging

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<v Speaker 1>his bare hands into the snow to stuff a dead bird.

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<v Speaker 2>And consequently he catches a severe chill, which very quickly

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<v Speaker 2>develops into pneumonia.

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<v Speaker 1>And the mechanism of that is purely physiological, right, Yeah, it.

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<v Speaker 2>Is Prolonged exposure to extreme cold causes severe vasoconstriction, that

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<v Speaker 2>is the narrowing of blood vessels to preserve core body.

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<v Speaker 1>Heat, so the blood rushes away from the extremities.

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<v Speaker 2>Exactly, and this impairs the local immune response in the

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<v Speaker 2>respiratory tract when you combine that with the physical exertion

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<v Speaker 2>and the environmental pathogens of seventeenth century London. While his

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<v Speaker 2>lungs just filled with fluid and.

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<v Speaker 1>He died shortly after. He never even got to find

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<v Speaker 1>out if his chicken experiment actually worked.

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<v Speaker 2>It is tragic, really.

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<v Speaker 1>It is like inventing the seatbelt but accidentally strangling yourself

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<v Speaker 1>with it while trying to figure out how the buckle works.

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<v Speaker 2>That is a great analogy. What's fascinating here is the

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<v Speaker 2>sheer irony of it all. The man who champion the

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<v Speaker 2>idea of systematic observation completely lacked basic situational awareness.

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<v Speaker 1>He just missed the big picture.

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<v Speaker 2>He applied his massive intellect to unlocking the secrets of

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<v Speaker 2>the natural world, but entirely forgot that he was a

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<v Speaker 2>fragile biological component of that exact same world.

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<v Speaker 1>He needed a warmer coat, not just a sharper mind.

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<v Speaker 1>So Bacon's failure was an accidental byproduct of his curiosity.

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<v Speaker 1>But what happens when a scientist views their own agonizing

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<v Speaker 1>pain not as an accident, but as a necessary ingredient

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<v Speaker 1>for discovery.

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<v Speaker 2>That takes us into some very dark territory.

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<v Speaker 1>It does that brings us to our next pair of researchers.

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<v Speaker 1>We see scientists taking that same disregard for their own

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<v Speaker 1>safety and applying it to deadly aggressive viruses. Let's look

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<v Speaker 1>at Stubbins A. Firth and Jesse William Lazier.

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<v Speaker 2>Ah the yellow fever gambles. This is where self experimentation

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<v Speaker 2>really crosses the line from careless enthusiasm to something deeply,

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<v Speaker 2>deeply disturbing.

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<v Speaker 1>I am still trying to wrap my head around Stubben's effort.

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<v Speaker 1>It's the seventeen nineties in Philadelphia. Yellow fever is just

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<v Speaker 1>ravaging the population.

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<v Speaker 2>It was a terrifying disease and nobody had any idea

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<v Speaker 2>how it spread.

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<v Speaker 1>Right, and Effirth has a theory. He wants to prove

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<v Speaker 1>that the disease is not passed from person to person

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<v Speaker 1>via bodily fluids.

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<v Speaker 2>So to test this, he exposes himself to infected bodily

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<v Speaker 2>fluids the most aggressive ways imaginable.

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<v Speaker 1>It is so gross. Tell them what he did well.

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<v Speaker 2>He started by making surgical incisions. On his own arms.

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<v Speaker 2>He then took the vomit of yellow fever patients, specifically

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<v Speaker 2>the black moment oh man yeah, which is actually partially

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<v Speaker 2>digested blood resulting from severe gastro intestinal hemorrhaging, and he

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<v Speaker 2>poured it directly into his open wounds.

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<v Speaker 1>And when he didn't get sick from that, he just

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<v Speaker 1>doubled down. He poured the vonnut into his eyes, He.

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<v Speaker 2>Fright it in a pan and inhaled the fume.

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<v Speaker 1>He drank it undiluted. He rubbed infected blood, urine and

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<v Speaker 1>saliva all over his body.

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<v Speaker 2>And the crazy part is he never contracted the disease.

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<v Speaker 1>Right after all this, he claimed absolute victory. He publishes

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<v Speaker 1>findings and proudly announced to the medical community that he

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<v Speaker 1>had definitively proven yellow fever is not contagious through bodily.

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<v Speaker 2>Fluids, which is completely wrong.

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<v Speaker 1>Wait I am stuck on this part. If Effith is

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<v Speaker 1>literally drinking the fresh vomit and rubbing the blood of

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<v Speaker 1>a yellow fever patient into open cuts, how on earth

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<v Speaker 1>does he not get the virus to stomach acid kill

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<v Speaker 1>it or was he just naturally immune?

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<v Speaker 2>That is the core of why this experiment is so

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<v Speaker 2>scientifically tragic. F Firth was basically a textbook example of

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<v Speaker 2>conformation bias, just blinding a researcher to flawed.

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<v Speaker 1>Methodology because he wanted to be right.

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<v Speaker 2>Right. Yellow fever is a viral disease, and we now

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<v Speaker 2>know it is mosquito born. But f Frith was sourcing

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<v Speaker 2>his materials from late stage.

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<v Speaker 1>Patients, the ones producing the black vomit.

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<v Speaker 2>Exactly, by the time a patient is producing that black vomit,

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<v Speaker 2>their body is in the final catastrophic stages of the disease.

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<v Speaker 2>They are dying from hepatic and renal failure.

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<v Speaker 1>So the disease has already run its course.

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<v Speaker 2>Yes, crucially, the very phase, which is the period where

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<v Speaker 2>the virus is actively replicating and present in high concentrations

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<v Speaker 2>in the bloodscreen and fluids, that peaks very early in

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<v Speaker 2>the infection. Oh wow, So by the time the patient

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<v Speaker 2>is hamorrhaging into their stomach, their immune system has actually

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<v Speaker 2>cleared the active virus from their blood. There were essentially

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<v Speaker 2>no activierians in the fluids he.

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<v Speaker 1>Was ingesting, So he was eating late stage womut for

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<v Speaker 1>literally nothing. He was just torturing himself for absolutely no

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<v Speaker 1>scientific gain.

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<v Speaker 2>He brute forced a negative result and thought it was

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<v Speaker 2>a breakthrough.

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<v Speaker 1>But then fast forward to the late eighteen hundreds, we

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<v Speaker 1>have Jesse William Lazier working with the US Army Yellow

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<v Speaker 1>Fever Board. He encounters research from a Cuban doctor, Carlos Finlay,

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<v Speaker 1>suggesting mosquitoes are the actual vector.

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<v Speaker 2>Right, Lazir had previously worked with malaria, so he understood

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<v Speaker 2>the bug vector theory. The mechanism made perfect sense to him, and.

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<v Speaker 1>To definitively prove it, what does he do?

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<v Speaker 2>He allowed himself to be bitten by eighties Egyptu mosquitoes

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<v Speaker 2>that he deliberately allowed to fee on infected yellow fever

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<v Speaker 2>patients during their highly infectious phemic phase.

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<v Speaker 1>The early phase.

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<v Speaker 2>Yes, the early phase, and unlike E. F.

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<v Speaker 1>Frith, Lazir actually contracts the disease. He dies just over

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<v Speaker 1>two weeks.

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<v Speaker 2>Later, but his death proved the theory and fundamentally changed

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<v Speaker 2>global public health.

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<v Speaker 1>Now I have to challenge the historical framing of these

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<v Speaker 1>two men here, because often Lazier is painted as this

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<v Speaker 1>heroic martyr and Efforth is just seen as a disgusting idiot.

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<v Speaker 2>That's the standard narrative.

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah, but aren't they operating on the exact same psychological wavelength.

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<v Speaker 1>Lazir took a calculated risk based on new data, and E. F.

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<v Speaker 1>Frith was acting on sheer ego. Sure, but at their

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<v Speaker 1>core both men completely devalue their own humanity in the

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<v Speaker 1>face of a hypothesis.

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<v Speaker 2>They stopped being people and became disposable laboratory equipment. Exactly.

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<v Speaker 2>That is a very sharp psychological distinction. You are right

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<v Speaker 2>that the outcomes shouldn't dictate how we view the methodology ethically.

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<v Speaker 2>They share an alarming.

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<v Speaker 1>Trait which was very common back then.

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<v Speaker 2>Oh absolutely, in the scientific culture of those eras. The

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<v Speaker 2>body of the researcher was viewed as the ultimate unassailable

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<v Speaker 2>testing ground. If you weren't willing to risk your own life,

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<v Speaker 2>your data was somehow suspect.

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<v Speaker 1>It's a complete inversion of how we view scientific ethics today,

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<v Speaker 1>where human life is paramount right. And if risking death

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<v Speaker 1>wasn't bad enough, what about risking immense, agonizing voluntary pain

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<v Speaker 1>for almost no reason at all.

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<v Speaker 2>This one is rough.

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<v Speaker 1>That brings us to nineteen thirty three and the absolutely

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<v Speaker 1>baffling partnership of Herbert Willard and Edward Carmichael.

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<v Speaker 2>The referred pain studies.

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<v Speaker 1>The testicle weights let's just call it what it is,

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<v Speaker 1>fair enough. These two scientists, these two buddies, decided they

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<v Speaker 1>needed to map the phenomenon of referred pain, which, for

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<v Speaker 1>you listening, is when you feel pain in one part

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<v Speaker 1>of your body, but the actual injury is somewhere else.

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<v Speaker 2>Oh wait, like arm pain during a heart attack.

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<v Speaker 1>Exactly. So they took turns lying on a table while

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<v Speaker 1>the other one literally piled weights onto their testicles.

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<v Speaker 2>Can't understand the why we have to look at the

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<v Speaker 2>neuro anatomy. They were trying to map visceral pain, which

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<v Speaker 2>is pain from internal organs, is notoriously difficult to.

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<v Speaker 1>Localize because the nerves get all jumbled up.

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<v Speaker 2>Essentially, Yes, the nerve pathways converge in the spinal cord

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<v Speaker 2>with somatic nerves which come from the skin and muscles,

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<v Speaker 2>and the brain just gets confused about where the signal

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<v Speaker 2>is originating.

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<v Speaker 1>And the testicles.

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<v Speaker 2>The testicles are unique because they are visceral organs, but

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<v Speaker 2>they're located.

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<v Speaker 1>Externally, so they were easily accessible organs for testing. Still,

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<v Speaker 1>I am just picturing them in the lab like, all right, Edward,

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<v Speaker 1>my turn for the weights, Hand me the five pounder.

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<v Speaker 1>It's absurd sometimes the injected local anesthetics first. Sometimes they didn't.

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<v Speaker 1>They just lay there adding weight to see if the

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<v Speaker 1>pain radiated to their lower back or abdomen.

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<v Speaker 2>It highlights that strange, almost fratthouse mentality of early twentieth

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<v Speaker 2>century research. There was this underlying belief that true rugged

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<v Speaker 2>science required you to suffer.

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<v Speaker 1>No pain, no scientific gain exactly.

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<v Speaker 2>Boundary pushing frequently bordered on the masochistic. If you weren't

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<v Speaker 2>willing to subject your own anatomy to crushing trauma for

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<v Speaker 2>a journal article, you just weren't committed.

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<v Speaker 1>But before we judge history too harshly and think this

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<v Speaker 1>is just some relic of the nineteen thirties, this kind

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<v Speaker 1>of reckless self experimentation is actually happening right now in

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<v Speaker 1>the world of biohacking.

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<v Speaker 2>Right the modern iteration of this hubris.

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<v Speaker 1>Let's look at Gabriel Asina.

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<v Speaker 2>Biohacking is driven by this belief that the human body

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<v Speaker 2>is just biological hardware waiting for a user installed software.

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<v Speaker 1>Update totally bypassing clinical trials or ethical review boards. Licina

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<v Speaker 1>wanted to give humans night vision, so he concocted a

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<v Speaker 1>mixture containing chlorin E six, which is actually an FDA

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<v Speaker 1>approved drug used to treat night blindness and occasionally in

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<v Speaker 1>cancer treatments, and he mixed it with insulin and dimdithilsal

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<v Speaker 1>foxide to help the compound penetrate the cellular membrane of

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<v Speaker 1>the eye, and then he just dropped this chemical cocktail

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<v Speaker 1>directly onto his own eyeballs.

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<v Speaker 2>The mechanism of chlorin E six is fascinating, honestly. It

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<v Speaker 2>acts as a photosensitive It essentially amplifies light.

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<v Speaker 1>And it kind of worked right temporarily.

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<v Speaker 2>Yes, Lacina did temporarily experience enhanced night vision. He could

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<v Speaker 2>see shapes in a dark field that the control group

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<v Speaker 2>couldn't see at all. But the critical flaw here is

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<v Speaker 2>a profound misunderstanding of the eyes delicate biochemistry.

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<v Speaker 1>Right, because the human eye regulates light for a very

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<v Speaker 1>good reason exactly.

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<v Speaker 2>The retina is packed with photoreceptor cells, rods and cones.

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<v Speaker 2>When you chemically force those cells to become hypersensitive to

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<v Speaker 2>light by bypassing the people's natural dilation limits, you're generating

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<v Speaker 2>reactive oxygen species.

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<v Speaker 1>In the retina, which sounds very bad.

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<v Speaker 2>It is you are rendering the eye incredibly vulnerable to phototoxicity.

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<v Speaker 1>It's like turning your eyes into a camera stuck on

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<v Speaker 1>maximum exposure. You walk outside into the morning sun, and

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<v Speaker 1>you risk completely frying your.

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<v Speaker 2>Retinas, permanent damage.

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<v Speaker 1>The hubris to risk permanent, irreversible blindness just to avoid

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<v Speaker 1>buying a flashlight.

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<v Speaker 2>It's crazy because it's not about the flashlight. It's about

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<v Speaker 2>the ego of transcendence. It's the thrill of thinking, I

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<v Speaker 2>am the one who outsmarted a million years of evolution.

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<v Speaker 1>Outsmarting evolution. Wow. Well, if tampering with the eyes is terrifying,

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<v Speaker 1>what about tampering with the very fluid that keeps us alive?

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<v Speaker 2>Blood?

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<v Speaker 1>Let's move into the alchemy of blood, milk and metaphysics,

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<v Speaker 1>starting with the vampire Bolshevik himself, Alexander Bogdanov.

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<v Speaker 2>Bogdanov is such a deeply complex historical figure. We're in

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<v Speaker 2>the Soviet Union now in nineteen twenty eight. He was

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<v Speaker 2>a revolutionary, a pioneer of systems theory, a science fiction writer,

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<v Speaker 2>and a physician.

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<v Speaker 1>A real renaissance man, but in all the wrong ways.

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<v Speaker 2>He became utterly obsessed with blood transfusions as a means

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<v Speaker 2>of rejuvenation. He didn't just want to cure disease. He

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<v Speaker 2>believed he could achieve a kind of functional immortality through

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<v Speaker 2>parabiotic exchange.

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<v Speaker 1>He literally believed his own blood was somehow uniquely resilient.

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<v Speaker 1>So he teams up with a twenty one year old

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<v Speaker 1>student who is suffering from both tuberculosis.

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<v Speaker 2>And malaria, a terrible combination.

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<v Speaker 1>Bogdanov proposes a total blood spe He thinks, you know,

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<v Speaker 1>my old wives immune blood will cure this kid's diseases,

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<v Speaker 1>and his young, vibrant blood will make me youthful again.

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<v Speaker 2>It was a mutual exchange built on a complete and

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<v Speaker 2>menological fantasy. What Bogdanov didn't account for is the brutal,

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<v Speaker 2>microscopic reality of blood compatibility.

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<v Speaker 1>Which we all know about now right.

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<v Speaker 2>Humans have distinct blood types, determined by the presence or

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<v Speaker 2>absence of specific antigens on the surface of their red

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<v Speaker 2>blood cells.

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<v Speaker 1>And if you mix the wrong types.

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<v Speaker 2>Your immune system recognizes the transfused blood as a hostile

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<v Speaker 2>foreign invader. Bogdanov suffered a massive acute hemolytic transfusion reaction.

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<v Speaker 2>What does that actually do to the body, Well, his

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<v Speaker 2>body produced IgM anti bodies that aggressively attacked the student's

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<v Speaker 2>red blood cells, causing them to rupture. This releases massive

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<v Speaker 2>amounts of free hemoglobin into the bloodstream, which is highly

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<v Speaker 2>toxic to.

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<v Speaker 1>The kidneys, so his kidneys shut down.

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<v Speaker 2>He experienced acute tubular necrosis, His kidneys failed, and he

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<v Speaker 2>died a miserable, completely preventable death.

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<v Speaker 1>And the most bitter eyey of all this, the twenty

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<v Speaker 1>one year old student with TB and malaria actually made

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<v Speaker 1>a complete recovery after getting Bogdanov's blood.

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<v Speaker 2>It is almost a dark comedy, it really is.

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<v Speaker 1>But bogdanov'shubris was thinking his ideological belief in a shared

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<v Speaker 1>communal bloodstream could override biological reality. We can look at

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<v Speaker 1>nineteen twenty eight and shake our heads knowing that Karl

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<v Speaker 1>Lansteiner had actually discovered ABO blood groups back in nineteen

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<v Speaker 1>oh one.

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<v Speaker 2>Bogdanov really should have known better.

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00:16:26.840 --> 00:16:29.559
<v Speaker 1>You really should have. But before blood typing scientists got

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<v Speaker 1>even more desperate, Let's rewind to eighteen fifty four in

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<v Speaker 1>Canada with James Bobble and Edwin Hotter.

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<v Speaker 2>Ah the milk transfusions. This represents an era where medical

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<v Speaker 2>desperation collided with a fundamental lack of physiological understanding.

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<v Speaker 1>This one gives me visceral horror. We have to remember

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<v Speaker 1>that medicine in the mid nineteenth century was terrifying.

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<v Speaker 2>Truly the Dark Ages of medicine.

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<v Speaker 1>This is an era where people were trying to cure

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<v Speaker 1>aggressive mental illness by injecting patients with the blood of

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<v Speaker 1>docile lambs. Just oh is calm put its blood in

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<v Speaker 1>the angry.

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<v Speaker 2>Man literal magical thinking exactly.

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<v Speaker 1>So, Bubvell and Hotter are looking for a universal donor

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<v Speaker 1>fluid because human to human transfusions are just killing everyone.

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<v Speaker 1>They look at blood under early microscopes and they see

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<v Speaker 1>white blood cells. Then they look at.

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<v Speaker 2>Cow's milk and they deduce purely based on visual similarity

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<v Speaker 2>and well wishful thinking, that the fat globules in cow's milk,

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<v Speaker 2>which looks somewhat similar to colomicrons and white blood cells

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00:17:31.000 --> 00:17:34.920
<v Speaker 2>under a rudimentary lens, could miraculously transform into white blood

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<v Speaker 2>cells once injected into the human blood stream.

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<v Speaker 1>They injected unsterilized cow's milk directly into human veins.

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<v Speaker 2>It's hard to even process.

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<v Speaker 1>And by some absolute inexplicable fluke of nature. Their very

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<v Speaker 1>first patient, a man dying of cholera, actually showed signs

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<v Speaker 1>of improvement, which was.

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<v Speaker 2>The absolute worst thing. They could have happened.

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<v Speaker 1>Because it encouraged them. Walk me through what actually happens

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<v Speaker 1>to the body in that moment when you inject milk

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<v Speaker 1>into a vein.

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<v Speaker 2>The physiological mechanism of what they were doing is staggering.

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<v Speaker 2>When you inject a foreign, unsterilized complex emulsion of bovine

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<v Speaker 2>proteins and large fat globules directly into the vascular system,

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<v Speaker 2>you are triggering multiple fatal cascades like what First, the

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<v Speaker 2>fat globules can coalesce causing fat embolism syndrome. This physically

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<v Speaker 2>blocks the microvasculature in the lungs.

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<v Speaker 1>And brain, so you basically suffocate from the inside.

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<v Speaker 2>And second, the foreign proteins trigger systemic inflammatory response syndrome

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<v Speaker 2>or SERS, leading to massive anaphylaxis.

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<v Speaker 1>And the next five patients they injected with milk promptly

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<v Speaker 1>ded course.

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00:18:35.920 --> 00:18:38.359
<v Speaker 2>They did, but again they were operating in a total

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<v Speaker 2>void of knowledge. They saw milk as pure nourishing and

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<v Speaker 2>visually analogous to blood components.

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<v Speaker 1>So if they couldn't master the physical fluids of the body,

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<v Speaker 1>what about the metaphysical This brings us to nineteen oh

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<v Speaker 1>seven and doctor Duncan McDougall.

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<v Speaker 2>This is a classic.

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00:18:53.480 --> 00:18:56.160
<v Speaker 1>He asked a question that still haunts internet forums today.

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00:18:56.599 --> 00:18:57.640
<v Speaker 1>Can we measure the soul?

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00:18:57.839 --> 00:19:01.559
<v Speaker 2>The famous twenty one grams experiment? This is a perfect

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00:19:01.599 --> 00:19:05.640
<v Speaker 2>case study in how deeply flawed science becomes immortalized as

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<v Speaker 2>pop culture. Fact.

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00:19:07.240 --> 00:19:11.200
<v Speaker 1>McDougall built these specially designed, highly sensitive industrial scales in

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<v Speaker 1>his office. He placed six dying patients on these beds,

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00:19:15.680 --> 00:19:18.400
<v Speaker 1>intending to weigh them at the exact moment of death.

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00:19:18.680 --> 00:19:22.960
<v Speaker 2>His hypothesis was deeply literal. The soul has physical mass,

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00:19:23.000 --> 00:19:25.599
<v Speaker 2>and when it leaves the body upon death, the scale

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00:19:25.599 --> 00:19:26.799
<v Speaker 2>should register a drop.

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00:19:26.960 --> 00:19:29.559
<v Speaker 1>And he published his findings claiming that the human soul

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00:19:29.680 --> 00:19:33.000
<v Speaker 1>weighs exactly twenty one grams, or roughly three quarters of

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00:19:33.000 --> 00:19:33.440
<v Speaker 1>an ounce.

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00:19:34.000 --> 00:19:37.319
<v Speaker 2>But if you deconstruct his methodology, it completely disintegrates.

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00:19:37.440 --> 00:19:40.759
<v Speaker 1>Oh, it's a statistical joke. First, he only had six subjects.

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00:19:41.200 --> 00:19:43.599
<v Speaker 1>I mean, getting a dying person to agree to spend

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00:19:43.640 --> 00:19:46.039
<v Speaker 1>their final moments on a doctor's industrial scale is a

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00:19:46.039 --> 00:19:48.799
<v Speaker 1>tough cell anyway. But even worse, out of those six subjects,

408
00:19:48.839 --> 00:19:51.079
<v Speaker 1>how many actually showed this twenty one gram drop?

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00:19:51.319 --> 00:19:54.480
<v Speaker 2>Exactly one? One single patient showed the weight drop that

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00:19:54.519 --> 00:19:55.799
<v Speaker 2>aligned with his hypothesis.

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00:19:55.839 --> 00:19:57.880
<v Speaker 1>He threw out eighty three percent of his own data.

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00:19:58.119 --> 00:20:00.279
<v Speaker 1>Two of the patients lost weight and then gained back,

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00:20:00.359 --> 00:20:01.799
<v Speaker 1>one lost weight twice.

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00:20:01.599 --> 00:20:03.720
<v Speaker 2>And McDougall just shrugged and blamed the scales.

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00:20:04.000 --> 00:20:07.480
<v Speaker 1>Right, he said they weren't calibrated correctly for those patients,

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00:20:07.640 --> 00:20:10.319
<v Speaker 1>But assume the scale was perfectly accurate for the one

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00:20:10.400 --> 00:20:11.640
<v Speaker 1>guy who fit his theory.

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00:20:12.319 --> 00:20:15.640
<v Speaker 2>Furthermore, the physics of a dying body are incredibly complex.

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00:20:16.200 --> 00:20:18.960
<v Speaker 2>At the moment of death, there is a sudden spike

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00:20:19.079 --> 00:20:22.160
<v Speaker 2>in core temperature because the blood stops circulating to cool

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00:20:22.200 --> 00:20:23.240
<v Speaker 2>the body, which leads.

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00:20:23.079 --> 00:20:26.599
<v Speaker 1>To a sudden burst of sweating and moisture evaporation exactly.

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<v Speaker 2>There is also the immediate exhalation of air from the lungs.

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<v Speaker 2>McDougall's rudimentary scales were entirely incapable of accurately accounting for

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00:20:35.599 --> 00:20:37.000
<v Speaker 2>insensible fluid.

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00:20:36.680 --> 00:20:39.680
<v Speaker 1>Loss, and yet if you go online today you will

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00:20:39.680 --> 00:20:42.359
<v Speaker 1>see millions of people repeating the fact that the soul

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00:20:42.480 --> 00:20:44.039
<v Speaker 1>weighs twenty one grams.

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00:20:44.359 --> 00:20:46.599
<v Speaker 2>There was a major Hollywood movie named after it.

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00:20:46.799 --> 00:20:49.240
<v Speaker 1>Right, it's clickbait from nineteen oh seven that is still

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00:20:49.240 --> 00:20:53.200
<v Speaker 1>working over a century later. People desperately want empirical science

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00:20:53.240 --> 00:20:56.400
<v Speaker 1>to validate their metaphysical beliefs, even if the science is

433
00:20:56.599 --> 00:20:57.720
<v Speaker 1>absolute garbage.

434
00:20:57.759 --> 00:21:00.480
<v Speaker 2>It's the allure of a simple, comforting number applied to

435
00:21:00.519 --> 00:21:04.240
<v Speaker 2>the ultimate, incomprehensible mystery of death. It really is, and

436
00:21:04.319 --> 00:21:07.920
<v Speaker 2>it segues perfectly into our next realm of inquiry, because

437
00:21:07.920 --> 00:21:10.599
<v Speaker 2>if the internal mysteries of the body and soul were elusive,

438
00:21:11.119 --> 00:21:14.480
<v Speaker 2>the external forces of the universe were actively trying to

439
00:21:14.519 --> 00:21:16.079
<v Speaker 2>obliterate these scientists.

440
00:21:16.319 --> 00:21:20.000
<v Speaker 1>We're moving from the messy biological stuff to the invisible,

441
00:21:20.200 --> 00:21:24.440
<v Speaker 1>terrifying forces of nature. Let's go to Saint Petersburg, Russia,

442
00:21:24.480 --> 00:21:27.640
<v Speaker 1>in seventeen fifty three and look at George Wilhelm Richmond.

443
00:21:27.839 --> 00:21:30.640
<v Speaker 2>The mid eighteenth century was the era of electricity as

444
00:21:30.680 --> 00:21:34.680
<v Speaker 2>a literal magic trick. At this time, electricity wasn't powering homes,

445
00:21:35.000 --> 00:21:36.039
<v Speaker 2>it was parlor tricks.

446
00:21:36.119 --> 00:21:39.519
<v Speaker 1>In theoretical physics, Benjamin Franklin was flying kites to prove

447
00:21:39.599 --> 00:21:43.759
<v Speaker 1>lightning was electrical, and Witchman wanted to quantify that atmospheric power.

448
00:21:44.440 --> 00:21:48.119
<v Speaker 2>Richmond invented a device called an electrical nomen to capture

449
00:21:48.119 --> 00:21:51.880
<v Speaker 2>and measure lightning. He's basically an early lighting jar connected

450
00:21:51.880 --> 00:21:52.680
<v Speaker 2>to a metal rod.

451
00:21:52.759 --> 00:21:54.440
<v Speaker 1>He has a wire running from the roof of his

452
00:21:54.519 --> 00:21:57.880
<v Speaker 1>house down into his laboratory. A mass of thunderstorm rolls in.

453
00:21:58.240 --> 00:22:00.599
<v Speaker 1>He is standing there with his engraver, waiting to.

454
00:22:00.519 --> 00:22:02.359
<v Speaker 2>Capture the moment, and the device works.

455
00:22:02.480 --> 00:22:03.799
<v Speaker 1>It works entirely too well.

456
00:22:03.880 --> 00:22:07.599
<v Speaker 2>He had created a perfect conduit for a massive atmospheric

457
00:22:07.640 --> 00:22:08.640
<v Speaker 2>potential gradient.

458
00:22:09.039 --> 00:22:12.599
<v Speaker 1>A glowing orb of ball lightning shoots out of the apparatus.

459
00:22:13.000 --> 00:22:16.519
<v Speaker 1>It strikes Richmond right in the forehead, travels completely through

460
00:22:16.559 --> 00:22:20.119
<v Speaker 1>his body, blows a hole straight through his shoe, shatters

461
00:22:20.119 --> 00:22:22.799
<v Speaker 1>the doorframe of the lab, and instantly.

462
00:22:22.319 --> 00:22:26.880
<v Speaker 2>Kills him dielectric breakdown of the air. He successfully captured lightning,

463
00:22:27.359 --> 00:22:30.279
<v Speaker 2>and it successfully utilized him as the path of least

464
00:22:30.279 --> 00:22:31.440
<v Speaker 2>resistance to the ground.

465
00:22:31.559 --> 00:22:32.480
<v Speaker 1>Boom dead.

466
00:22:32.720 --> 00:22:35.799
<v Speaker 2>It is a visceral reminder that these scientists were playing

467
00:22:35.799 --> 00:22:39.359
<v Speaker 2>with primordial forces. They barely understood. They were treating the

468
00:22:39.400 --> 00:22:44.640
<v Speaker 2>atmosphere like a predictable laboratory environment, completely underestimating the raw,

469
00:22:44.920 --> 00:22:47.279
<v Speaker 2>untamed current of the phenomena they were cording.

470
00:22:47.400 --> 00:22:49.599
<v Speaker 1>But at least a thunder storm is visible. You can

471
00:22:49.640 --> 00:22:51.960
<v Speaker 1>hear the thunder, you can see the lightning. What happens

472
00:22:52.000 --> 00:22:54.000
<v Speaker 1>when the force of nature is entirely.

473
00:22:53.640 --> 00:22:56.680
<v Speaker 2>Invisible that brings us to Marie Curie, and I want.

474
00:22:56.519 --> 00:22:59.000
<v Speaker 1>To be extremely clear here as we explore this for

475
00:22:59.160 --> 00:23:03.279
<v Speaker 1>you listening this, this isn't idiocy. This is pure, unadulterated tragedy.

476
00:23:03.680 --> 00:23:07.319
<v Speaker 2>Absolutely, Marie Currey stands entirely apart on this list. She

477
00:23:07.400 --> 00:23:11.519
<v Speaker 2>won two Nobel Prizes. She discovered radium and polonium. Her

478
00:23:11.599 --> 00:23:16.039
<v Speaker 2>rigorous hands on methodology fundamentally changed the landscape of physics

479
00:23:16.079 --> 00:23:16.680
<v Speaker 2>and chemistry.

480
00:23:16.759 --> 00:23:18.519
<v Speaker 1>But she didn't know what we know now about the

481
00:23:18.519 --> 00:23:22.359
<v Speaker 1>invisible world. The very elements she discovered were slowly destroying

482
00:23:22.400 --> 00:23:23.720
<v Speaker 1>her on a cellular level.

483
00:23:23.839 --> 00:23:26.400
<v Speaker 2>She died in nineteen thirty four from a plastic anemia

484
00:23:26.599 --> 00:23:29.799
<v Speaker 2>directly caused by her massive, prolonged exposure to radiation.

485
00:23:30.039 --> 00:23:32.759
<v Speaker 1>She used to carry test tubes of radioactive isotopes in

486
00:23:32.759 --> 00:23:35.359
<v Speaker 1>her pockets. She kept them in her desk drawer because

487
00:23:35.400 --> 00:23:37.200
<v Speaker 1>she liked the faint blue light they gave off in

488
00:23:37.240 --> 00:23:37.599
<v Speaker 1>the dark.

489
00:23:37.720 --> 00:23:41.799
<v Speaker 2>The mechanism of her death is herrowing ionizing radiation possesses

490
00:23:41.920 --> 00:23:46.200
<v Speaker 2>enough energy to detach electrons from atoms, causing massive damage

491
00:23:46.200 --> 00:23:47.559
<v Speaker 2>to cellular DNA.

492
00:23:47.359 --> 00:23:48.559
<v Speaker 1>Just ripping the cells apart.

493
00:23:48.720 --> 00:23:51.559
<v Speaker 2>Specifically, it induces double strand breaks in the DNA of

494
00:23:51.599 --> 00:23:55.759
<v Speaker 2>himatopoietic stem cells in the bone marrow. Her radiation exposure

495
00:23:55.839 --> 00:23:58.680
<v Speaker 2>literally stopped her bone marrow from producing new red and

496
00:23:58.720 --> 00:23:59.519
<v Speaker 2>white blood.

497
00:23:59.279 --> 00:24:03.079
<v Speaker 1>Cells, so severe that to this day her laboratory notebooks

498
00:24:03.079 --> 00:24:07.200
<v Speaker 1>are dangerously radioactive. You have to sign a waiver and

499
00:24:07.240 --> 00:24:09.119
<v Speaker 1>wear protective gear just to look at them. In the

500
00:24:09.160 --> 00:24:10.480
<v Speaker 1>library in France.

501
00:24:10.279 --> 00:24:12.480
<v Speaker 2>She had to be buried in a leadlined coffin.

502
00:24:12.680 --> 00:24:16.119
<v Speaker 1>Her story highlights the devastating personal cost of being the

503
00:24:16.160 --> 00:24:21.960
<v Speaker 1>first across a scientific frontier. Before Curie, humanity had absolutely

504
00:24:22.039 --> 00:24:24.079
<v Speaker 1>no concept of ionizing radiation.

505
00:24:24.400 --> 00:24:27.200
<v Speaker 2>She was a pioneer walking blindly into a minefield so

506
00:24:27.240 --> 00:24:30.279
<v Speaker 2>that those who followed her could have a map. It's

507
00:24:30.319 --> 00:24:32.279
<v Speaker 2>the tragic martyrdom of true discovery.

508
00:24:32.359 --> 00:24:35.519
<v Speaker 1>But that's the infuriating part. Curie didn't know the danger.

509
00:24:35.720 --> 00:24:38.960
<v Speaker 1>Decades later, nuclear physicists did know the danger. They had

510
00:24:38.960 --> 00:24:39.599
<v Speaker 1>the map.

511
00:24:39.440 --> 00:24:42.359
<v Speaker 2>And they still chose to tap dance on the minefield.

512
00:24:42.039 --> 00:24:44.759
<v Speaker 1>Which brings us back to our intro to nineteen forty

513
00:24:44.799 --> 00:24:45.119
<v Speaker 1>six and.

514
00:24:45.160 --> 00:24:46.880
<v Speaker 2>Lewis Lutin the demon Core.

515
00:24:47.119 --> 00:24:49.839
<v Speaker 1>Slotin was operating in the most dangerous room on planet

516
00:24:49.880 --> 00:24:53.119
<v Speaker 1>Earth at the Los Alamos Laboratory. He was working with

517
00:24:53.200 --> 00:24:57.480
<v Speaker 1>a massive volatile fourteen pounds fear of plutonium. The experiment

518
00:24:57.559 --> 00:25:01.160
<v Speaker 1>was called tickling the Dragon's Tail, very apt name. He

519
00:25:01.200 --> 00:25:03.160
<v Speaker 1>was trying to bring the core right to the edge

520
00:25:03.160 --> 00:25:04.640
<v Speaker 1>of a sustained fission reaction.

521
00:25:05.119 --> 00:25:09.000
<v Speaker 2>The setup was essentially a plutonium core surrounded by two

522
00:25:09.160 --> 00:25:13.279
<v Speaker 2>half spheres of beryllium. Beryllium acts as a neutron reflector.

523
00:25:13.799 --> 00:25:16.799
<v Speaker 2>When the halves close around the core, the neutrons emitted

524
00:25:16.839 --> 00:25:20.880
<v Speaker 2>by the plutonium bounce back into it, accelerating the fission process.

525
00:25:20.519 --> 00:25:22.160
<v Speaker 1>And if it they closed completely.

526
00:25:22.240 --> 00:25:25.519
<v Speaker 2>If the spheres close completely, the core goes prompt critical

527
00:25:26.039 --> 00:25:28.640
<v Speaker 2>unleashing a lethal burst of hard radiation.

528
00:25:28.960 --> 00:25:31.640
<v Speaker 1>The protocol dictated that he should use a series of

529
00:25:31.680 --> 00:25:36.079
<v Speaker 1>mechanical shims to safely keep the beryllium hemispheres apart. But

530
00:25:36.200 --> 00:25:39.920
<v Speaker 1>Slatin was a cowboy. How did this brilliant physicist manipulate

531
00:25:40.000 --> 00:25:41.559
<v Speaker 1>this apocalyptic sphere with.

532
00:25:41.559 --> 00:25:43.960
<v Speaker 2>The standard flathead screwdriver.

533
00:25:44.160 --> 00:25:46.200
<v Speaker 1>He just wedged it in the gap and twisted his

534
00:25:46.319 --> 00:25:48.519
<v Speaker 1>wrist to raise and lower the heavy dome.

535
00:25:48.680 --> 00:25:52.240
<v Speaker 2>His colleagues begged him to stop. Enrico Fermi reportedly told

536
00:25:52.319 --> 00:25:53.759
<v Speaker 2>him he would be dead within a year if he

537
00:25:53.839 --> 00:25:56.720
<v Speaker 2>kept doing it. But there was a deeply ingrained machismo

538
00:25:56.759 --> 00:25:58.599
<v Speaker 2>culture in the Manhattan Project era.

539
00:25:58.839 --> 00:26:01.839
<v Speaker 1>It is exactly like to find the exact biting point

540
00:26:01.880 --> 00:26:04.519
<v Speaker 1>of a car's clutch, But if you stall, the car

541
00:26:04.680 --> 00:26:07.200
<v Speaker 1>instantly emits a lethal dose of gamma radiation.

542
00:26:07.480 --> 00:26:11.119
<v Speaker 2>And of course, on May twenty first, the screwdriver slipped.

543
00:26:10.960 --> 00:26:14.839
<v Speaker 1>The top beryllium deflector fell, fully encasing the core. The

544
00:26:14.960 --> 00:26:17.519
<v Speaker 1>room instantly flashed with a brilliant blue light.

545
00:26:17.920 --> 00:26:21.440
<v Speaker 2>That blue flash was likely a combination of Cherenkov radiation

546
00:26:21.599 --> 00:26:24.279
<v Speaker 2>in the fluid of their eyeballs and the ionization of

547
00:26:24.319 --> 00:26:27.720
<v Speaker 2>the air in the room. The core had gone prompt critical.

548
00:26:27.920 --> 00:26:31.000
<v Speaker 1>Sloden reacted instantly. He ripped the dome off, stopping the

549
00:26:31.039 --> 00:26:32.880
<v Speaker 1>reaction and saving the lives of the other men in

550
00:26:32.920 --> 00:26:36.279
<v Speaker 1>the room. But in that split second, he bathed himself

551
00:26:36.319 --> 00:26:39.680
<v Speaker 1>in a massive lethal dose of neutron and gamma radiation.

552
00:26:40.119 --> 00:26:44.759
<v Speaker 2>The cellular damage was instantaneous and irreversible. He died nine

553
00:26:44.880 --> 00:26:46.119
<v Speaker 2>agonizing days later.

554
00:26:46.400 --> 00:26:50.000
<v Speaker 1>Sluttin's death wasn't a martyrdom for discovery like Curi's. It

555
00:26:50.039 --> 00:26:51.720
<v Speaker 1>was a sacrifice to his own ego.

556
00:26:52.279 --> 00:26:55.319
<v Speaker 2>It raises an important question about the psychology of expertise.

557
00:26:55.599 --> 00:26:57.519
<v Speaker 2>When you are the absolute best in the world at

558
00:26:57.559 --> 00:27:01.440
<v Speaker 2>something deeply dangerous familiarity, Breed's contempt.

559
00:27:01.279 --> 00:27:04.200
<v Speaker 1>Slaton stopped respecting the plutonium and the physics of the

560
00:27:04.279 --> 00:27:06.000
<v Speaker 1>universe do not care about your ego.

561
00:27:06.119 --> 00:27:06.839
<v Speaker 2>They really don't.

562
00:27:07.039 --> 00:27:09.880
<v Speaker 1>Speaking of volatile elements and massive egos, let's talk about

563
00:27:09.960 --> 00:27:13.319
<v Speaker 1>Jack Parsons. This guy is a blockbuster movie waiting to happen.

564
00:27:13.599 --> 00:27:17.519
<v Speaker 2>Parsons represents the weirdest intersection of high level chemistry and

565
00:27:17.640 --> 00:27:19.960
<v Speaker 2>literal magic in the twentieth century.

566
00:27:20.039 --> 00:27:23.519
<v Speaker 1>He was a brilliant self taught chemist and rocket scientist.

567
00:27:23.880 --> 00:27:29.440
<v Speaker 1>He practically pioneered castable composite solid state propellants, the exact

568
00:27:29.759 --> 00:27:33.440
<v Speaker 1>chemical engineering that eventually helped get space shuttles into orbit.

569
00:27:33.599 --> 00:27:37.200
<v Speaker 1>But by night, by night, he was a dedicated, practicing occultist.

570
00:27:37.519 --> 00:27:40.880
<v Speaker 1>He was running an Orto Temple Orientis magical lodge in

571
00:27:40.920 --> 00:27:45.200
<v Speaker 1>Los Angeles, corresponding with Elister Crawley and conducting rituals in

572
00:27:45.200 --> 00:27:48.160
<v Speaker 1>the desert trying to summon elemental entities. It is quite

573
00:27:48.200 --> 00:27:50.759
<v Speaker 1>the resume, and he even formed a close relationship with

574
00:27:50.920 --> 00:27:53.720
<v Speaker 1>l Ron Hubbard, yes, the future founder of scientology, who

575
00:27:53.759 --> 00:27:56.480
<v Speaker 1>then proceeded to steal parsons money run off with his

576
00:27:56.519 --> 00:27:58.359
<v Speaker 1>sister in law and buy a yacht.

577
00:27:58.640 --> 00:28:02.200
<v Speaker 2>It sounds like pulp fiction, but Parsons' life demonstrates how

578
00:28:02.319 --> 00:28:06.720
<v Speaker 2>highly compartmentalized human intelligence can be. You can apply rigorous

579
00:28:06.720 --> 00:28:10.160
<v Speaker 2>mathematical formulas to the thermodynamics of rocket propulsion during the

580
00:28:10.240 --> 00:28:14.359
<v Speaker 2>day and then completely abandoned empirical evidence for ritual magic

581
00:28:14.400 --> 00:28:14.799
<v Speaker 2>at night.

582
00:28:15.359 --> 00:28:18.519
<v Speaker 1>The human brain is just remarkably adept at holding two

583
00:28:18.720 --> 00:28:21.440
<v Speaker 1>entirely contradictory worldviews simultaneously.

584
00:28:21.519 --> 00:28:22.039
<v Speaker 2>It really is.

585
00:28:22.440 --> 00:28:25.279
<v Speaker 1>And his end was just as explosive as his rockets.

586
00:28:25.599 --> 00:28:28.319
<v Speaker 1>He died in a massive explosion in his home laboratory.

587
00:28:28.759 --> 00:28:31.920
<v Speaker 1>He dropped a batch of mercury fulminate. Now, the rumors

588
00:28:31.920 --> 00:28:35.079
<v Speaker 1>have always spiraled. Was it a government assassination because he

589
00:28:35.119 --> 00:28:38.160
<v Speaker 1>lost to security clearances due to his occult ties or

590
00:28:38.240 --> 00:28:40.599
<v Speaker 1>was it just sloppy lab practices from a guy whose

591
00:28:40.599 --> 00:28:42.160
<v Speaker 1>life was completely unraveling?

592
00:28:42.359 --> 00:28:46.359
<v Speaker 2>Well, mercury fulminate is a highly sensitive primary explosive. It

593
00:28:46.440 --> 00:28:51.160
<v Speaker 2>is notoriously unstable and sensitive to friction in shock. Given

594
00:28:51.200 --> 00:28:54.599
<v Speaker 2>his history of increasingly erratic behavior, is lack of sleep,

595
00:28:54.640 --> 00:28:57.119
<v Speaker 2>and the sheer volatility of the compound he was handling,

596
00:28:57.440 --> 00:29:00.799
<v Speaker 2>Auckham's razor strongly points to a fatal in judgment.

597
00:29:00.880 --> 00:29:04.039
<v Speaker 1>When your personal life collapses into chaos, your professional riggor

598
00:29:04.160 --> 00:29:07.480
<v Speaker 1>usually follows suit exactly. Parsons just tried to blend science

599
00:29:07.519 --> 00:29:10.240
<v Speaker 1>with the occult. Our next subject tried to replace science

600
00:29:10.400 --> 00:29:13.440
<v Speaker 1>entirely with a vision. Enter Hans Herberger and the Velveslaer

601
00:29:13.680 --> 00:29:15.039
<v Speaker 1>or the World Ice doctrine.

602
00:29:15.079 --> 00:29:17.799
<v Speaker 2>This takes us into a deeply fraught period of history

603
00:29:18.000 --> 00:29:20.599
<v Speaker 2>Austria and Germany in the first half of the twentieth century.

604
00:29:20.640 --> 00:29:23.599
<v Speaker 1>Herberger was an engineer who claimed he received a theory

605
00:29:23.640 --> 00:29:27.880
<v Speaker 1>of the universe, not through mathematical observation, not through telescopes,

606
00:29:28.039 --> 00:29:31.680
<v Speaker 1>but in a literal vision. He believed that cosmic ice

607
00:29:31.839 --> 00:29:34.799
<v Speaker 1>was the central binding force of reality.

608
00:29:34.920 --> 00:29:36.799
<v Speaker 2>He claimed the Milky Way was just a ring of

609
00:29:36.960 --> 00:29:41.160
<v Speaker 2>ice blocks, and that ice crashing into the sun caused sunspots.

610
00:29:41.759 --> 00:29:44.880
<v Speaker 1>The thermodynamics of his theory were non existent. It completely

611
00:29:45.000 --> 00:29:49.200
<v Speaker 1>violated basic Newtonian physics and thermodynamics, but he aggressively promoted

612
00:29:49.240 --> 00:29:52.240
<v Speaker 1>it to the public. By passing the scientific community entirely.

613
00:29:52.480 --> 00:29:54.720
<v Speaker 1>He appealed directly to the masses, and.

614
00:29:54.680 --> 00:29:58.359
<v Speaker 2>It became a massive point of discourse. As totalitarianism rose

615
00:29:58.400 --> 00:30:02.359
<v Speaker 2>in Germany. Political fact actually started arguing over this ice theory.

616
00:30:02.480 --> 00:30:05.160
<v Speaker 1>It's important we look at how this happens Impartially, they

617
00:30:05.160 --> 00:30:07.720
<v Speaker 1>were debating whether the world ice doctrine was an aryan

618
00:30:07.799 --> 00:30:11.960
<v Speaker 1>theory rooted in northern mythology and pitting it against mainstream,

619
00:30:12.160 --> 00:30:16.079
<v Speaker 1>rigorous physics like Einstein's theory of relativity, which they dismissed

620
00:30:16.119 --> 00:30:17.799
<v Speaker 1>as Jewish influenced science.

621
00:30:18.039 --> 00:30:20.839
<v Speaker 2>And to be clear, we are simply observing the mechanics

622
00:30:20.839 --> 00:30:25.160
<v Speaker 2>of how a fundamentally bad idea becomes weaponized. Herberger's nonsense

623
00:30:25.240 --> 00:30:28.279
<v Speaker 2>was elevated not because it was empirically sound, but because

624
00:30:28.319 --> 00:30:30.799
<v Speaker 2>it was politically useful to an extremist regime.

625
00:30:30.920 --> 00:30:33.559
<v Speaker 1>It allowed them to create an alternate reality, a separate

626
00:30:33.599 --> 00:30:36.200
<v Speaker 1>science that aligned with their ideological prejudices.

627
00:30:36.359 --> 00:30:40.039
<v Speaker 2>When ideology dictates the results of science, truth is the

628
00:30:40.039 --> 00:30:44.400
<v Speaker 2>first casualty. Pseudoscience thrives when the state needs to legitimize

629
00:30:44.440 --> 00:30:45.400
<v Speaker 2>its own mythology.

630
00:30:45.720 --> 00:30:49.799
<v Speaker 1>If political ideology driving science creates absurdities in physics, wait

631
00:30:49.880 --> 00:30:52.400
<v Speaker 1>until you see what it does to biology. Let's travel

632
00:30:52.440 --> 00:30:54.880
<v Speaker 1>to the Soviet Union in the nineteen twenties and the

633
00:30:54.880 --> 00:30:57.279
<v Speaker 1>bizarre attempts of doctor Ilya Ivanov.

634
00:30:57.720 --> 00:31:01.160
<v Speaker 2>Ivanov was a highly respected veterinary re productive expert. He

635
00:31:01.200 --> 00:31:05.400
<v Speaker 2>had successfully pioneered artificial insemination and horses, and he received

636
00:31:05.519 --> 00:31:09.599
<v Speaker 2>massive state funding for a singular, horrifying goal to prove

637
00:31:09.720 --> 00:31:13.799
<v Speaker 2>human evolution by creating a human ape hybrid. A human z.

638
00:31:14.160 --> 00:31:16.640
<v Speaker 1>I'van all received funding from the Soviet state because they

639
00:31:16.680 --> 00:31:19.880
<v Speaker 1>wanted to use this biological aberration as a propaganda tool.

640
00:31:20.160 --> 00:31:23.839
<v Speaker 2>Right They wanted a living, breathing missing link to support

641
00:31:23.880 --> 00:31:28.680
<v Speaker 2>their state mandated atheistic stance against American Christian fundamentalism, which

642
00:31:28.720 --> 00:31:30.880
<v Speaker 2>was heavily pushing creationism at the time.

643
00:31:31.200 --> 00:31:34.480
<v Speaker 1>Again, we are just looking at the history here. And bizarrely,

644
00:31:34.720 --> 00:31:37.640
<v Speaker 1>he also got funding from the French Pastor Institute.

645
00:31:37.759 --> 00:31:40.720
<v Speaker 2>He was granted access to a primate research station in

646
00:31:40.759 --> 00:31:44.559
<v Speaker 2>French Guinea. He and his son literally traveled there armed

647
00:31:44.559 --> 00:31:47.039
<v Speaker 2>with a pistol in case the animals fought back and

648
00:31:47.119 --> 00:31:52.319
<v Speaker 2>attempted to artificially inseminate three female chimpanzees with human sperm.

649
00:31:52.400 --> 00:31:53.480
<v Speaker 1>It failed, thankfully.

650
00:31:53.640 --> 00:31:57.839
<v Speaker 2>Yes, the chromosomal barriers to hybridization are immense. Humans have

651
00:31:57.960 --> 00:32:03.240
<v Speaker 2>forty six chromosomes, chimpanzee forty eight. While hybridization is possible

652
00:32:03.279 --> 00:32:06.839
<v Speaker 2>in some closely related species. The genetic divergence here was

653
00:32:06.839 --> 00:32:07.799
<v Speaker 2>simply too vast.

654
00:32:08.319 --> 00:32:11.920
<v Speaker 1>But Ivanov didn't stop there. When the chimpanzees didn't conceive,

655
00:32:12.039 --> 00:32:13.920
<v Speaker 1>he thought, well, let's reverse the direction.

656
00:32:14.079 --> 00:32:15.839
<v Speaker 2>This is where it gets incredibly ground.

657
00:32:15.880 --> 00:32:19.079
<v Speaker 1>He purchased a male orangutan named Tarzan, and he actually

658
00:32:19.079 --> 00:32:22.200
<v Speaker 1>found human women in the Soviet Union, who the records suggests,

659
00:32:22.240 --> 00:32:25.599
<v Speaker 1>were likely deeply vulnerable or coerced, who agreed to be

660
00:32:25.599 --> 00:32:27.400
<v Speaker 1>inseminated with orangutan sperm.

661
00:32:27.519 --> 00:32:30.720
<v Speaker 2>The only thing that stopped it was biology itself. The

662
00:32:30.720 --> 00:32:34.440
<v Speaker 2>orangutan died of a brain hemorrhage before the experiment could proceed.

663
00:32:34.599 --> 00:32:38.440
<v Speaker 1>And shortly after the political winds shifted, Stalin's regime decided

664
00:32:38.480 --> 00:32:41.240
<v Speaker 1>they no longer wanted to fund human ape hybrids, and

665
00:32:41.400 --> 00:32:44.319
<v Speaker 1>Ivanov was swept up in a scientific purge and exiled

666
00:32:44.359 --> 00:32:45.119
<v Speaker 1>to Kazakhstan.

667
00:32:45.400 --> 00:32:48.559
<v Speaker 2>It connects right back to Herberger's cosmic ice. When science

668
00:32:48.640 --> 00:32:51.920
<v Speaker 2>is used merely as a weapon for ideological point scoring,

669
00:32:52.200 --> 00:32:54.200
<v Speaker 2>ethics completely vanish.

670
00:32:54.079 --> 00:32:57.640
<v Speaker 1>The subjects, whether they are chimpanzees or vulnerable human women,

671
00:32:57.720 --> 00:33:01.039
<v Speaker 1>are reduced to props in a political theater. The scientific

672
00:33:01.079 --> 00:33:04.640
<v Speaker 1>method requires objectivity, ideology demands obedience.

673
00:33:05.000 --> 00:33:09.200
<v Speaker 2>Precisely, it is a hallmark of totalitarian science. The conclusion

674
00:33:09.240 --> 00:33:11.880
<v Speaker 2>is predetermined by the state, and the scientist's only job

675
00:33:11.960 --> 00:33:14.160
<v Speaker 2>is to force the data to fit the narrative, no

676
00:33:14.200 --> 00:33:15.279
<v Speaker 2>matter the ethical cost.

677
00:33:15.640 --> 00:33:19.240
<v Speaker 1>So breeding humans and apes is biologically impossible, But what

678
00:33:19.279 --> 00:33:21.880
<v Speaker 1>if we just raised them together. Moving on to nineteen

679
00:33:21.960 --> 00:33:25.119
<v Speaker 1>thirty one, comparative psychologist Winter Kellogg has a bright idea.

680
00:33:25.599 --> 00:33:28.400
<v Speaker 1>Let's raise a baby chimpanzee alongside a human infant and

681
00:33:28.440 --> 00:33:29.240
<v Speaker 1>see what happens.

682
00:33:29.480 --> 00:33:33.319
<v Speaker 2>The Chimp and Child experiment. Kellog adopted a seven month

683
00:33:33.359 --> 00:33:38.000
<v Speaker 2>old female chimpanzee named Gua into his home, raising her

684
00:33:38.119 --> 00:33:41.240
<v Speaker 2>alongside his own ten month old infant son Donald.

685
00:33:41.839 --> 00:33:44.880
<v Speaker 1>The goal was to observe cognitive development and see if

686
00:33:44.960 --> 00:33:49.359
<v Speaker 1>human socialization could elevate the chimpanzee's intellect to human levels.

687
00:33:49.799 --> 00:33:53.680
<v Speaker 2>They treated Gua exactly like a human child. They dressed her,

688
00:33:54.039 --> 00:33:56.720
<v Speaker 2>fed her in a high chair, and tested her constantly,

689
00:33:57.359 --> 00:34:00.240
<v Speaker 2>and at first they were impressed. Gua learned music up

690
00:34:00.319 --> 00:34:03.160
<v Speaker 2>a spoon. She recognized people by their clothes faster than

691
00:34:03.200 --> 00:34:05.640
<v Speaker 2>Donald did. She was excelling in motor skills.

692
00:34:05.680 --> 00:34:08.639
<v Speaker 1>But then Gua hit a biological wall. She's a chimpanzee.

693
00:34:08.880 --> 00:34:12.280
<v Speaker 1>She lacks the physiological apparatus for human speech, but Here's

694
00:34:12.320 --> 00:34:14.960
<v Speaker 1>the punchline of the century. The experiment had to be

695
00:34:14.960 --> 00:34:18.360
<v Speaker 1>abruptly halted not because Gua was getting aggressive, but because

696
00:34:18.360 --> 00:34:20.920
<v Speaker 1>the human baby Donald started acting like a chimp.

697
00:34:21.159 --> 00:34:25.239
<v Speaker 2>Donald began mimicking Gua's vocalizations. He was grunting, barking, and

698
00:34:25.280 --> 00:34:27.840
<v Speaker 2>panting when he wanted food. His own language development was

699
00:34:27.840 --> 00:34:30.880
<v Speaker 2>being severely compromised because his primary peer was an ape.

700
00:34:31.320 --> 00:34:34.320
<v Speaker 1>I have to ask, as someone who spends time around kids,

701
00:34:34.840 --> 00:34:36.639
<v Speaker 1>any parent in the world could have told him that

702
00:34:36.679 --> 00:34:39.599
<v Speaker 1>Toddler's mimic whatever is making the loudest noise in the house.

703
00:34:40.679 --> 00:34:44.639
<v Speaker 1>How did a highly educated psychologist miss this fundamental aspect

704
00:34:44.719 --> 00:34:45.760
<v Speaker 1>of child development?

705
00:34:46.320 --> 00:34:49.119
<v Speaker 2>Because he fell victim to the observer effect and he

706
00:34:49.199 --> 00:34:52.920
<v Speaker 2>was completely blinded by his primary hypothesis. He was so

707
00:34:53.079 --> 00:34:56.360
<v Speaker 2>intensely focused on the upward to mobility of the chimpanzee

708
00:34:56.679 --> 00:34:59.920
<v Speaker 2>that he ignored the highly malleable neuroplastic nature of his

709
00:35:00.039 --> 00:35:00.559
<v Speaker 2>own podler.

710
00:35:00.719 --> 00:35:02.760
<v Speaker 1>He just assumed the kid would be the baseline.

711
00:35:02.800 --> 00:35:08.119
<v Speaker 2>Exactly in developmental psychology, particularly referencing Vygotsky's theories children learn

712
00:35:08.159 --> 00:35:12.559
<v Speaker 2>through social interaction and imitation, Kellogg forgot that socialization is

713
00:35:12.599 --> 00:35:15.039
<v Speaker 2>a two way street. He thought he was introducing Gua

714
00:35:15.159 --> 00:35:17.639
<v Speaker 2>to a human environment, but he actually introduced Donald to

715
00:35:17.639 --> 00:35:18.840
<v Speaker 2>a chimpanzee environment.

716
00:35:18.920 --> 00:35:21.400
<v Speaker 1>He nearly broke his own kid's cognitive development for a

717
00:35:21.480 --> 00:35:24.440
<v Speaker 1>journal article. But let's take a quick breath. Not all

718
00:35:24.480 --> 00:35:28.840
<v Speaker 1>animal tampering is grim or abusive. Sometimes it's just wonderfully

719
00:35:28.920 --> 00:35:32.840
<v Speaker 1>hilariously absurd. We need a palate cleanser. Let's talk about

720
00:35:32.840 --> 00:35:36.280
<v Speaker 1>the Ignobel Prize winning study of chickens with dinosaur tails.

721
00:35:36.639 --> 00:35:40.800
<v Speaker 2>This is a delightful pivot. The Ignobel Prizes celebrate science

722
00:35:40.840 --> 00:35:43.079
<v Speaker 2>that first makes you laugh and then makes you think.

723
00:35:43.199 --> 00:35:46.119
<v Speaker 1>Scientists wanted to understand the biomechanics of how a theropod

724
00:35:46.199 --> 00:35:50.159
<v Speaker 1>dinosaurs like the t rex walked. Since modern birds are

725
00:35:50.280 --> 00:35:53.400
<v Speaker 1>living descendants of theropod dinosaurs, they looked at chickens.

726
00:35:53.679 --> 00:35:56.559
<v Speaker 2>But a chicken center of gravity is entirely different because

727
00:35:56.559 --> 00:35:59.480
<v Speaker 2>it doesn't have a massive, heavy counterbalancing tail.

728
00:36:00.119 --> 00:36:04.239
<v Speaker 1>So what did these researchers do. They literally strapped artificial

729
00:36:04.239 --> 00:36:08.920
<v Speaker 1>dinosaur tails, essentially toilet plungers, acting as counterweights onto the

730
00:36:08.960 --> 00:36:10.079
<v Speaker 1>back ends of chickens.

731
00:36:10.320 --> 00:36:14.360
<v Speaker 2>It is brilliant in its mechanical simplicity. By artificially shifting

732
00:36:14.400 --> 00:36:17.199
<v Speaker 2>the center of mass backward. They forced the chickens to

733
00:36:17.199 --> 00:36:20.719
<v Speaker 2>alter their kinematic gait. The birds adapted by adopting a

734
00:36:20.760 --> 00:36:24.440
<v Speaker 2>heavily crouched, almost horizontal posture, driven heavily by the femur

735
00:36:24.559 --> 00:36:25.599
<v Speaker 2>rather than the lower leg.

736
00:36:25.960 --> 00:36:29.119
<v Speaker 1>It is a phenomenal mental image, a flock of chickens

737
00:36:29.159 --> 00:36:32.119
<v Speaker 1>strutting around a lab with plunger tails, walking like tiny

738
00:36:32.199 --> 00:36:35.159
<v Speaker 1>feathered Jurassic part extras. And it actually gave us mathematically

739
00:36:35.199 --> 00:36:37.480
<v Speaker 1>valid data on dinosaur locomotion.

740
00:36:37.880 --> 00:36:40.280
<v Speaker 2>It proves that you don't need to torture yourself or

741
00:36:40.280 --> 00:36:43.159
<v Speaker 2>traumatize an animal to do good science. Sometimes you just

742
00:36:43.199 --> 00:36:46.000
<v Speaker 2>need some arts and crafts, an understanding of physics, and

743
00:36:46.039 --> 00:36:46.719
<v Speaker 2>a sense of humor.

744
00:36:46.800 --> 00:36:50.840
<v Speaker 1>It's harmless, observational, and elegant. It respects the animal while

745
00:36:50.880 --> 00:36:54.599
<v Speaker 1>still answering a complex biomechanical question. It is a stark

746
00:36:54.679 --> 00:36:57.440
<v Speaker 1>contrast to the darkness we usually find when scientists try

747
00:36:57.480 --> 00:36:59.320
<v Speaker 1>to force biology to behave.

748
00:36:59.239 --> 00:37:02.119
<v Speaker 2>Speaking of force biology to behayes, let's plunge back into

749
00:37:02.119 --> 00:37:06.639
<v Speaker 2>the darkness. If understanding the body is hard, understanding consciousness,

750
00:37:06.719 --> 00:37:10.199
<v Speaker 2>memory and the mind is a total labyrinth. Let's start

751
00:37:10.199 --> 00:37:13.719
<v Speaker 2>with James McConnell in the nineteen fifties, The Cannibal Flatworms.

752
00:37:14.119 --> 00:37:16.920
<v Speaker 1>McConnell was a researcher who became fixated on the concept

753
00:37:16.920 --> 00:37:20.320
<v Speaker 1>of memory, how is it stored? At the time, the

754
00:37:20.360 --> 00:37:23.840
<v Speaker 1>mainstream understanding, which remains true today, is that memory is

755
00:37:23.840 --> 00:37:26.719
<v Speaker 1>a function of neural synapses in the brain, relying on

756
00:37:26.760 --> 00:37:31.480
<v Speaker 1>synaptic plasticity. But McConnell posited a radical alternative. What if

757
00:37:31.559 --> 00:37:35.000
<v Speaker 1>memory is purely chemical, specifically, what if it's encoded in

758
00:37:35.119 --> 00:37:38.239
<v Speaker 1>RNA molecules throughout the entire body edible memory.

759
00:37:38.599 --> 00:37:40.880
<v Speaker 2>He believed your memories were just as present in your

760
00:37:40.880 --> 00:37:43.719
<v Speaker 2>big toe as they were in your brain. To prove this,

761
00:37:44.000 --> 00:37:48.440
<v Speaker 2>he took plenarian flatworms, very simple organisms with basic neural structures.

762
00:37:48.840 --> 00:37:51.559
<v Speaker 2>He would condition one flatworm teaching you a trick, like

763
00:37:51.639 --> 00:37:55.239
<v Speaker 2>navigating a basic team mase or reacting to a light shock.

764
00:37:55.400 --> 00:37:58.760
<v Speaker 2>And then then he would take that educated flatworm, chop

765
00:37:58.800 --> 00:38:00.880
<v Speaker 2>it up into tiny pieces, and feed it to an

766
00:38:00.960 --> 00:38:02.119
<v Speaker 2>uneducated flatworm.

767
00:38:02.159 --> 00:38:04.880
<v Speaker 1>And he claimed, based on his data, that the cannibal

768
00:38:04.920 --> 00:38:08.840
<v Speaker 1>flatworm absorbed the knowledge of the first through digestion, the

769
00:38:08.920 --> 00:38:11.960
<v Speaker 1>intelligence supposedly transferred via the consumed RNA.

770
00:38:12.119 --> 00:38:14.760
<v Speaker 2>He literally claimed you could become smarter by eating a

771
00:38:14.800 --> 00:38:17.199
<v Speaker 2>smart person, He said, I'm going to teach this worm,

772
00:38:17.519 --> 00:38:20.039
<v Speaker 2>chop it up and make a genius smoothie. But you

773
00:38:20.079 --> 00:38:22.480
<v Speaker 2>and I both know there is a massive, gaping hole

774
00:38:22.519 --> 00:38:23.880
<v Speaker 2>in this biological theory.

775
00:38:24.159 --> 00:38:28.280
<v Speaker 1>The biochemistry of digestion. The digestive system of plenarians, much

776
00:38:28.360 --> 00:38:33.239
<v Speaker 1>like humans, secretes enzymes designed to completely break down complex macromolecules.

777
00:38:33.599 --> 00:38:36.760
<v Speaker 1>When an organism consumes RNA nucleuses, break it down into

778
00:38:36.760 --> 00:38:40.320
<v Speaker 1>basic nucleotides for fuel. You don't absorb the genetic or

779
00:38:40.400 --> 00:38:42.639
<v Speaker 1>chemical memory of a steak when you eat it, you

780
00:38:42.719 --> 00:38:44.280
<v Speaker 1>break it down into amino acids.

781
00:38:44.639 --> 00:38:46.800
<v Speaker 2>So why did McConnell think it worked.

782
00:38:46.880 --> 00:38:51.840
<v Speaker 1>Poor experimental controls. The worms weren't absorbing memory. They were

783
00:38:51.920 --> 00:38:54.800
<v Speaker 1>likely just absorbing stress hormones from the chopped up worms,

784
00:38:54.960 --> 00:38:58.519
<v Speaker 1>which made them generally more reactive to stimuli, which McConnell

785
00:38:58.559 --> 00:38:59.960
<v Speaker 1>misinterpreted as learning.

786
00:39:00.480 --> 00:39:04.000
<v Speaker 2>McConnell fell so deeply in love with his revolutionary hypothesis

787
00:39:04.360 --> 00:39:07.760
<v Speaker 2>that he actively ignored established biological reality.

788
00:39:07.960 --> 00:39:11.239
<v Speaker 1>He became a laughing stock in the scientific community. He

789
00:39:11.360 --> 00:39:14.559
<v Speaker 1>ended up publishing his own semi satirical magazine called The

790
00:39:14.599 --> 00:39:17.800
<v Speaker 1>Worm Runner's Digest, just to share his theories. Because peer

791
00:39:17.840 --> 00:39:21.920
<v Speaker 1>reviewed journals stopped taking him seriously. From chemical memory, Let's

792
00:39:21.920 --> 00:39:26.280
<v Speaker 1>move to subconscious programming. Nineteen forty two Laurence Lashan and

793
00:39:26.360 --> 00:39:27.639
<v Speaker 1>the Sleep Learning Summer Camp.

794
00:39:28.000 --> 00:39:30.920
<v Speaker 2>Lashawan wanted to test whether the subconscious mind could absorb

795
00:39:31.000 --> 00:39:35.320
<v Speaker 2>and act upon complex declarative information delivered during sleep. He

796
00:39:35.400 --> 00:39:37.280
<v Speaker 2>specifically wanted to see if he could cure a group

797
00:39:37.320 --> 00:39:39.519
<v Speaker 2>of young boys of chronic nail biting.

798
00:39:39.400 --> 00:39:42.199
<v Speaker 1>So he sets up this summer camp. The original plan

799
00:39:42.320 --> 00:39:44.639
<v Speaker 1>is to use a phonograph in the boy's cabin to

800
00:39:44.639 --> 00:39:48.239
<v Speaker 1>play a repeating message while they are deeply asleep. The

801
00:39:48.280 --> 00:39:52.159
<v Speaker 1>message is simple, my fingernails taste terribly bitter. But the

802
00:39:52.199 --> 00:39:57.039
<v Speaker 1>phonograph breaks and Leshan, undeterred, decides he must continue the

803
00:39:57.079 --> 00:39:58.519
<v Speaker 1>experiment manually.

804
00:39:58.400 --> 00:40:00.880
<v Speaker 2>Which leads to one of the most uns settling images

805
00:40:00.880 --> 00:40:02.239
<v Speaker 2>in the history of psychology.

806
00:40:02.599 --> 00:40:05.320
<v Speaker 1>Picture being a little kid at summer camp. You wake

807
00:40:05.440 --> 00:40:07.800
<v Speaker 1>up in the pitch black of your cabin, and there

808
00:40:07.880 --> 00:40:11.079
<v Speaker 1>is a grown man standing in the shadows, murmuring hurry,

809
00:40:11.119 --> 00:40:14.880
<v Speaker 1>fingernails taste terribly bitter, over and over and over again.

810
00:40:15.119 --> 00:40:16.719
<v Speaker 1>It is pure nightmare fuel.

811
00:40:16.960 --> 00:40:20.480
<v Speaker 2>It is a profound violation of boundaries, and scientifically it

812
00:40:20.559 --> 00:40:23.760
<v Speaker 2>is completely flawed. He claimed the results proved sleep learning

813
00:40:23.800 --> 00:40:26.159
<v Speaker 2>work because the nail biting decreased. But how could you

814
00:40:26.199 --> 00:40:29.119
<v Speaker 2>possibly control for the trauma of a shadowy figure whispering

815
00:40:29.119 --> 00:40:31.480
<v Speaker 2>in the dark. Did they stop biting their nails because

816
00:40:31.480 --> 00:40:34.840
<v Speaker 2>of subconscious auditory programming or because they were terrified into

817
00:40:34.880 --> 00:40:36.000
<v Speaker 2>a state of hypervigilance.

818
00:40:36.360 --> 00:40:39.360
<v Speaker 1>Seriously, I'd stop biting my nails too if I thought

819
00:40:39.400 --> 00:40:43.039
<v Speaker 1>the fingernail demon was watching me sleep. Furthermore, we know

820
00:40:43.159 --> 00:40:45.840
<v Speaker 1>now that while the brain processes sounds during sleep to

821
00:40:45.960 --> 00:40:49.920
<v Speaker 1>monitor for threats, the thlamic gait largely prevents that auditory

822
00:40:49.960 --> 00:40:54.039
<v Speaker 1>information from being encoded into declarative memory. But this idea

823
00:40:54.079 --> 00:40:56.960
<v Speaker 1>of programming children brings us to the dark father of

824
00:40:57.039 --> 00:41:02.840
<v Speaker 1>behaviorism himself, John Watson, and the infamous Little Albert experiment.

825
00:41:03.519 --> 00:41:06.079
<v Speaker 2>Watson believe that human behavior had nothing to do with

826
00:41:06.159 --> 00:41:10.639
<v Speaker 2>inner consciousness or inherited traits, but was entirely about conditioned responses.

827
00:41:11.199 --> 00:41:14.760
<v Speaker 2>We are biological machines that can be programmed through external stimuli.

828
00:41:15.719 --> 00:41:17.920
<v Speaker 1>To prove this, he took a healthy, nine month old

829
00:41:18.000 --> 00:41:21.519
<v Speaker 1>human baby known as Little Albert. He introduced Albert to

830
00:41:21.599 --> 00:41:24.960
<v Speaker 1>a harmless white laboratory rat. At first, Albert liked the rat.

831
00:41:25.000 --> 00:41:26.719
<v Speaker 1>He was curious. He reached out to play with it,

832
00:41:27.000 --> 00:41:30.679
<v Speaker 1>but then Watson introduced the classical conditioning. Every time Albert

833
00:41:30.719 --> 00:41:32.800
<v Speaker 1>reached for the rat, Watson would stand behind the baby

834
00:41:32.840 --> 00:41:36.119
<v Speaker 1>and smash a heavy metal hammer against a suspended steel bar.

835
00:41:36.360 --> 00:41:41.440
<v Speaker 2>A deafening traumatic acoustic shock. He paired the visual stimulus

836
00:41:41.480 --> 00:41:44.639
<v Speaker 2>of the white rat with a terrifying noise. He hijacked

837
00:41:44.679 --> 00:41:48.480
<v Speaker 2>the infants amygdala, wiring a fear response where none existed.

838
00:41:48.960 --> 00:41:51.480
<v Speaker 2>He repeated this until the mere sight of the rat,

839
00:41:51.599 --> 00:41:54.199
<v Speaker 2>or anything white and fuzzy like a Santa Claus mask

840
00:41:54.280 --> 00:41:56.679
<v Speaker 2>or a rabbit, would cause the infant to break down

841
00:41:56.679 --> 00:41:57.800
<v Speaker 2>in hysterical tears.

842
00:41:58.039 --> 00:42:01.440
<v Speaker 1>He intentionally manufactured a phoebe and a helpless infant just

843
00:42:01.480 --> 00:42:04.119
<v Speaker 1>to prove he could. He broke a baby sense of safety,

844
00:42:04.679 --> 00:42:07.519
<v Speaker 1>and the mother eventually pulled Albert from the study, and

845
00:42:07.639 --> 00:42:10.039
<v Speaker 1>Watson never deconditioned him. He just let the kid go

846
00:42:10.119 --> 00:42:12.760
<v Speaker 1>out into the world terrified of fuzzy things. But I

847
00:42:12.800 --> 00:42:16.199
<v Speaker 1>want to track Watson's career trajectory because it is incredibly cynical.

848
00:42:16.559 --> 00:42:19.559
<v Speaker 1>Watson eventually got fired from academia due to a highly

849
00:42:19.559 --> 00:42:21.960
<v Speaker 1>publicized extramarital affair. Where did he go.

850
00:42:22.559 --> 00:42:27.280
<v Speaker 2>He took his profound understanding of human psychological manipulation, classical conditioning,

851
00:42:27.360 --> 00:42:29.800
<v Speaker 2>and fear based programming, and he went to work on

852
00:42:29.840 --> 00:42:30.599
<v Speaker 2>Madison Avenue.

853
00:42:30.599 --> 00:42:33.840
<v Speaker 1>In advertising, it is too perfect. The man who figured

854
00:42:33.840 --> 00:42:35.800
<v Speaker 1>out how to make a baby terrified of a rat

855
00:42:35.920 --> 00:42:39.360
<v Speaker 1>goes on to help invent modern consumer branding. He figured

856
00:42:39.360 --> 00:42:41.920
<v Speaker 1>out that you don't sell a product based on facts

857
00:42:42.039 --> 00:42:44.599
<v Speaker 1>or utility. You sell it by pairing it with an

858
00:42:44.599 --> 00:42:50.440
<v Speaker 1>emotional response, usually fear, anxiety, or inadequacy. Buy this toothpaste,

859
00:42:50.519 --> 00:42:52.559
<v Speaker 1>or your teeth will rot and you will die alone.

860
00:42:53.199 --> 00:42:57.239
<v Speaker 1>It's the Little Albert experiment operating on a global commercial scale.

861
00:42:57.519 --> 00:43:01.960
<v Speaker 2>It is a chilling legacy. It shows how rigorous psychological methodologies,

862
00:43:02.320 --> 00:43:06.000
<v Speaker 2>when completely divorced from ethics, can be seamlessly integrated into

863
00:43:06.039 --> 00:43:07.000
<v Speaker 2>corporate manipulation.

864
00:43:07.880 --> 00:43:10.920
<v Speaker 1>Now, speaking of inappropriate environments for psychology, let's look at

865
00:43:10.920 --> 00:43:13.800
<v Speaker 1>the urinal study of the nineteen seventies. The official title

866
00:43:13.960 --> 00:43:18.400
<v Speaker 1>was Personal Space Invasions in the Lavatory Suggestive Evidence for Arousal.

867
00:43:18.559 --> 00:43:21.440
<v Speaker 2>A team of researchers wanted to empirically prove the existence

868
00:43:21.480 --> 00:43:24.920
<v Speaker 2>of parareesis, more commonly known as stage fright. Does a

869
00:43:24.960 --> 00:43:27.679
<v Speaker 2>male subject experience a measurable delay in the onset of

870
00:43:27.760 --> 00:43:30.320
<v Speaker 2>maturition if his personal space is violated.

871
00:43:30.559 --> 00:43:33.960
<v Speaker 1>So to test this, they literally lurked in public restrooms.

872
00:43:34.559 --> 00:43:38.400
<v Speaker 1>They had confederates deliberately stand at urinals immediately adjacent to

873
00:43:38.559 --> 00:43:42.000
<v Speaker 1>unknowing subjects, effectively boxing them in, while a researcher hit

874
00:43:42.079 --> 00:43:45.000
<v Speaker 1>in a bathroom stall with a stopwatch and sometimes a periscope,

875
00:43:45.159 --> 00:43:48.320
<v Speaker 1>timing exactly how long it took the unsuspecting subject to pe.

876
00:43:48.880 --> 00:43:53.599
<v Speaker 2>Physiologically, they were testing the autonomic nervous system. Urination requires

877
00:43:53.639 --> 00:43:57.719
<v Speaker 2>para sympathetic relaxation of the sphincter. Stress triggers the sympathetic

878
00:43:57.719 --> 00:44:02.400
<v Speaker 2>nervous system the fight or flight response, which titans that sphincter. Scientifically,

879
00:44:02.440 --> 00:44:07.119
<v Speaker 2>they did confirm their hypothesis proximity increases latency, but ethically

880
00:44:07.239 --> 00:44:10.480
<v Speaker 2>it is a staggering invasion of privacy. You cannot obtain

881
00:44:10.559 --> 00:44:13.960
<v Speaker 2>informed consent for a psychological experiment when your subject's pants

882
00:44:13.960 --> 00:44:16.480
<v Speaker 2>are down in a public restroom. It's a study that

883
00:44:16.519 --> 00:44:19.360
<v Speaker 2>prioritizes a banal curiosity over basic human dignity.

884
00:44:19.599 --> 00:44:22.119
<v Speaker 1>The urinal study was harmless in the grand scheme, just

885
00:44:22.280 --> 00:44:26.360
<v Speaker 1>deeply weird and violating. But this next psychological experiment is

886
00:44:26.440 --> 00:44:30.360
<v Speaker 1>world famous. It is foundational to modern sociology, It is

887
00:44:30.400 --> 00:44:33.239
<v Speaker 1>taught in every high school psychology class, and it is

888
00:44:33.400 --> 00:44:36.960
<v Speaker 1>almost completely faked. I'm talking about Philip Simbardo and the

889
00:44:37.000 --> 00:44:38.320
<v Speaker 1>Stanford Prison experiment.

890
00:44:38.840 --> 00:44:41.800
<v Speaker 2>This is perhaps the most heavily mythologized experiment of the

891
00:44:41.840 --> 00:44:46.360
<v Speaker 2>twentieth century. Zimbardo created a mock prison in the basement

892
00:44:46.400 --> 00:44:50.960
<v Speaker 2>of Stanford University, assigning Male's student volunteers randomly to be

893
00:44:51.039 --> 00:44:54.920
<v Speaker 2>either guards or prisoners. The narrative that entered pop culture

894
00:44:54.960 --> 00:44:58.360
<v Speaker 2>is that the guards spontaneously became sadistic and the prisoners

895
00:44:58.400 --> 00:45:02.360
<v Speaker 2>suffered immediate psychological break downs, proving that ordinary people are

896
00:45:02.400 --> 00:45:05.679
<v Speaker 2>inherently evil when given unchecked systemic power.

897
00:45:05.840 --> 00:45:08.400
<v Speaker 1>But when you actually read the transcripts and look at

898
00:45:08.400 --> 00:45:12.840
<v Speaker 1>the methodology, it is a masterclass in manipulation. Zimmardo didn't

899
00:45:12.840 --> 00:45:16.000
<v Speaker 1>just sit back and observe organic behavior. He actively coached

900
00:45:16.000 --> 00:45:18.480
<v Speaker 1>the guards. He told them exactly how to be cruel.

901
00:45:18.519 --> 00:45:21.320
<v Speaker 1>He gave the mirrored sunglasses to dehumanize them. He told

902
00:45:21.320 --> 00:45:23.519
<v Speaker 1>them to create a sense of powerlessness in the prisoners.

903
00:45:23.880 --> 00:45:26.840
<v Speaker 1>He essentially directed a stage play and passed it off

904
00:45:26.880 --> 00:45:28.239
<v Speaker 1>as organic human behavior.

905
00:45:28.480 --> 00:45:32.679
<v Speaker 2>The term in psychology is demand characteristics. The participants were

906
00:45:32.719 --> 00:45:35.400
<v Speaker 2>acting in the way they believed the researcher wanted them

907
00:45:35.400 --> 00:45:38.960
<v Speaker 2>to act. One of the most sadistic guards later admitted

908
00:45:39.000 --> 00:45:41.800
<v Speaker 2>he was just doing his best John Wayne impression because

909
00:45:41.800 --> 00:45:43.320
<v Speaker 2>he thought that's what the sety required.

910
00:45:43.480 --> 00:45:46.239
<v Speaker 1>So why did it become so famous if it was faked?

911
00:45:46.599 --> 00:45:51.119
<v Speaker 2>Because the vulnerability lies in the scientific narrative. Zimbardo wanted

912
00:45:51.159 --> 00:45:53.880
<v Speaker 2>a specific result to align with his theories on authority.

913
00:45:54.239 --> 00:45:57.079
<v Speaker 2>He engineered the conditions to guarantee that result, and then

914
00:45:57.119 --> 00:46:00.480
<v Speaker 2>aggressively marketed that narrative to a public that would hungry

915
00:46:00.519 --> 00:46:05.159
<v Speaker 2>for explanations regarding human cruelty. In the post WWII Vietnam era,

916
00:46:06.039 --> 00:46:08.559
<v Speaker 2>pop culture fell for it because it told a compelling,

917
00:46:08.800 --> 00:46:13.239
<v Speaker 2>cynical story that absolved the individual of responsibility. The real

918
00:46:13.320 --> 00:46:16.320
<v Speaker 2>lesson of the Stanford prison experiment is that scientists can

919
00:46:16.360 --> 00:46:19.639
<v Speaker 2>manipulate variables to tell a fascinating story, and the public

920
00:46:19.679 --> 00:46:21.159
<v Speaker 2>will buy it if it feels profound.

921
00:46:21.280 --> 00:46:24.000
<v Speaker 1>When the story becomes more important than the empirical truth,

922
00:46:24.119 --> 00:46:27.000
<v Speaker 1>people get hurt, which brings us to our final group

923
00:46:27.039 --> 00:46:31.800
<v Speaker 1>of scientists. When science becomes torture. Let's start with a

924
00:46:31.800 --> 00:46:35.559
<v Speaker 1>man who primarily tortured himself, but to an unimaginable degree.

925
00:46:35.800 --> 00:46:36.800
<v Speaker 1>Joseph Barcroft.

926
00:46:37.039 --> 00:46:40.039
<v Speaker 2>Barkroff was a prominent physiologist working with the British military

927
00:46:40.079 --> 00:46:44.599
<v Speaker 2>during World War One. His focus was on oxygenation, blood circulation,

928
00:46:45.000 --> 00:46:47.679
<v Speaker 2>and survive in the brutal realities of chemical warfare.

929
00:46:47.960 --> 00:46:51.039
<v Speaker 1>I am amazed this man survived to old age. To

930
00:46:51.159 --> 00:46:55.159
<v Speaker 1>understand the effects of mustard gas and hydrogen cyanide, Barkroft

931
00:46:55.199 --> 00:46:57.719
<v Speaker 1>didn't just rely on animal models. He walked straight into

932
00:46:57.760 --> 00:47:01.599
<v Speaker 1>a sealed glass chamber filled with hydrogen cyanide gas, exposing

933
00:47:01.639 --> 00:47:04.320
<v Speaker 1>himself directly, and stayed in there with a dog for

934
00:47:04.440 --> 00:47:05.639
<v Speaker 1>ten solid minutes.

935
00:47:05.719 --> 00:47:09.519
<v Speaker 2>The mechanism of cyanide poisoning is terrifying. It inhibits cytochrome

936
00:47:09.599 --> 00:47:14.480
<v Speaker 2>psychoxidase in the mitochondria, essentially halting cellular respiration. The cells

937
00:47:14.519 --> 00:47:17.679
<v Speaker 2>can't use oxygen and usuffocate. On a microscopic level, the

938
00:47:17.760 --> 00:47:21.119
<v Speaker 2>dog died quickly. Barcroft survives because of his immense mass

939
00:47:21.119 --> 00:47:23.880
<v Speaker 2>compared to the dog, but it was a massive lethal.

940
00:47:23.679 --> 00:47:26.679
<v Speaker 1>Risk and that wasn't an isolated incident. To study the

941
00:47:26.760 --> 00:47:30.519
<v Speaker 1>vascular response to extreme cold, he locked himself naked inside

942
00:47:30.519 --> 00:47:34.119
<v Speaker 1>a freezing chamber until he was severely hypothermic and lost consciousness.

943
00:47:34.679 --> 00:47:38.320
<v Speaker 1>To study hypoxia and high altitude of climatization, he sealed

944
00:47:38.360 --> 00:47:41.519
<v Speaker 1>himself in a low oxygen glass chamber for an entire week.

945
00:47:41.880 --> 00:47:45.119
<v Speaker 1>When he finally emerged, his skin was entirely bright blue

946
00:47:45.599 --> 00:47:47.320
<v Speaker 1>due to severe oxygen deprivation.

947
00:47:48.039 --> 00:47:51.599
<v Speaker 2>He was pushing the absolute limits of human physiological endurance.

948
00:47:52.119 --> 00:47:54.079
<v Speaker 2>He survived at all, which is the only reason we

949
00:47:54.119 --> 00:47:55.760
<v Speaker 2>look back at him with awe and tit of pity.

950
00:47:56.480 --> 00:47:59.320
<v Speaker 2>But it highlights that obsessive drive. He treated his body

951
00:47:59.360 --> 00:48:02.039
<v Speaker 2>as a highly calibrated, disposable instrument.

952
00:48:02.280 --> 00:48:05.280
<v Speaker 1>But Barcroft was only hurting himself. What happens when that

953
00:48:05.400 --> 00:48:09.280
<v Speaker 1>absolute monolithic arrogance is turned outward onto the most vulnerable

954
00:48:09.280 --> 00:48:12.199
<v Speaker 1>people in society entered Doctor Henry Cotton, the Butcher of

955
00:48:12.199 --> 00:48:13.000
<v Speaker 1>the asylum.

956
00:48:13.039 --> 00:48:15.480
<v Speaker 2>This is one of the darkest chapters in medical history.

957
00:48:16.239 --> 00:48:18.880
<v Speaker 2>In nineteen oh seven, Cotton became the medical director of

958
00:48:18.880 --> 00:48:21.599
<v Speaker 2>the New Jersey State Hospital for the Insane, and he

959
00:48:21.679 --> 00:48:26.639
<v Speaker 2>developed a singular, overarching theory. He believed that all mental illness,

960
00:48:26.760 --> 00:48:31.079
<v Speaker 2>from schizophrenia to severe depression, was the direct result of hidden,

961
00:48:31.599 --> 00:48:35.400
<v Speaker 2>localized physical infections in the body, poisoning the brain.

962
00:48:35.920 --> 00:48:38.880
<v Speaker 1>His logic was incredibly flawed. He noticed that people with

963
00:48:38.960 --> 00:48:43.199
<v Speaker 1>high fevers sometimes hallucinate. Therefore, he deduced, if you are hallucinating,

964
00:48:43.199 --> 00:48:45.639
<v Speaker 1>you must have an infection, and his cure was an

965
00:48:45.679 --> 00:48:49.639
<v Speaker 1>antibiotics because they didn't exist yet. His cure was surgical mutilation.

966
00:48:50.000 --> 00:48:52.800
<v Speaker 1>He started by pulling teeth. If a patient was depressed,

967
00:48:52.840 --> 00:48:55.320
<v Speaker 1>he yanked all their teeth out. When that didn't cure them,

968
00:48:55.320 --> 00:48:57.360
<v Speaker 1>he decided the infection must be deeper.

969
00:48:57.400 --> 00:49:00.199
<v Speaker 2>He moved to the tonsils, then the stomach, and the

970
00:49:00.239 --> 00:49:04.039
<v Speaker 2>testicles the ovaries. He performed partial and total collectomies, removing

971
00:49:04.119 --> 00:49:08.000
<v Speaker 2>massive sections of the colon from unconsenting psychiatric patients.

972
00:49:08.039 --> 00:49:11.400
<v Speaker 1>He was systematically dismantling human beings, and the mortality rate

973
00:49:11.480 --> 00:49:14.039
<v Speaker 1>was catastrophic. Forty five percent of his patients died from

974
00:49:14.039 --> 00:49:17.000
<v Speaker 1>his surgeries. That is essentially a coin toss on whether

975
00:49:17.039 --> 00:49:19.159
<v Speaker 1>you survived a trip to his operating room.

976
00:49:19.280 --> 00:49:24.239
<v Speaker 2>The physiological shock of multiple major surgeries on already compromised individuals,

977
00:49:24.639 --> 00:49:27.880
<v Speaker 2>combined with the lack of modern antibiotics, led to massive

978
00:49:27.960 --> 00:49:30.119
<v Speaker 2>rates of parasonitis and sepsis.

979
00:49:29.840 --> 00:49:33.199
<v Speaker 1>And the most infuriating part. He was praised for it.

980
00:49:33.519 --> 00:49:36.559
<v Speaker 1>He was celebrated by the medical establishment and high society.

981
00:49:37.000 --> 00:49:40.639
<v Speaker 1>He eventually opened a lucrative private practice, yanking the teeth

982
00:49:40.639 --> 00:49:43.480
<v Speaker 1>and colons out of wealthy, miserable socialites who had more

983
00:49:43.519 --> 00:49:44.360
<v Speaker 1>money than since.

984
00:49:45.119 --> 00:49:49.159
<v Speaker 2>Cotton represents the absolute apex of medical arrogance combined with

985
00:49:49.239 --> 00:49:53.599
<v Speaker 2>a tragic lack of institutional oversight. Because he spoke with authority,

986
00:49:53.880 --> 00:49:56.760
<v Speaker 2>because he was charismatic, and because he offered a simple

987
00:49:57.039 --> 00:50:01.119
<v Speaker 2>physical cure for complex psychological trauma, establishment looked the other

988
00:50:01.119 --> 00:50:04.239
<v Speaker 2>way while he slaughtered his patients. He never faced consequences.

989
00:50:04.360 --> 00:50:08.000
<v Speaker 1>He never faced consequences. That phrase echoes so loudly when

990
00:50:08.000 --> 00:50:11.400
<v Speaker 1>we look at our final story because Cotton's horrific psychiatric

991
00:50:11.440 --> 00:50:14.960
<v Speaker 1>cures perfectly parallel the US government's obsession with mind control

992
00:50:15.079 --> 00:50:18.079
<v Speaker 1>during the Cold War. Let's talk about Tusco the Elephant

993
00:50:18.199 --> 00:50:19.880
<v Speaker 1>and the CIA's Sydney.

994
00:50:19.519 --> 00:50:23.199
<v Speaker 2>Gallib We are moving from misguided medical theory into pure,

995
00:50:23.360 --> 00:50:26.519
<v Speaker 2>unadulterated sadism. Funded by the Steed Apparatus.

996
00:50:26.760 --> 00:50:29.920
<v Speaker 1>In nineteen sixty two, researchers at the University of Oklahoma

997
00:50:29.960 --> 00:50:32.000
<v Speaker 1>decided they needed to know what happens when you give

998
00:50:32.039 --> 00:50:35.599
<v Speaker 1>an elephant LSD, so they took Tusco, a massive male

999
00:50:35.679 --> 00:50:38.079
<v Speaker 1>Indian elephant at the local zoo, and they didn't just

1000
00:50:38.079 --> 00:50:39.960
<v Speaker 1>give him a little bit to see if he would hallucinate.

1001
00:50:40.320 --> 00:50:43.039
<v Speaker 1>They calculated what they thought was a corresponding dose for

1002
00:50:43.119 --> 00:50:46.360
<v Speaker 1>his massive body weight. They injected him with two hundred

1003
00:50:46.400 --> 00:50:48.719
<v Speaker 1>and ninety seven milligrams of LSD.

1004
00:50:48.800 --> 00:50:52.840
<v Speaker 2>To contextualize that pharmacology, that is approximately three thousand times

1005
00:50:52.880 --> 00:50:57.360
<v Speaker 2>the typical human recreational dose. LSD is an incredibly potent

1006
00:50:57.519 --> 00:51:01.639
<v Speaker 2>serotonin two a receptor agonist. In checking that volume into

1007
00:51:01.679 --> 00:51:05.000
<v Speaker 2>a mammalian nervous system isn't an experiment, it is a

1008
00:51:05.039 --> 00:51:05.880
<v Speaker 2>chemical assault.

1009
00:51:06.039 --> 00:51:09.880
<v Speaker 1>Tusco started trumpeting wildly, collapsed to the ground in five minutes,

1010
00:51:09.880 --> 00:51:12.800
<v Speaker 1>and began seizing. Within two hours, he was dead. They

1011
00:51:12.880 --> 00:51:16.199
<v Speaker 1>literally fried his brain instantly. But if scientists were willing

1012
00:51:16.199 --> 00:51:18.440
<v Speaker 1>to do that to an elephant out of sheer curiosity,

1013
00:51:18.519 --> 00:51:20.039
<v Speaker 1>what were they willing to do to humans in the

1014
00:51:20.119 --> 00:51:23.760
<v Speaker 1>name of national security? Enter Sidney Gottlieb, the head chemist

1015
00:51:23.760 --> 00:51:25.320
<v Speaker 1>of the CIAS and Culture Project.

1016
00:51:25.559 --> 00:51:29.519
<v Speaker 2>Gottlieb's mandate was to explore LSD and other psychotropic drugs

1017
00:51:29.519 --> 00:51:33.320
<v Speaker 2>as potential brainwashing and interrogation agents, and he operated with

1018
00:51:33.360 --> 00:51:37.159
<v Speaker 2>methodologies that were explicitly derived from Nazi war criminals in

1019
00:51:37.199 --> 00:51:38.800
<v Speaker 2>the Japanese Unit seven thirty one.

1020
00:51:39.000 --> 00:51:42.199
<v Speaker 1>Gottlieb was a complete loose cannon. He had a habit

1021
00:51:42.239 --> 00:51:46.039
<v Speaker 1>of casually slipping huge, unregulated doses of LSD into the

1022
00:51:46.119 --> 00:51:49.440
<v Speaker 1>drinks of his own CIA colleagues without their knowledge, just

1023
00:51:49.519 --> 00:51:52.719
<v Speaker 1>to observe the effects. One of his victims was Frank Olsen,

1024
00:51:52.880 --> 00:51:56.880
<v Speaker 1>a biological warfare scientist. Gottlieb drugged Olson's drink at a

1025
00:51:56.920 --> 00:51:57.679
<v Speaker 1>company retreat.

1026
00:51:58.079 --> 00:52:03.000
<v Speaker 2>Olsen suffered a massive humilis cliating an entirely unprompted psychological breakdown.

1027
00:52:03.639 --> 00:52:06.440
<v Speaker 2>The trauma of the non consensual dosing triggered a downward

1028
00:52:06.480 --> 00:52:09.800
<v Speaker 2>spiral of extreme paranoia that culminated in nineteen fifty three

1029
00:52:10.159 --> 00:52:12.599
<v Speaker 2>when Olsen plummeted to his death from a hotel window

1030
00:52:12.599 --> 00:52:15.400
<v Speaker 2>in New York, a death that remains highly contested regarding

1031
00:52:15.440 --> 00:52:17.599
<v Speaker 2>whether he jumped in a state of drug induce psychosis

1032
00:52:17.840 --> 00:52:19.199
<v Speaker 2>or was pushed to silence him.

1033
00:52:19.360 --> 00:52:24.039
<v Speaker 1>Gottlieb caused an innocent man's death through a completely non consensual, illegal,

1034
00:52:24.079 --> 00:52:28.679
<v Speaker 1>and scientifically useless drugging. And what happened to Godleeb? Did

1035
00:52:28.679 --> 00:52:32.039
<v Speaker 1>he go to jail? Was he prosecuted. No, the project

1036
00:52:32.079 --> 00:52:36.480
<v Speaker 1>eventually collapsed, the documents were mostly destroyed, and Gottloud retired

1037
00:52:36.519 --> 00:52:38.559
<v Speaker 1>with a full pension. And do you know what he

1038
00:52:38.599 --> 00:52:41.679
<v Speaker 1>became in his retirement, a middle and high school speech therapist.

1039
00:52:41.800 --> 00:52:45.960
<v Speaker 2>It is a profound historical injustice and scientifically, it represents

1040
00:52:46.000 --> 00:52:50.280
<v Speaker 2>the total catastrophic abandonment of the scientific method. M culture

1041
00:52:50.440 --> 00:52:55.039
<v Speaker 2>produced zero actionable intelligence, It produced no scientific breakthroughs in

1042
00:52:55.079 --> 00:52:57.599
<v Speaker 2>the understanding of the human mind. It was merely the

1043
00:52:57.639 --> 00:53:01.360
<v Speaker 2>apparatus of science being utilized as a come for unchecked

1044
00:53:01.400 --> 00:53:05.760
<v Speaker 2>state sponsored sadism. Gottlieb operated in a total moral vacuum,

1045
00:53:05.960 --> 00:53:09.360
<v Speaker 2>entirely insulated from consequence by the cloak of national security.

1046
00:53:09.400 --> 00:53:11.880
<v Speaker 1>It genuinely makes my blood boil the thought of getting

1047
00:53:11.880 --> 00:53:14.800
<v Speaker 1>speech therapy from the CIA's most infamous and mad scientist.

1048
00:53:14.840 --> 00:53:15.880
<v Speaker 1>It's just beyond belief.

1049
00:53:16.079 --> 00:53:19.440
<v Speaker 2>If we synthesize everything we've discussed today, from Francis Bacon

1050
00:53:19.480 --> 00:53:22.800
<v Speaker 2>freezing in the snow to Sydney Gottlieb hiding in the shadows,

1051
00:53:23.079 --> 00:53:28.760
<v Speaker 2>a clear, terrifying pattern emerges. The scientific method is incredibly robust.

1052
00:53:29.039 --> 00:53:31.679
<v Speaker 2>It is the best tool we have for understanding reality.

1053
00:53:32.159 --> 00:53:36.280
<v Speaker 2>But the humans wielding that tool are incredibly fragile. Whenever ego,

1054
00:53:36.599 --> 00:53:40.880
<v Speaker 2>extreme desperation, or political ideology is allowed to override rigorous,

1055
00:53:40.920 --> 00:53:45.320
<v Speaker 2>pure reviewed methodology, the results are invariably catastrophic.

1056
00:53:45.400 --> 00:53:49.119
<v Speaker 1>You've seen scientists poison themselves, mutilate the vulnerable, manipulate data

1057
00:53:49.119 --> 00:53:51.840
<v Speaker 1>to tell a good story, and torture animals, all under

1058
00:53:51.880 --> 00:53:54.920
<v Speaker 1>the lofty banner of advancing human knowledge. But we have

1059
00:53:54.960 --> 00:53:57.000
<v Speaker 1>to look in the mirror too. We sit here comfortably

1060
00:53:57.000 --> 00:54:00.000
<v Speaker 1>and look back at cow's milk, transfusions and radioactive cosmetics

1061
00:54:00.039 --> 00:54:03.800
<v Speaker 1>as sheer idiocy. But what currently accepted scientific or medical

1062
00:54:03.800 --> 00:54:06.639
<v Speaker 1>practice that we do today will have broadcasters in twenty

1063
00:54:06.679 --> 00:54:10.039
<v Speaker 1>one twenty six calling us absolute idiots? Is it our

1064
00:54:10.079 --> 00:54:14.400
<v Speaker 1>overreliance on broad spectrum antibiotics, pumping ourselves full of microplastics,

1065
00:54:14.559 --> 00:54:17.639
<v Speaker 1>the way we allow algorithms to rewire our dopamine pathways.

1066
00:54:17.800 --> 00:54:20.199
<v Speaker 2>The greatest arrogance of the present is believing we have

1067
00:54:20.239 --> 00:54:22.760
<v Speaker 2>finally reached the end of ignorance exactly?

1068
00:54:23.000 --> 00:54:26.280
<v Speaker 1>So what's your stand out of all the stories we

1069
00:54:26.320 --> 00:54:30.199
<v Speaker 1>explore today, which scientists cross the line the furthest Was

1070
00:54:30.199 --> 00:54:34.320
<v Speaker 1>it the radioactive ego of loose slowtin, the cannibal flatworms

1071
00:54:34.360 --> 00:54:37.960
<v Speaker 1>of James McConnell, or the CIA's acid tests, or maybe

1072
00:54:38.039 --> 00:54:40.400
<v Speaker 1>someone else entirely think about it and leave a comment

1073
00:54:40.400 --> 00:54:40.960
<v Speaker 1>to let us know.

1074
00:54:41.360 --> 00:54:45.239
<v Speaker 2>Question everything, especially the things you are told are absolute certainties.

1075
00:54:45.360 --> 00:54:48.039
<v Speaker 1>Thank you for joining us on thrilling threads. Keep questioning,

1076
00:54:48.119 --> 00:54:50.440
<v Speaker 1>keep digging, and remember, next time you have a brilliant

1077
00:54:50.480 --> 00:54:53.400
<v Speaker 1>idea that involves a flathead screwdriver and a nuclear core,

1078
00:54:53.960 --> 00:54:56.320
<v Speaker 1>maybe just put the tool down and walk away. We'll

1079
00:54:56.320 --> 00:54:57.119
<v Speaker 1>see you next time.