Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2016 January 2

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January 2

Viral experimentation on death row inmates

Why is it ok to do it on animals and not on death row inmates? They performed so much evil to mankind, it's only fair they offer something final to mankind in return. I bet HIV/cancer would have a cure already if this was allowed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Money is tight (talk • contribs) 06:28, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Are you seriously not aware of the differences between animals and humans? Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 07:33, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

And, by the way, death row inmates are not exactly the picture of good health. They are typically drug addicts, alcoholics, etc., whose bodies have been subjected to years of abuse. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 07:34, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

That would appear to run afoul of the cruel and unusual punishment ban in the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution. StuRat (talk) 07:37, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Human subject research without voluntary informed consent violates both the Nuremberg Code and the Declaration of Helsinki. See other articles linked from experimentation on prisoners for more background. -- Paulscrawl (talk) 08:27, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Most killers are psychopaths, i.e. they don't know right from wrong or they lack internal controls. As much as it sucks to be a victim of a psychopath, it sucks to be one yourself - everyone's mad at you but you don't know why, like a dog who gets beaten for getting on the couch, a random rule the dog has no capacity to understand why it makes sense. You wouldn't want to be reborn a psychopath. (BTW, in our sharktank of a world, conscience, i.e. the capacity to feel remorse and empathy, is increasingly being seen as a weakness, when in fact it's what gives us dignity.) Thus, I'd say these people should be isolated from society as a matter of practical necessity, perhaps beaten occasionally (by the relatives, provided they don't kill them or use any implements) (because even though criminals can't feel empathy, they can feel self-pity, which I think is a subset of empathy, and this would be a redeeming, dignity-restoring moment for them. Also, it would be a good thing for social peace, because I think the single most important factor in social upheaval is an injured sense of justice, an aspect often neglected by the modern, liberal justice system), but not tortured with oriental abandon and certainly not experimented upon.Asmrulz (talk) 12:16, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

1) I doubt that "Most killers are psychopaths".

2) Lack of impulse control is not the same thing at all.

3) Other than as young children, psychopaths know well enough what is considered acceptable behavior and what is not and what punishments they will get if they get caught breaking those rules. They tend to be intelligent, after all. StuRat (talk) 21:09, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

A related issue is Organ donation in the United States prison population#Death Row Inmates, with this 2012 paper from The Annals of Thoracic Surgery addressing both sides. -- ToE 14:10, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

• The answers here are US centric, although the OP did not mention the US. There are other countries with death penalty and as it appears, they for them it's a not a big issue to harvest organs.Scicurious (talk) 15:46, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:05, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Capital_punishment_in_China#Criticism ---- LongHairedFop (talk) 17:54, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

One country, and even there "condemned prisoners must give written consent to become organ donors". --Stephan Schulz (talk) 00:04, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

I don't think it's just one country. It sounds like it also happens in Singapore [1] [2]. Possibly Taiwan too Capital punishment in Taiwan although our article doesn't clearly specify that this continued after the moratorium from 2006-2009. Both of these do require consent. While China does require consent now, [3] suggests it may not have always been the case. However it clearly isn't just the US where this is controversial, the above articles attest that there's controversy in all 3 countries and Organ transplantation in China#Organs sourced from prisoners sentenced to death makes it clear it's a somewhat worldwide issue. Nil Einne (talk) 15:23, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Ever since Immanuel Kant, enlightened people have recognised the evil of treating any person just as a means. One of the risks of treating people only as means is the creation of moral dilemmas and a false incentives, in this case to create more death row inmates. Just imagine a judge who is not quite certain about guilt and innocence, but whose young daughter has just been diagnosed with cancer. Madison's generation was heavily influenced by the enlightenment. Also, of course, given the rate of erroneous verdicts, the claim that "death row inmates [...] performed so much evil to mankind" is not universally true, and indeed quite spurious. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:54, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

This is a bit off-topic, but I will post it nonetheless. You mentioned the rate of erroneous verdicts. I don't have any data in front of me, but I would expect that that rate is extremely low. No? Sure, we get some high profile cases, here and there. And, sure, death penalty opponents will say "even one is too much". But, despite that, I imagine the rate must be extremely low. In fact, virtually 100% of death row sentences are subject to appeal (in the USA). Many of those appeals "fix" the problems (if they exist), before any execution occurs. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 18:26, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

This 2013/2014 PNAS paper claims that the best estimate is 4.1% of people on death row are wrongly convicted. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:01, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

I am not sure how relevant or applicable that is. The study begins with a caveat that states: We use survival analysis to model this effect, and estimate that if all death-sentenced defendants remained under sentence of death indefinitely at least 4.1% would be exonerated. That's pretty silly. As I said in an above post, 100% of death verdicts are appealed. Clearly, a percentage (probably a large percentage) of those find some "error" in the trial and/or in the sentence. And, as such, either the verdict or the sentence does not stand. So, it's quite the fiction to "study" people who (hypothetically) will remain on death row indefinitely. That is likely a very small percentage of inmates who are on death row in total. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 04:43, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

In other words ... They are saying that some people do not belong on death row. And, presumably, should be removed. However, they are "counting" those people before they even have the chance to be (rightfully) removed from death row. What type of scientific process is that? In other words (again) ... they are using a faulty premise that once a person lands on death row, they stay there indefinitely (and there is no process to remove them if they don't belong there). Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 04:49, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm not sure your interpretation is correct. There is a difference between "not belonging on death row" and "being exonerated (of the crime in question)". The paper notes that for people actually on death row, the motivation and hence effort to prove their innocence is very high. Thus, these are the people most likely to be exonerated (i.e. the best estimate for people that have been wrongly convicted). For people which are removed from death row for other reasons (resentenceing to a different punishment, or parole or commutation), the interest to exonerate them is much less, so less effort is spend, so the fraction of wrong convictions overturned is less. They are not using the assumption "that once a person lands on death row, they stay there indefinitely", they try to model the rate of exonerations if that were the case (i.e. if the effort to demonstrate innocence (or at least wrongful conviction) were the same for people removed from death row for other reasons than for people still on death row). The full paper is available. PNAS is one of the most high-profile and high-quality journals around, so even if the finding is surprising, I wouldn't dismiss it without a careful analysis.

I think we agree that the fraction of people wrongly on death row is higher than the fraction of people wrongly executed. We probably differ in our estimates of the fraction of people wrongly executed (I think this still is significant). But the original question was why we don't experiment on "death row inmates", which I think are not just people scheduled for immediate execution, but includes people for which some kind of appeal process may still be running (otherwise the only way to be "removed from death row" would be execution, or, arguably, natural death). The paper is actually good in using the more precise "criminal defendants who are sentenced to death". --Stephan Schulz (talk) 12:59, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Well, we are probably (more or less) saying the same thing. That journal concedes -- in essence -- that it is difficult/impossible to capture the "correct" population to study. And, given that limitation, they are doing "the best they could". Personally, I doubt we'd see a high number of people executed erroneously. I mean, if we are talking about the "modern era" (not going back to the 1930's, etc.). We don't even see a "high number" of people executed, period. Much less, executed in error. Regardless, I think this discussion has adequately addressed the OP's questions. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 20:03, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

You've already got a lot of good answers on why not. So it's perhaps now worth noting even if you did a far better job at attempting high quality science than the Nazi's did, your premise is likely faulty. While we may have a bit more knowledge than we have now, it's hard to reliably conclude we would have a cure for HIV. As for cancer, see [4] [5] [6] for why many dislike talking about a general cure for cancer. For the last ref if you ignore the specific contentious claims, it's clear no one interviewed as considering a general cure.

Of course, actually performing high quality science is going to be difficult since even if it were legal, convincing sufficient people with the necessary expertise to be involved would be difficult. (Despite the ethical lapses that have happened in the past.) And even if by some miracle you did enough people to work on it, you're always going to have to put up with limitations like the fact noted above about the prison population not being a random sampling.

P.S. It's a bit sad how hard it was to find the earlier refs amidst all the junk about miracles cures that science was hiding.

Nil Einne (talk) 16:52, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia is dying, what steps Wikipedia management is taking?

• [7] --IEditEncyclopedia (talk) 17:06, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

• Toast marshmallows over the smouldering embers? Seriously, that article is based on some rather "flexible" misuse of statistics; the actual figures are here. True, the number of Wikipedia editors fell after 2007 (probably attributable to the amount of low-hanging-fruit easily written articles dropping), but since that one drop the number of active editors has remained virtually constant for eight years (the purple and blue lines are the ones to watch; the pink line marks very occasional editors, and one would expect it to drop as people become more familiar with Wikipedia and decide it is/isn't for them), and the rate of increase in Wikipedia's size has barely fluctuated. Don't believe everything The New Republic tells you. ‑ Iridescent 17:23, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

I remember having this conversation about 10 years ago. If the sky is falling, it sure is falling slow. HighInBC 17:36, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Ding dong the wicked witch is still alive!

I've never read any of the Oz series, aside from the original The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. According to Kalidah, one of Baum's later books rejected the idea that Ozian inhabitants (including Kalidahs), were mortal; apparently the Kalidahs just got injured or something of the sort. Did he address what actually happens when you land houses on silver-shod witches or throw water on dried-up witches so they spread over the clean boards of the kitchen floor, since apparently they're not killed? Nyttend (talk) 18:43, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

It's explictly spelled out in The Emerald City of Oz: No disease of any sort was ever known among the Ozites, and so no one ever died unless he met with an accident that prevented him from living. That is, there's no aging or disease, but one can still be killed (although the Tin Man survived decapitation in the first book with no apparent ill-effects other than the need for a tin head). More at Land of Oz#Death in Oz if you really care. ‑ Iridescent 18:49, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks! Nyttend (talk) 18:57, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Interesting trivia: The average contemporary lifestyle probably causes death in under 10,000 years if those were the rules (unless you don't drive). Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 20:11, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

As the series went on and Baum's style got increasingly bleaker, he came up both with some fairly inventive workarounds for "nobody dies", and some rather ghoulish thoughts on the implications of warfare in a society where nobody ages (and thus since no children ever grow up, the only replacements are those who find their way from our world). His later books, particularly the strikingly dark Glinda of Oz, have some astonishingly bleak (for children's books) fates-worse-than-death; Wicked is probably more in keeping with Baum's style than the movie. The ones most likely to emotionally scar young children expecting another Wizard of Oz feelgood romp are humans transformed into animals and left fully aware of what's happened but unable to communicate it to anyone, and characters having their brains scooped out and left to wander. ‑ Iridescent 20:29, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

• I am uniquely placed to confirm the above is correct. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 06:38, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

• I didn't know you were in prison. StuRat (talk) 07:50, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

Australia is a prison. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (もしもし！) 15:39, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

Stone walls do not a prison make .... . -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:55, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

Neither did Stonewall. StuRat (talk) 01:58, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

So you have to leave Oz to die, unless you just stop eating? Nyttend (talk) 04:58, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Ouch. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 09:12, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Don't bring him back here, Nyttend. We sent him there in the first place. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (もしもし！) 15:25, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Don't worry. If I ever left Oz permanently, I'd go to a country that speaks English. You Brits are safe. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 19:55, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

So where the bloody hell are you? KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (もしもし！) 20:51, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

You might have a hard time finding another place where "bastard" is a term of affection. Maybe New Zealand ? StuRat (talk) 20:07, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Oh, I'm going nowhere fast, Stu. I already live in the Land of the Future. For proof, look no further than what Charles M. Schulz said: Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow in Australia.. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:50, 6 January 2016 (UTC)