What about those Psychological Experiments?

The following report on psychological experiments comes to us from The Onion. I offer this caveat to forewarn you. I post it for the humor value. Since I know next to nothing about said experiments, I cannot offer any sage commentary.

So, here’s a little psycho entertainment:

Unable to discern any legitimate form of inquiry in the past procedures, a new report released Monday by the American Psychological Association found that nearly eight out of every 10 psychological experiments conducted in the 1970s were just crimes. “After analyzing hundreds of academic papers from the decade, we found that 79% of these experiments served no scientific purpose, but in most cases were conducted simply to inflict pain and distress on their test subjects,” the report read in part, adding that the studies, in which participants were sometimes electrocuted repeatedly or locked in a dark basement for days on end without food or water, did little to advance knowledge and constituted very serious felonies in all 50 states. “Much of the time these researchers didn’t even bother to test a hypothesis or collect data, but instead just tortured student volunteers for amusement by burning them with hot irons or beating them over and over again with a sack of hammers. However, not all experiments that broke the law involved physical or emotional agony. We also found a 1974 study at Yale in which PhD candidates were given a $30,000 grant to just do a bunch of cocaine without any apparent research goals.” The report went on to mention that the remaining 21% of experiments, while not rising to the level of crimes, were still flat-out racist.