The following appeared in a book I recently read.
In 1957, Dr C.P. Richter of the Psychobiological Laboratory of John Hopkins Medical School carried out an experiment that attempted to measure the motivational effect of hope. The experiments involved placing rats into cylinders of water thirty inches deep and eight inches wide. After a short time, half the rats were momentarily rescued - lifted out of the cylinder for a few seconds, then put back into the water. The other half were not. The group that was given hope swam for more than three days. The other rats drowned almost immediately.
Sounds romantic and supports the idea of and that the mind gives up before the body and all.
A little digging into what happened in 1957, yields evidence of an apparent sloppy experiment further confused by reports of what happened and the scientist’s evaluation of the results. The quote fails to mention that the two sets of rats came from different backgrounds, wild and domesticated. It was the domesticated rats that were temporarily rescued and survived longer. Hardly a fair test to how the “feeling” of hope altered survival rates. It would have been interesting to have seen the survival rates of the wild rats had they been temporarily rescued. I would love to see the original report and not depend upon internet accounts and evaluations. Sadly all the rats were allowed to drown, thus preventing offspring from inheriting the “hope” gene.
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2 comments:
who did this - Jeffrey Dalmer! Or some Nazi doctor? This guy does some botched "experiment" that kills all the rats and he doesn't even gain useful scientific knowledge?
Ok - we experiment tonight. I'll let people think they are breaking away, only to chase them down. How many times will it take before they stop trying. THis is like a "hopelessness" experiment. Oh, that's right - some of them start out that way though and never attack!
Todd
I've now read a few reports of experiments done by the same person. I was never much of a PETA supporter, but if there was ever a case for investigation, this guy is it. Sloppy science at the expense of animals is never a winning combination.
You don’t have to look to far or deep to find similarities between cycling and life. I guess humans and animals both share the desire to win and live, sometimes at the expense of others, as it should be. In fact the next chapter had the following except from the book The Rider by Tim Krabbe
Road racing imitates life, the way it would be without the corruptive influence of civilization. When you see an enemy lying on the ground, what’s your first reaction? To help him to his feet? In road racing, you kick him to death.
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