Prompt Cast
The Role of Self-Experimentation in Advancing Scientific Understanding
TLDR Scientists who self-experimented, such as Albert Hoffman and Santorio Santorio, made significant contributions to scientific knowledge by subjecting their ideas to rigorous experimentation. Self-experimentation has led to important discoveries in fields such as pharmacology, psychology, and physiology.
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Scientists who self-experimented, such as Albert Hoffman and Santorio Santorio, played a significant role in advancing scientific understanding by subjecting their ideas to scientific rigor and conducting meticulous experiments on themselves.
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Frederick Wilhelm Adam Sertürner discovered and isolated morphine from opium through self-experimentation, testing it on animals and eventually on himself and his friends, leading to the development of a painkiller that is still widely used today.
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J.H. Henry Head created a trance-like state called a negative attitude of attention where he focused on pain in order to fully experience and document different types of pain, contributing to the understanding of sensation after nerve damage and experimental psychology.
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George Stratton wore reversing lenses in the 1890s to test the theory that visual information has to be inverted for us to see upright, wearing them for eight days and presenting visual information right side up to the brain.
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George Stratton wore reversing lenses for eight days straight, and found that after the fifth day, visual information started to appear upright again, proving that the brain is capable of adapting to radical changes in sensations.
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Dr. Jack Goldstein discovered that an enzyme in coffee can remove antigens from B blood, making it the universal blood type, and he tested this by injecting coffee into his own blood and receiving a transfusion of treated B blood.
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Self-experimentation is commonly used in experimental psychology, but it is not as common in medicine due to the dangers and the influence of double blinds and placebos on the outcome of the experiment.
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Seth Roberts conducted self-experiments to solve personal problems and improve aspects of his life, such as weight control, mood, and sleep.
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The hosts provide some administrative details and mention a new marketing invention, but then ask listeners for supplemental information about self-experimentation.
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