Experiments Gone So Wrong That The Scientists Were Only Left With Regret

Science is wonderful. It’s how we learn about the universe and our place within it, and without it human progress would be somewhere between slow and nonexistent. But whenever you’re trying something new, there’s always a good chance it can go wrong as well as right. If you’re lucky the result is no worse than a couple of singed eyebrows, but sometimes things go more wrong than you could ever imagine…

20. New Coke

Some experiments are controversial, but don’t cause any real harm. For instance, when you produce one of the most popular drinks in the world, but decide to change it. The Coca-Cola Company was losing money to Pepsi in the 1980s, so it thought it might be worth trying something new. Scientists busied themselves in their labs as they tested new possible formulas.

Misleading market research

Its taste tests actually went really well, and the 1985 launch in America was an exciting time for the execs. What the tests hadn’t revealed, though, was just how deeply people were attached to the original Coke. The backlash was so big that the firm had to bring back the original formula — now styled as “Coca-Cola Classic” — just over two months later. To the company’s pleasure, it led to a huge spike in sales. Maybe this experiment wasn’t such a disaster after all…

19. Clever Hans

Clever Hans was a very clever horse. Or not. We all like to think that our favourite animals are super-smart, but at the turn of the 20th century Wilhelm von Osten took it to the next level when he decided to prove it by apparently teaching his horse Hans math. He’d ask Hans to do a calculation, and Hans would tap his hoof an appropriate number of times to indicate the answer. That sounds like a successful demonstration of animal intelligence.

Horse sense?

Berlin University psychologist Oskar Pfungst was appointed to test Han’s supposed mental acumen. He found that Hans only gave the right answer when he could see the person asking the question. He was picking up on subtle prompts in body language which told him how to respond. The experiment may have revealed the truth, but it’s still a truth that’s somehow a bit disappointing. Who doesn’t like the idea of an equine genius?

18. Winthrop Kellogg's "The Ape and the Child" experiment

Sometimes scientists will experiment on animals as a more “ethical” option compared to using humans. Winthrop Kellogg was a comparative psychologist who studied the behavior of dogs, porpoises and other creatures. One of his most notorious experiments was titled “The Ape and the Child.” It was a comparison between a baby chimpanzee and Kellogg’s own infant son.

Treated the same

Dr. Kellogg decided to raise a young female chimpanzee called Gua alongside his son Donald, with both of them being treated the same. Gua managed to learn some human behaviors, but she never managed human speech. Donald, on the other hand, became a little too comfortable making animal noises. It was an interesting study of nature and nurture but it earned a lot of criticism for taking Gua away from her family and natural environment.

17. Biosphere 2

In 1987 researchers in Arizona embarked on an ambitious new project called Biosphere 2. The aim was to build a completely enclosed ecosystem to demonstrate how humans and other lifeforms could interact together in preparation for potentially colonising space. It was open from 1991 to 1993 and then again for a few months in 1994. Still, on each occasion the experiments didn’t last for long.

Infestation

There were all sorts of problems within the Biosphere, some more predictable than others. As per website Mentalfloss, an infestation of cockroaches was particularly unpleasant. There were shortages of sunlight, food and even oxygen, but it was arguments over money and management that eventually brought things to an abrupt end. Today the structure is owned by the University of Arizona.

16. Harry Harlow's "Pit of Despair" experiment

You just know that an experiment called “The Pit of Despair” is going to be a nasty one. Harry Harlow, the psychologist behind it, reportedly quite enjoyed provoking strong reactions from his scientist colleagues. He definitely succeeded with this 1950s venture, which was widely perceived as a highly unethical experiment intended to “prove” things that should have been self-evident in any case.

Mental health

It’s obvious to most people that if you lock someone in isolation for an extended period of time, then it won’t do their mental health any good. That’s especially true for children with their developing brains and need for parental support. Still, Dr. Harlow took baby monkeys from their mothers to demonstrate how it made them depressed. No wonder he received criticism, even if he did improve our understanding of attachment and development.

15. The Rosenhan experiment

We like to think that doctors know what they’re doing. It’s slightly terrifying to think they might give you medication — or even send you to hospital — for no reason. In the 1970s Stanford professor David Rosenhan was concerned that there were significant flaws in how psychiatrists diagnosed mentally ill patients. He sent them “pseudopatients” who complained about “hearing voices.”

Faking it

Eight perfectly mentally healthy people, including Dr. Rosenhan himself, were committed to psychiatric hospitals with fake symptoms. Once inside, they returned to acting normally. They were still forced into treatment and even on release were described as “in remission” rather than cused. In one case release came after 52 days of dehumanising treatment by doctors and nurses who refused to listen to their patients.

14. Sigmund Freud and Emma Eckstein

Sigmund Freud remains one of the most famous names in psychology, but he’s also one of the most controversial figures. There’s been a lot of debate about both his theories and his methods. That’s a debate that’s thrown into sharp focus when you learn what happened to some of the patients he was supposed to be helping. And that includes the results of his friendship with Doctor Wilhelm Fliess. 

Experimental methods

Emma Eckstein had a stomach ache that may have been related to heavy periods, and she was also a little depressed. Dr. Freud diagnosed hysteria, a condition that was often used to explain women’s real pain. He referred her to Dr. Fliess, whose experimental methods included giving her cocaine before cauterizing the inside of her nose. Ouch. 

13. The Stanford prison experiment

The Stanford Prison experiment in 1971 got a lot of publicity for its dramatic results, but also for the huge methodological and ethical flaws in its design. Stanford University psychology professor Philip Zimbardo wanted to see how people’s behavior might change in different environments. He set half of his subjects to be prisoners and half to be guards and placed them in a fake prison. 

Pattern of abuse

Local police help set up fake arrests and bookings before “prisoners” were incarcerated in a fake jail in uniforms and shackles. Within days the prisoners were rebelling and the guards began engaging in an escalating pattern of abuse. The experiment had to be called off early because conditions were so bad and participants were traumatised.

12. Stanley Milgram's obedience experiment

Another famous psychology experiment with some nasty unexpected results was conducted by Yale University’s Stanley Milgram. He wanted to test how obedient participants would be to an authority figure. Could he make them do something that their personal morals would tell them was wrong?

Electric shocks

Participants were told that they were giving a “learner” electric shocks to see how it would affect their memory. There weren’t actually any shocks and the wired-up individual was acting. That’s lucky, because as the experiment progressed participants were told that they were increasing the voltage to potentially fatal levels. Most continued to press the button even despite the learner’s screams. It’s a chilling insight into the “just following orders” defence.

11. Wendell Johnson and the "Monster Study"

It’s normally college students who get pressured into taking part in their professor’s experiments. Ethical concerns become a lot bigger when there are children involved, especially when they’re vulnerable orphans. But that’s what happened in what became known as the “Monster Study.” The results weren’t even officially published because of the concerns and controversy about the method and how it would affect the scientists’ reputation.

Psychological problems

The experiment was conducted by Wendell Johnson and Mary Tudor at the University of Iowa in 1939. They divided 22 orphans into two groups, with half being praised for how they spoke and half being berated for speech imperfections. Perhaps unsurprisingly, children who were belittled ended up with lifelong psychological problems. The study provided a lot of data about stuttering and speech impediments, but at far too great a cost.

10. Robert E. Cornish and the "Lazarus" dogs

When Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein, it’s fair to assume that she probably didn’t intend for the titular scientist’s experiments to be inspirational. All the same, historically there have still been mavericks who have tried to build monsters or resurrect the dead. One man who thought he could bring the deceased back to life was Robert E. Cornish: he started by experimenting on dogs.

Declared dead

In these macabre trials, dogs were suffocated by denying them oxygen. Dr. Cornish used external means to get the animals’ blood pumping, then injected them with adrenaline and drugs to stop their blood clotting. Two canines were successfully revived, though they were brain-damaged and had lost their sight. A prisoner scheduled to be executed volunteered to become a human subject, but prison officials were a little worried that a murderer might be resurrected and set free. Experiments at an end, Dr. Cornish would become a toothpaste salesman.

9. CIA mind-control experiments

You can always count on the CIA for a bit of ethical dubiety! Involvement in drug trafficking here, helping overthrow a government there. It has also reportedly turned its hands to illegal human experimentation, including with a program called MKUltra, often dubbed the CIA mind-control program. It only became public knowledge in the 1970s, despite having been around since the 1950s.

Sensory deprivation

Now, by all accounts the CIA didn’t actually develop the ability to mind-control people, which is probably a bit of a relief. But they did reportedly use electroshocks, sensory deprivation, drugs including LSD, and various forms of abuse to manipulate participants’ mental states. As a result test subjects hallucinated and became paranoid; some even went into comas and died. It’s definitely not legal or ethical to tamper with people’s brains without even telling them what you’re doing.

8. Stubbins Ffirth and yellow fever

Why on earth would you want to expose yourself to yellow fever if you weren’t being controlled by the CIA? It doesn’t sound like a great start to an experiment, but in the 19th century Stubbins Ffirth thought it would be a good idea, because he wanted to prove that the disease wasn’t contagious. On the bright side, at least he only experimented on himself. No one else had to be sacrificed in the name of science.

Bodily fluids

The experiment started badly and steadily got worse. First Dr. Ffirth tried to rub infected vomit into cuts on his arms. Then he poured it on his eyeballs. When even that wouldn’t work, he tried drinking the stuff. He then tried the same with other bodily fluids like blood, urine and saliva. That goes beyond dedication. And it wasn’t even enough to prove his case, because the fluids he took either didn’t have enough virus, or he was naturally immune.

7. Richard Strong and Bilibid Prison

Another disease that most people would probably want to avoid is bubonic plague, which has been known to wipe out large parts of the world’s population. Richard Strong was a doctor in the Philippines in 1906 and what he actually wanted to do was create an inoculation against cholera. The first warning sign here was that he was using prisoners: it’s a recurring theme when we’re looking at unethical and/or botched experiments.

Wrong vial

His inmate test subjects in the Manila prison had no idea he was inoculating them with the wrong vial. Instead of a cholera vaccine it seems he accidentally administered plague, which led to 13 of 24 participants dying. Dr. Strong didn’t learn his lesson and after a few years of lying low, he returned to experimenting on prisoners by giving them beriberi. Again, some of them died; others walked away with no payment other than packs of cigarettes.

6. Henry Murray’s Harvard experiments

A Harvard scientist launched a series of experiments in the late 1950s where unexpecting subjects were deliberately humiliated and abused to cause them stress. The aim was to see what the impact would be on the psychological state of participants. The man in charge was Henry A. Murray and he oversaw interrogations where subjects were wired to electrodes under harsh lighting.

“Worst experience”

This went on for three years, using methods designed to mentally break enemy agents. How bad was it? One participant described it as the worst experience of his life. His name was Ted Kaczynski, but you may remember him as the Unabomber. It probably takes more than a psychology experiment to turn someone into a terrorist, but it can’t have helped…

5. UCLA schizophrenia experiment

One of the first things a psychiatrist should tell you when prescribing medication is that if you don’t want to take it any more, then you need to gradually wean yourself off in a controlled and supervised manner. You can’t just stop, because that can have serious side-effects. The researchers at UCLA in 1983 didn’t take that guidance so seriously when they started experimenting on schizophrenia patients.

Psychotic symptoms

The researchers wanted to learn about schizophrenia and how patients could relapse. Unfortunately, they decided the best way to do that was to immediately stop patients taking their prescribed and necessary medication. They didn’t even warn them of the potential dangers. Patients experienced psychotic symptoms including hallucinations, and one even fatally jumped off a roof, all because they had their meds taken away.

4. Franz Reichelt, the “Flying Tailor”

All experiments come with an element of risk, but not all come with an almost guaranteed promise of death if they don’t work. Franz Reichelt was a brilliant and daring French tailor and inventor who had been born in Austria. His dream was to make an aviator suit with a built-in parachute that could save a pilot if their aircraft failed in mid-air. 

Eiffel Tower

His first tests were on dummies and from relatively low heights, but you can’t know for sure a parachute will work until you’re wearing it. In 1912 he got permission from the French authorities to try jumping from the top of the Eiffel Tower. Sadly, the chute never opened properly and he crashed to the ground. He was declared dead on arrival in hospital; a subsequent autopsy suggested the cause of death may have been a heart attack whilst falling, rather than the impact itself.

3. John Day

When something goes wrong in a submarine, you don’t have many options: escape just sends you into the depths of the ocean. John Day was an English carpenter who lived in the 1700s. He bought a boat and attached a wooden diving chamber beneath it. The chamber didn’t have an engine, and could be lowered and raised by loading and releasing stone weights.

Got his sums wrong

But Day had fatally miscalculated. He boarded his diving chamber without issue, but he would never rise to the surface again. It’s not certain whether he died from a lack of air, from the cold or because of the water pressure. It was the first time anyone had been recorded dying in a submarine.

2. Apollo I

It goes without saying that space travel is another area that’s full of potential dangers. The history of man’s triumphs is offset by the many times it went wrong. And that includes the very first planned mission of the Apollo program, which would eventually lead to the Moon landings. In fact, Apollo I was never even launched.

Caught fire

Things went wrong during a simulation that was meant to test whether the spacecraft would work properly for the real lift-off. Crew Roger B. Chaffee, Ed White, and Gus Grissom were all killed when the command module caught fire. There would be an extensive investigation before NASA dared to try and fly again.

1. Marie Curie

It’s a dangerous business being a ground-breaking scientist. Marie Curie was one of the most important physicists and chemists of her age; the world would be a different place without her pioneering research into radioactivity. In that sense, her experiments were a resounding success, but they also came with an horrific consequence.

Exposure to radiation

To investigate radiation obviously involves lots of close contact with potentially dangerous substances. You can’t know exactly what will happen when you’re discovering new elements such as polonium and radium, or helping invent X-ray machines. Dr. Curie didn’t have the safety procedures we’ve developed since her death. Long-term exposure to radiation is almost certainly what gave her the aplastic pernicious anaemia that killed her.