A very interesting survey of some questionable experiments. Sadly, the elephant on acid one turns out to be upsetting. A warning to animal lovers out there, many of the experiments do involve animals and are somewhat graphic ( )

Fascinating roundup of some of the stranger experiments carried out in the name of science. Some of them are familiar (like the Stanford Prison Experiment) and others are much more obscure. All of them are accurately and accessibly described. Good stuff. ( )

Fascinating roundup of some of the stranger experiments carried out in the name of science. Some of them are familiar (like the Stanford Prison Experiment) and others are much more obscure. All of them are accurately and accessibly described. Good stuff.

Boese presents a catalogue of truely bizarre experiments, giving a short essay on each and collecting them into themed chapters. The book is intended to be humourous and it is, in places, but the technique used for the jokes hardly varies throughout and if read in just a few sessions, becomes repetative and palls. Some of that humour is also, in my view, in poor taste; jokes about dogs that have been repeatedly shocked with electricity don't make me laugh.

This leads directly to the other problem with the book; most of the experiments described aren't merely weird, they are ethically questionable (or just plain inexcusably sick-minded) or display incompetance or stupidity on the part of the investigator(s). (As an aside it is amazing how many over extrapolate their conclusions.)

Boese sometimes acknowledges this and addresses the matter, but in many cases blithely describes the whole thing without commenting on the ethical issues - maybe he isn't as sensitive as I am to these matters. Ethics matter in most of these experiments because they are all either surgical or psychological in nature. I can see why investigators in these fields must now put proposals to an ethics comittee - a goodly number of these experiments would not take place if put forward today.

Writing a supposedly fluffy piece of "look at what they did and laugh" journalism about such unpleasant matters makes me feel uncomfortable. I'm also unlikely to ever volunteer to take part in any psychological experiment - but then, will I even be asked? I could have unwittingly taken part in several, already.

I remind myself that this book concentrates examples of bad practice and most researchers would not wish to be associated with the people discussed and I don't suggest you avoid this book. Read it, instead, to learn how far some will go in the pursuit of knowledge. ( )

Best read in pieces and with a mind that either likes horror, grotesque things, or just detached entirely. This book shows its age on subject matter that most people wouldn't enjoy reading about unless they enjoy reading about the mistakes and science errors made to get where we are now. As a fan of outdated medical procedures -in the reading sense, not the supportive kind- who finds tales of the old practices hilarious in how ridiculous human stupidity was back then, I found this book to deliver exactly what its cover said it would.

I do not recommend this unless you want to read about these kinds of things or have something to whip out and read to guests or hand to them for kicks. It's proven to catch people's eyes whenever I make the mistake of toting it around. Definitely not a good pubic reading book. ( )