Our Little Experiment

"The swiftest crawlers were ready at their goal. Small hands reached out uncertainly, touched, grasped, unpetaling the transfigured roses, crumbling the illuminated pages of the books. The director waited until all were happily busy. Then, "Watch carefully," he said. And lifting his hand, he gave the signal." (20)

"There was a violent explosion. Shriller and ever shriller, a siren shrieked. Alarm bells maddeningly sounded. . . now we proceed to rub in the lesson with a mild electric shock." (21)

These quotes show how the Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning (D.H.C), experiments with the 8 month babies. He would tell the nurse to let the kids down on the floor. The people in charge of the babies would have flowers and books where the babies would be. Once the babies would get to close to the flowers or to the books the D.H.C. would give out the signal to the nurse to press down a lever. And by pressing this lever it would shock the little babies, and it will make the babies not attracted to flowers or books. And if by any chance the babies would do it again then the nurse would pull the lever down and it will shock the infants. And the explanation the D.H.C gives is “They'll grow up with what the psychologists used to call an 'instinct' hatred of books and botany all their lives.” (22)


In the book Brave New World by Aldus Huxley he tells us how the characters in the book experiment with babies. In reality, people conduct this kind of experiments with animals. There are many examples of us trying to change someone else's ways. For example; there have been collars created for dogs that prevent them not to bark, and when they do they would get shocked by the collar. So, the dogs learn not to bark again or else they will get shocked.
One time my classmate Liszette, explained to us that her brother told her that scientists were experimenting with monkeys. The experiment was that they would put in monkeys in a cage, in the cage they would have a ladder for the monkeys to climb, and once they would climb the ladder they would be able to reach the bananas that where on top of the ladder. So the experiment the scientist conducted was very similar to the one the scientist were doing in the book "Brave New World." When the monkey would reach for the bananas they would get shocked. And the scientist would take one of the monkeys out and put a new one in. Since the new monkey is not aware that if he climbs up the ladder and reaches for the bananas he would get shocked, he climbs it and tries to get one, but obviously he isn't able to do it since they all get shocked. And they repeat the same thing over and over. So, the monkeys that have been through the process know not to reach for the bananas and this is the same with the babies. They know that when flowers and books have been put in front of them, they are not supposed to touch them.
I personally don't agree with this. I don't think we should be testing experiment with animals, but yet I contradict myself sometimes. In order for us to advance in science we need to test things before using it in humans. So what's the only way to test it? Animals. It's very sad, but it's reality.