Scientific Ethics

Orphans keep getting the shaft in the name of science. Now we learn of a study conducted to determine the weight of nature vs. nurture on personality development. Identical twins were separated for adoption without the adopting parents being told there was a twin.

"When the families adopted these children, they were told that their child was already part of an ongoing child study. But of course, they neglected to tell them the key element of the study, which is that it was child development among twins raised in different homes," Bernstein says.

[...]

The study ended in 1980, and a year later, the state of New York began requiring adoption agencies to keep siblings together.

At that point, Bernstein says, Neubauer realized that public opinion would be so against the study that he decided not to publish it. The results of the study have been sealed until 2066 and given to an archive at Yale University.

  NPR

2066.

So that the “subjects” don’t find out they were part of the study, I suppose.

I wonder how the scientists get the consent of the agencies who give these kids up. Big dollars, I would have to assume. But where do the scientists get the big bucks? Who’s funding these studies? I've heard rumors about Yale and unsavory, secret experimentation on children in the past.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.