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Peter Gerdes's avatar

Seems pretty reasonable to me, particularly for government or university funded research:

The study is not producing any real goods by paying the subjects only changing who has the dollars so no matter how many dollars you pay the subjects you can't make a net harmful study into a net beneficial study. This tacitly makes the reasonable assumption that otherwise the money would be used for something of comparable utility value as handing it over to the subjects.

It's only the weird case where some crazy billionare comes in with a obsessive interest in seeing people undergo some painful only slightly useful experiment and would otherwise spend that money in wasteful ways that compensating subjects could render a net harmful study into a net beneficial study.

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The real issue is asking random members of the public who will just express whatever makes them appear the most upstanding/good/normal.

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Overcoming Bias Commenter's avatar

Organic processes of morality are the only source of morality. Why should generating hierarchy be regarded as an alternative means, without so much as a hypothesis?

Your asking for the IRBs to be regarded as inherently more ethical than researchers, with a positive reputation that seems to go without saying. Problem is, reputation and trust have to be earned, they cannot be established by fiat.

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