Comments on: Mad Scientist #1: Harry Harlow

By: Bready

Bready — Thu, 18 Jun 2020 22:21:41 +0000

Oh boy… There is honestly no way you can justify such torture. What does all of this prove? That a soft object is more comfortable than wires? To me, this is not science- Harlow let his own frustrations out on these poor creatures and created unrealistic scenarios in order to make them feel miserable.
I’m certain there are many ways to show that animals feel emotions like we do and that motherly love is necessary for development. This here is just sadism. He could’ve left it at the experiments with the cloth and the wire “mother”, everything beyond that point was nuts.
I’m generally surprised how ridiculous humans can be that they think love isn’t needed for survival. We are social creatures and anyone who knows what being lonely feels like should be aware of that.
What these experiments mostly show is that something was genuinely wrong with Harry Harlow- any normal human being would’ve not been able to continue such experiments.

Unrelated but I enjoy your site- thanks for all of the interesting articles and texts!

By: Tanya

Tanya — Tue, 16 Jul 2019 20:29:07 +0000

It’s so frustrating to see Harlow’s experiments hailed as proving something about Mother Love. In article after article people accept his naming of “wire mother” vs. “cloth mother”. Neither are mothers! It drives me bonkers. All these experiments prove is that a pillow is more comfortable than a piece of wire.

By: Jake Bright

Jake Bright — Sun, 14 Oct 2018 03:04:19 +0000

Lol you’re such an idiot. Yes, I agree that what he did was a little fucked up but he his experiments changed the world today. The experiment was not worthless, not one bit. An an animal who has strong emotional feelings for a piece of cloth? The cloth mother doesn’t feed him. But still the monkey had strong feelings for it. When the monkey was scared, it went to the cloth mother for comfort because it believed that the cloth mother was its actual parent and not the wire mother.

By: Holly

Holly — Tue, 22 Dec 2015 07:21:27 +0000

Hope He is getting his karma in hell

By: Hoowee

Hoowee — Mon, 02 Feb 2015 07:28:32 +0000

I agree. Harry Harlow was a cuckoo. Just because a person gets funding from the powers that be doesn’t mean they’re not. It might just confirm it. The Nazi state anyone? And how in the world do the ‘no physical affection for the kiddies’ theories of John Watson validate Harlow? Two nutters one source: western civilization and its science, which too often needs many years and much cash to come up with things that humans should instinctively know. We humans should be able to figure out pretty much, without going through all that Harlow did, that a monkey will be more comfortable and attach more strongly when creature comforts are present in a survival situation.

By: Lily Ford

Lily Ford — Fri, 26 Sep 2014 04:04:15 +0000

Harlow was sick and evil.

By: Max Hartshorn

Max Hartshorn — Sun, 07 Sep 2014 23:46:54 +0000

That’s awesome Dan! I replaced the videos so you should be able to see them now.

By: Dan

Dan — Thu, 04 Sep 2014 11:47:18 +0000

I went to art school with Skinner’s daughter in the 70s. I only had one conversation with her. It was interesting. I didn’t know she was the girl in the box at the time.

Too bad your videos aren’t available anymore. Is it possible to get a description of what was in them? It’s possibly I’ve seen them. One monkey can’t stand contact to the extent that he tries to tear his own arm off rather than be touched by another monkey.

I empathized with that monkey. The orphanage I lived in had qualities in common with some of the monkey experiments.

By: bob

bob — Thu, 19 Sep 2013 10:30:04 +0000

harlow’s infant monkey study photos are some of the saddest & most disturbing images I ever came across. the irony is that the images raise immediate questions not so much about the intent of harlow’s experiments, but about how one primate species could do that to another, on a speculative basis for its own benefit. the images represent a staged laboratory sadism in the name of understanding an actual real world sadism – child neglect.
which is worse?

By: Five Horrifying Psychological Experiments | Trysk's Space

Five Horrifying Psychological Experiments | Trysk's Space — Thu, 25 Jul 2013 23:23:01 +0000

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