Alfred Kinsey and William Masters and Virginia Johnson...

The scientific method and rules of ethics are important tools when researching and experimenting. When researchers abide by these guidelines, experimentation is considered to be safe for the test subjects, as well as the person conducting the research is considered reputable. Experiments go awry, however, when researchers ignore the scientific method and rules of ethics. The experiments of Alfred Kinsey and the scientific team of William Masters and Virginia Johnson have been criticized for their methods of research and sense of ethics. Both scientific teams researched human sexuality, a topic in which is perpetually scrutinized. Kinsey and Masters and Johnson were not always ethical in their studies, and did not always follow the†¦show more content†¦The ethical standings of Kinsey have been examined numerous times, for the subject matter alone is open for scrutiny. The first rule of ethics states that the participants of scientific research must provide informed consent. A ll of the almost 12,000 participants of Kinsey’s surveys gave their consent (Griffitt and Hatfield). The next rule of ethics is voluntary participation of the test subjects. All participants in Kinsey’s surveys voluntarily agreed to participate (Griffitt and Hatfield). The problem, however, was when Kinsey used data collected from home videos he made in his attic or when he tested the sexuality of children (Keith). Many of the children in these experiments were sexually assaulted by an adult, which is not a consented act, yet Kinsey used the data to help prove his theories (Keith). The third rule of ethics is restricting the use of deception and debriefing the participants at the end of the experiment. The participants in Kinsey’s research were not deceived when they were answering his surveys, which did not require deception or debriefing (Griffitt and Hatfield). Confidentiality is the next rule of ethics, and Kinsey never disclosed the identities of the parti cipants (Griffitt and Hatfield). The final rule of