Russian Science video - Reviving a severed dog's head.

I suppose you are simply assuming the guy at the end was being honest and that the film wasn't shot in reverse order with the happy scenes at the end shot before the dogs were experimented on?

Even if it is accurate at the end, they had three dogs that survived from 1938 through 1943 when the film was released. They did their "revival" experiment on 42 dogs . . . where are the other 39 happy dogs?

 

Cant you just belive what you see and assume that the other dogs are all happy! Nowadays people dont belive anything anyone tells them..even if they are a feckin scientist.

 

No because Peanuts is the term used in the pun as cheap.

 

Yes the dogs are in heaven playing go-fish with the easter bunny and jesus.

 

All at the same time? It honestly sounds like some kind of flushed goldfish gangbang to me.

 

once someone told me that "the human body is a chemical machine".

 

Chill, dude. No nefarious intentions suspected. But who said this film was the only thing to get across the Iron Curtain? The USSR quite openly detonated an A-bomb in 1949 (at that time, you could still hide such an event in a large country); and the plans for Sputnik had been widely reported in both Soviet and Western publications for several years, and publicly acknowledged by the Soviets four months before the actual launch in 1957 (the shocked response by the Western world when it was finally up in orbit surprised the USSR somewhat). Fact is, Stalin's death in 1953 led to a more relaxed environment for science and technology growth. At the Twentieth Party Congress in 1956, Khrushchev denounced Stalin for imprisoning thousands of the country's leading scientists, many of whom Khrushchev later rehabilitated. Under Khrushchev the number of research workers almost tripled, and the number of research institutes doubled. International scientific communications and cooperation resumed. Exchanges with the West were encouraged as a means of acquiring technologies that Soviet scientists could assimilate and then duplicate (which they did very well).

Look, I'm not trying to pick an argument with you. It's all good, you know? You suggested that Stalin felt that scientists (who could really achieve something) were a threat. I'm just suggesting that he saw them as assets --albeit ones that needed to be tightly guarded to keep them from being pilfered. He would ask advise on the people he felt were dissidents, whether it was worth saving them from the Gulag or being more lenient with them because of what they might be able to do for the USSR. Unfortunately, the people he asked were often too afraid to speak up or had their own agendas.

Stalin grew up in a poor family as a single child (his three siblings all died young) to a ethnic minority (Georgian) mother (serf) and father (street cobbler) who was a drunk, physically abusive, and abandoned his family when Stalin was 10. By his mid-forties he was undisputed ruler of the USSR. For a crazy dude, he did OK, then. Yes, he was psychologically very damaged to say the least, but even psychopaths can be smart, devious and ruthlessly rational. Don't simply dismiss him as just a madman --he was a madman who managed to survive a political snakepit of contenders to the throne, connive his way to the top, and seize control of Russia until his death.

And if you read 1984 (which I know you did), and follow the news (which I also know you do), you know that changing (people's recollection/understanding of) history can be as simple as changing a story or a photograph... We've seen plenty of that over the last years.

Stalin was not a scientist. But if you have a guy like him breating down your neck for results (more than just funding implications here), as a scientist you might be motivated to embellish things, to say the least. Scientists have been caught cheating for less...

 

Hush now Nex - all I am trying to say is 1- the film is a fake and 2- It was just as likely that Stalin faked it as anyone else in the USSR.

 

Now I'm not saying that your wrong, and I don't want to get in a lengthly discussion over this topic (which is why I put it in general instead of serious discussion), but if wikipedia is correct there are several textbooks and/or documents that give detailed explanations of how these operations were conducted. If it were fake, these documents wouldn't exist and if they do exist that would kind of throw your 'stalin faked it' theory out of the water.

 

No. I have looked at the published work detailing these experiments. There are records of other people doing experiments BASED on this work, but be very clear, there are no records of anyone doing this exact work itself because it is impossible.

The most revealing example I have already cited - in the movie they claim to drain all of the blood from the 2nd dog until it dies. Then they claim to fill the dog back up with blood. This is clearly faked and it is irrevocably a fiction and a lie because it is not physically possible.

Once you drain the blood from a mammal, the vascular system collapses and it can not be simply "re-filled". Because someone who either doesn’t know biology or doesn’t care if the film is accurate has staged this portion of the film, it is a simply illogical to assume (or even dream) that the rest of the film is not fiction as well. This is especially true when you consider its provocative nature, the obvious camera tricks utilized, and its complete lack of supporting evidence.

All evidence from the real experiments BASED on the experiments “portrayed” in this film reveal two important things –
1 – There is no record of anyone performing a scientific experiment similar to the first one done in the film (keeping a head “alive” after it has been severed).
2 – Of all the experiments based on the second experiment, not a single one tried to inflict death by draining all of the dogs blood (some experiments used pigs instead of dogs). Additionally, none of them reported a single case of a sustained full recovery from the procedure (as they claim in the film).

Because the second case simply isn’t feasible (no mammal can be resuscitated after the full amount if its blood has been removed) and attempts to re-create the "experiment" as closely as possible (using actual medically viable techniques) have failed, it simply can not be touted as fact or even scientifically valid. It is simply propaganda. The evidence we see here is exactly the same evidence we have for cold fusion - none.

 

There have been successful experiments with pigs and baboons in which the blood was drained but simultaneously replaced with a cold preservative plasma replacement (catchily called: "Hextend"); after two hours of clinical death on ice this fluid was drained while blood was simultaneously re-introduced. I guess this neatly circumvents the artery/vein collapse problem. The animals' hearts did have to be shocked back into action, of course, but afterwards they recovered without noticeable ill effects.

Linkie here: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.05/biotime.html

 

Wow. I am officially dropping out of college and from now on will get all the things I ever need to know from Nex and ril. You guys are smart....


That video was very odd. The guy almost seemed happy when the dog was dying

 

There have been now - not then. To say the blood was drained (in your example) is misleading; rather it was displaced. It's an important distinction with entirely different implications. This actual procedure shows very clearly that there were complications not considered, known, or understood when the film in question was made.

Consider that the film was made at the same time they were just learning how to separate out plasma and they were just learning about rh (back then new, cutting edge, complex ideas, but now simple everyday ideas). When this film was released, blood transfusions were not yet the simple, normal thing that it is now with current knowledge and tools. In 1943 a simple blood transfusion was still a crap-shoot only used as a last resort.

Complex requirements and sub-procedures can’t just be simply glossed over in credible work. Viably displacing blood is just as complex and cutting edge (if not more complex) then the main "procedure" in the film.

It’s kinda like saying –"Look we have a perfectly working and tested lunar-lander on film landing on the moon!" When people ask, "well how exactly do you get it to the moon?" your answer can’t be: "oh, well if we made a lunar-lander, and its been filmed on the moon, then obviously we have a vehicle to get it to the moon." - BS

This was the first international showing of a heart-lung machine, which was a great invention at the time (and an important logical 1st step in working out other problems) - however, it was before it had been successfully used for an actual procedure. They simply didn't worked out these practical/technical problems and procedures until the 50's & 60's. There is no record of any successful procedures of this nature from the 40's.

Someone simply said – "oh you could use it to keep a head alive and you could use it to revive an animal" and someone else said "ok – make a movie and show that we can do it before someone else beats us to the punch."

That is a far cry from science and a far cry from a factual useful and successful procedure. Its just someone’s dream put to video. At the time this film was made, it was still science fiction.

Imagine an OS that could natively boot Itanium, SPARC, Power PC, x86, and DEC Alpha - on the fly. It could be done (designed), but at this current time it doesn't exist - its science fiction based on a possible reality. If we made a film of some OS that seemed to boot these divergent architectures it would be fiction no matter how possible the reality might seem. Sure the film might seem credible, but that is not a substitute for fact - that it is a complex undertaking of which the details have not yet been worked out.

That is why science requires detailed documentation, without which science requires that a piece of work be treated as fiction. Furthermore, science requires that the documentation be usable by a 3rd party to produce the same (or similar) results. The basic tenants of science specifically make this film fiction.

Without the complete and factual details of exactly how to overcome real and practical problems in a procedure, it's not actually a procedure (or science or scientific), it is only fiction. After all, that is the only difference between a NASA Apollo promotional video and the basically reasonable portions of 2001: a space Odyssey.


EDIT: Oh, so what I mean is cut out the first and last 15 minutes of 2001 and change the reason they went out to Jupiter and the rest of the movie is "reasonable".

 

HaHa - thnx, but I am sure many people here will attest to the fact that I ain't that smart. It's a nice sentiment though.

Oh, just thought of another incentive for Stalin / USSR to fake this film. One of their doctrines/objectives was to combat and eliminate religion. This would be a powerful weapon in that war. It brings into question the whole issue about the soul and death (without specifically naming them as targets) and shows the "unlimited" bounds of science.

It may also explain why they choose an Englishman to host it - for credibility. After all, it was common in the USSR to disbelieve anything the government said (as I have been trying to explain). However, if it is narrated by an Englishman, it sort of gets a better western science world credibility.

I would say, with this consideration and some of the camera tricks they used, it’s a rather "brilliant" piece of propaganda.

 

I know. I was simply referring to your comment that as far as you knew, no such procedure had been performed successfully to date. It has (recently), but, of course, taking into consideration all the problems that you mentioned. As I said, the blood drained was simultaneously replaced with a replacement solution, thus avoiding arterial/venal collapse.

As I said, I have not looked at the second part of the film, although I have no doubt that quite complex issues were simply glossed over and that what was depicted is scientifically impossible.

That's an intriguing idea, and no doubt was on the agenda somewhere. Power over life and death is the ultimate, godlike power. And of course Stalin was on a godlike power trip.

 

except it's simultaneous, not letting all the blood drain and then filly the cardio vascular system with the replacement

 

Thank you for paying attention.

 

Here is something to look for in the credits: Society of the Godless. Oh, I am not saying its actually in the credits, but when I get a chance I will look again. Anyway appearently this was an organization that was responsible for "scientific and atheistic propaganda" in the late 30's and 40's. It was also known as "The Union of Belligerent (or Militant) Atheists".

Hehe -I might grow up to be a communist after all! Oh, but the official position:

Soviet policy toward religion has been based on the ideology of Marxism-Leninism, which has made atheism the official doctrine of the Soviet Union. Marxism-Leninism has consistently advocated the control, suppression, and, ultimately, the elimination of religious beliefs. In the 1920s and 1930s, such organizations as the League of the Militant Godless ridiculed all religions and harassed believers. Atheism has been propagated through schools, communist organizations (such as the Young Pioneer Organization), and the media.
Religion in the Soviet Union

Well, ok when they put it this way its easy to feel compassion for the "believers" but at the same time I can't help but think it sounds like fun

.

 

would this be on snopes? I couldnt find it if it was.

 

It was just a case of eliminating the competition. People were supposed to worship the State (with the dictator being the personification of it). Stalin's universe wasn't big enough for two gods.