Skeptoid #784: Head Transplants

Skeptoid

Brian Dunning

Skeptic, Social Sciences, Skepticism, Paranormal, Conspiracy Theories, Urban Legends, Science, History

4.6 • 3K Ratings

🗓️ 15 June 2021

⏱️ 14 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The facts and fiction of what's possible and what's already been tried in switching human heads.

Transcript

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0:00.0	We've all heard the tales of mad scientists switching the heads of dogs and monkeys and
0:09.0	sometimes even of people.
0:11.1	To the point where many aren't sure anymore where the fiction ends and the reality begins.
0:16.9	Today we've got a roundup for you of the true state of the science behind head transplants.
0:24.5	That's today on Skeptoid.
0:31.5	You're listening to Skeptoid.
0:33.1	I'm Brian Dunning from Skeptoid.com.
0:37.0	Head transplants.
0:40.4	Today we're going to explore one of the last great frontiers of medicine, the idea of
0:45.5	transplanting one person's head onto another person's body.
0:49.7	It's a concept that has one foot in the world of science fiction and the other in macabre
0:54.0	horror or that has one foot in medical reality and the other in Barnum-style hoaxes.
1:00.9	We've all heard something rather about head transplants that it might have been tried
1:05.0	on animals or in Nazi concentration camp experiments or even in modern medicine.
1:11.2	Maybe you've heard that doctors in China are some place have already performed them.
1:15.8	Today we're going to find out what's true and what's not about head transplants.
1:23.0	I'm going to start by stating right out that this podcast will not address the ethical
1:27.4	implications of such procedures.
1:30.0	Since the earliest days of the very first life-saving organ transplants, doctors and scientists
1:35.6	have been charged with, quote, playing God and offended the principles of all kinds of
1:41.2	people.
1:42.2	These are questions for the ethicists and the philosophers.
	...

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