The Minnesota Starvation experiment began in 1944. The men were given six slices of bread and a potato every day until they lost weight. Nearly 60 years have passed since the experiment ended. Do you remember what your lowest weight got down to? 134, I believe. What was sort of your standard weight entering? 180. They standardized me down to 180 before the real experiment began. So I got down to 134. And their memories are precise. In fact, it seems like they've been reliving the long year between the fall of 1944 and the fall of 1945 ever since.
We’re sharing a bonus episode from another Pushkin podcast, Revisionist History. Revisionist History is Malcolm Gladwell’s podcast about things misunderstood and overlooked. This season, Malcolm’s obsessed with experiments – natural experiments, scientific experiments, thought experiments. In this episode, Revisionist History examines the testimony of 18 men who took part in an astonishing experiment at the University of Minnesota during the Second World War. Revisionist History takes you through the tapes, and asks why people are still arguing over the Minnesota experiment 75 years later.
You can hear more from Revisionist History at https://podcasts.pushkin.fm/rhs7?sid=thl
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