Taipei, July 13 (CNA) A professor teaching a summer course for high school students at National Taiwan University apologized Wednesday for any emotional distress he may have caused with an experiment in which he placed a goldfish in a blender and asked for a volunteer to turn it on.
Lai Chung-hsiung (???), a distinguished professor in National Cheng Kung University’s (NCKU) Department of Foreign Languages and Literature, issued the apology amid public criticism over the experiment during the class at the summer camp on humanities on July 10.
In a post on the internet forum Dcard, one of the high school students complained that Lai had failed to clearly explain in advance the purpose and procedure of the experiment, which resulted in tears among several students, who fled the classroom.
“It was crazy. He wasn’t doing an experiment with us. He was doing an experiment on us,” the student wrote.
On Wednesday, Lai released a statement through NCKU in which he explained that the experiment was based on “Helena,” an art installation at Denmark’s Trapholt museum in 2000, which featured a line of blenders containing goldfish and was reported on by the BBC.
In that instance, one museumgoer actually did push the button on the blender, resulting in the deaths of two goldfish and a lawsuit filed by local animal rights activists. However, a court subsequently ruled that as the fish had died instantly, the installation did not constitute animal abuse, Lai said.
According to the artist, the purpose of the installation was to force people to wrestle with their conscience and test their sense of right and wrong, Lai said.
In his own summer course, Lai said, he asked a teaching assistant to pour water into a blender and check to see if it was working. Lai said he then dropped a goldfish into the water, and at that point, he asked any students who were uncomfortable with the experiment to leave the room.
When he asked for a volunteer, Lai said, a male student came forward and pressed the button, unaware that the blender would not work because the teaching assistant had covertly unplugged it, he said.
At that point, Lai said, he explained to the class the history and purpose of the experiment, before segueing into a broader discussion of the students’ views on the value of life.
He said 20 of the estimated 200 students in the class had opted to leave the room before the experiment and the subsequent discussion, which was why there were some “misunderstandings” about what had actually taken place.
Nevertheless, Lai said, he wished to apologize for his failure to consider the emotional distress some students may have suffered as a result of the experiment.
