History Main / NoControlGroup

* '''SCPFoundation'' entry [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-1765 1765]] are three near godlike beings who run experiments on the trapped staff members of Site-37. The base was split into four sections. Three are basically given various forms of torture, while the fourth is left as a "control group," unharmed by the experiments. Considering these experiments include "throw fireballs at the scientists while they run away" and "try to measure an ever-changing series of pipes," there is not much point to the control group.

* Averted in ''Film/{{Clonus}}'' - each group of clones has a different ear tag, and those with tags like Richard's are controls.

[[folder:Live Action TV]]

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* Humorously averted in [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0545.html this]] ''WebComic/TheOrderOfTheStick'' comic. A test group of captured peasants is to be pushed off a tower into a rift leading to the SealedEvilInACan; a control group is just going to be pushed off the other side of the tower.

* Parodied in ''Series/SabrinaTheTeenageWitch'': Sabrina's aunts have decided to live apart and Sabrina is seeing what would happen if she decided to stay with Zelda via magic crystal ball. She is shown giving anti-aging cream of her own design to a regular looking Libby (after she gives a speech insulting herself and praising Sabrina) and to a very old looking Mr. Kraft:

Scientific experiments are a funny thing. When doing one, you need to have two groups -- the control group and the experimental group. Heck, sometimes there can be ''multiple'' control groups (it's a common misconception that a control group has no intervention at all, or only a placebo--the control group may be getting a standard treatment, and more than one treatment may be approved). This is done to make sure that the results of the experiments actually come from the things the scientists are doing, and don't happen on their own due to placebo effect or something in the test environment they weren't aware of.

* Averted in ''Webcomic/ElGoonishShive'': Tedd [[http://egscomics.com/comic/2012-04-16 uses]] Sarah as a [[http://egscomics.com/comic/2012-04-20 control test subject]] and is [[http://egscomics.com/comic/2012-06-18 frustrated]] that he can't use Nanase as one since she's too GenreSavvy.

-->NPR, [[http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/11/15/142366953/the-tuesday-podcast-from-harvard-economist-to-casino-ceo From Harvard Economist To Casino CEO]]

** Further, when nuclear war did happen, these experiments were all that were available to commoners, but there were two other vaults (one for Vault-Tec employees and one for the U.S. Government) that high level personnel got access to; they had different layouts and much more stable construction.

Sometimes this trope will be averted for a SightGag or similarly humorous reason.

* Averted in the [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cCC8a6HMz4 music video]] for Put It To The Test, by TheyMightBeGiants.

* Max Barry's ''MachineMan'' has a laboratory's worth of scientists testing out an entire LINE of Better Parts on themselves. Better Spleens, Better Eyes, Better Muscles...

-->'''Cave Johnson''': Alright, let's get started! This first test involves something the lab boys call "Repulsion Gel". You're not part of the control group, by the way. You get the gel. Last poor son of a gun got blue paint! Ha ha ha! ...all joking aside, that did happen. Broke every bone in his legs. Tragic, but informative! Or so I'm told. ''[A while later]'' The lab boys just informed me that [[CaptainObvious I should NOT have mentioned the control group]]. They're telling me I ought to stop making these pre-recorded messages. That gave me an idea: Make more pre-recorded messages. [[ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney I pay the bills here, I can talk about the control group all damn day]]!

* In Creator/StephenKing's ''Literature/{{Firestarter}}'' [[MadScientist Dr. Wanless]] tells the students that half of them will be receiving distilled water (and the other half will be receiving a mildly hallucinogenic drug called "Lot 6"), but it's made clear later on that all of the volunteers received "Lot 6" (which induces a wide variety of psychic powers in the subjects, some of which are permanent -- not to mention acting as a mutagen which produces even stronger results in the children of those who receive it). Although there isn't much need to cancel the placebo effect if you don't tell the subjects what are they actually getting...

Scientific experiments are a funny thing. When doing one, you need to have two groups -- the control group and the experimental group. Heck, sometimes there can be ''multiple'' control groups. This is done to make sure that the results of the experiments actually come from the things the scientists are doing, and don't happen on their own due to placebo effect or something in the test environment they weren't aware of.

* The dirty little secret about the Nazi death camps, one which all Western countries -and Russia - are unwilling to admit to, is that many of the experiments carried out on living people by the Nazis did indeed provide valid scientific knowledge of a sort which would have been impossible to recreate in any country with a normal regard for human rights. The Nazis systematically and ruthlessly tested concepts on living people, adhering rigidly to scientific protocols (including repeatability) and testing against "control groups". Much of their research on behalf of the Luftwaffe and Kreigsmarine involved replicating the effects of extreme temperature and pressure change on human bodies and human endurance. This involved pressure chambers in which the atmospheric effects of either extremely high flight or extremely low depths were tested on living people, with and without experimental flight-suits or diving/submarine apparatus. Nobody wants to admit how Nazi research still keeps our military pilots and submariners able to function[[note]]without Britain, the USA, Russia or even Israel having to do anything ''directly'' morally unsound[[/note]], but this, alas, is the truth.

* Averted in TheKidsInTheHall movie ''Film/BrainCandy'', in a hilarious scene with Creator/BrendanFraser as a guy with bad acne who knows he's in the placebo group.

A real life application of this trope is [[EmergencyTransformation experimental treatments conducted on terminally-ill patients]]: they know that they're dying, they've tried pretty much everything else, so they will willingly sign approval forms and let you start PlayingWithSyringes on the long shot that you ''might'' be able to save them. This is actually fairly rare, as even if the subject lives, the resultant information is of far less value without knowing exactly ''what'' you did that saved them... which is [[CaptainObvious what you learn from the control group.]] (Well, that, and to make sure the 'treatment' didn't actually kill them ''faster''.) The reason it's done at all is that it's considered unethical to deny possibly-lifesaving treatment from a terminally ill patient in order to use them as part of a control group.

* In ''ReturnOfTheLivingDead 5: Rave From the Grave'', the female protagonist decides to experiment on a group of lab mice with a drug that turns people into zombies. She tells a fellow classmate that she'll set one mouse aside as a control group, and then in the next shot she goes back on her word and gives the drug to the control group. In a later scene, the classmate she lied to lets the mouse out because he thought it didn't have the drug, and ends up being bitten and turned into a zombie for his trouble while the mouse escapes to infect others. So not only did the protagonist violate scientific protocol that she was well aware of, but she lied about it and as a result endangered human lives and is directly responsible for at least part of the local ZombieApocalypse.
* Averted in ''TheSecretOfNIMH'', [[FreezeFrameBonus but only if you pay attention]]. During Nicodemus' flashback, the row below his is marked "CONTROL GROUP." It's difficult to see in the VHS version, however. It's more conspicuously averted in the original book.

* Take to extremes in the zombie flick ''Devil's Playground'', in which not one of the ''thirty thousand'' volunteer test subjects is apparently given a placebo in lieu of the invigorating (and accidentally-zombifying) experimental drug.

* ''Film/VForVendetta'' -- The prisoners in the government facility were all exposed to experimental treatments. Not a single one of them seemed to be given placebo drugs. This is probably because, in the graphic novel, it was a parallel to NaziGermany and the main object was to sadistically kill minorities using a face-saving rationale, not to do actual science. After all, for ''real'' science, half-starved and worked-nigh-to-death subjects are less than ideal.

-->God, it was quiet then, and one could scarcely hear the small voice ask, “Which half?”'