Actually Legume, that precise argument has been made only in a different context. Huge ethical and legal debates have ensued over whether or not it is ok to use information learned from medical experiments/torture during the Holocaust in modern research, since many of those experiments cannot be legally repeated today. Dr. Mengele was a mass murderer and torturer, but also happened to glean some interesting information from his "twin experiments" for example. Personally, I think it's a stupid debate. If you can tear a silver lining out of a black pit of hell and despair for the greater good of humanity, why the hell not?