Does torture work?  Hard to say, it certainly has proponents and the line of where people would use it versus the lives it might save is a subjective one but certainly whether it works at all can be solved using the scientific method, right?

Alex Berezow, writing in The American Spectator, proposes a randomized controlled trial(!)

He says, since we already have the participants at Guantanamo Bay and they are terrorists, 50% of them will be better off if a controlled trial gives them rewards (like cookies and milk) versus getting dunked into the sink.   Then we see who gives up the better data.

Will it work?  It takes about 10 years that way so it's hard to say.