Space Heroes and Super Spies: The Miranda Lawson Thread

As I recall chap, Mengele's reseach was never destroyed so much as it was 'sealed'. And by that, I mean that it was partially taken by the Air Force and used to develop pressure chambers for testing the effects of high altitude and low air pressure on pilots. Also, look at Unit 731; they did stuff that would have made Mengele cringe, and they got a full pardon from the US military to apply their work in the US (albeit with government oversight). 

The practical purpose of thresher maws; creating a control for how to measure military readiness and reaction to a thresher attack, as well as how a thresher reacts in various circumstances, such as how it stalks prey, and whether or not it could be used a practical weapon against hostile forces.

The practical purpose of injecting people with Thresher Maw venom; developing an understanding of how Thresher venom affects human physiology (short and long-term) and what, if any, possible anti-venom could be gleaned, how long it would take for the venom to become lethal, etc. 

The practical purpose of making the kids on Pragia fight each other; to test the development levels of Jack with other control subjects, and how to gauge the growth of her abilities (and thus the research). There could also have been the study to see how repeatable Jack's powers were in other subjects, which would obviously be used in a test against her own powers.

Sure, it's cruel, and  there are likely more efficient ways to test such measures, but they got the job done. And I did highlight potential practical benefits. If those were the goals of the experiments (we have no evidence to state what is or isn't the case), Cerberus accomplished them; you're right to call them inefficient, but wrong to say they're ineffective. Supposition accounted for, of course.