The fallacies of Stanley Milgram.
Stanley Milgram was a famous psychologist who originated the idea of “six degrees of separation.” (*) He also performed the famous experiments “gone wrong” in which people obeyed orders to deliver electrical shocks to innocent others in another room.
Now, according to the BBC, Judith Kleinfeld, a professor of psychology at Alaska Fairbanks University, has delved deeper into the six degrees of separation theory and the evidence of it that Milgram had. (†) Kleinfeld demonstrates that more than 95% of letters sent to random addresses are not returned in study after study. Consequently, the true “degrees of separation” in society must average higher than six, and much greater average separation should be expected. Thanks to Judith Kleinfeld’s diligence, we now know that Milgram’s “six degrees of separation” theory is a hoax. It has been popularized, and will now unfortunately live on as a superstition or “urban myth” as we modern sophisticates like to refer to our knowingly false beliefs.
As for Milgram’s obedience experiments, they have been controversial after they were shut down over ethical concerns. Milgram’s experiments have been cited again and again in the academic and popular literature on how easy it is to turn human beings into agents of torture and repression.
Nevertheless, I believe deep skepticism is warranted on Milgram’s obedience experiments as well. The “torture victim” in the experiments never felt any actual pain. Furthermore, the actor or actors who played the torture victim apparently had their voice transmitted live into the room where the experimental subjects were. It is difficult to convincingly act out or portray physical pain when one does not have such. Additionally, the portrayal of physical pain is more difficult if one has use only of audio and not any opportunity to portray the pain in a visual pantomime of a body affected by pain for the audience.
There is much reason to suspect that Milgram’s actors were not especially convincing in portraying physical pain. The experimental subjects would in real life situations have had better clues, even if those clues would be processed unconsciously only, than had the subjects in Milgram’s experiment. Consequently, conclusions drawn from Milgram’s obedience experiments must be considered to have no validity.
Of course, someone has probably pointed out this problem with the obedience experiments before, but I do not have a citation or reference at hand. If someone would post one, you would have my thanks.
Urban myths can be entertaining, but they can also form a phony foundation on which society may base its decisions, and therefore it may be useful to combat modern superstitions, also known as “urban myths.”