Thank you for the links and discussion.
Regarding throwing out the 2/3 - 1/3 statistic, I was responding to the post just prior. I was saying it would not be right to draw statistical inferences, or any inferences, either to by-definition involuntary participants in program of behavior modification and thought reform, or to humans in general because the methods are faulty and the experiment is unethical and conclusions cannot stand on either of these.
You said, "I see it more as a small snapshot of how people can be made to obey, seemingly of their own volition." This is contradictory, of course, so maybe you are already seeing the same thing, regarding consideration of the true nature of the study and what it does and doesn't prove and of concerns which even academics in this field have had about it:
From the follow-up study, Replicating Milgram
Would People Still Obey Today?
Jerry M. Burger
Santa Clara University
http://www.apa.org/journals/releases/amp641-1.pdf '...most social psychologists appear to agree on one point. The obedience studies are a dramatic demonstration of how individuals typically underestimate the power of situational forces when explaining another person’s behavior."
The above quote means, put way more emphasis when considering the results on the situational forces than on "human nature" itself. All the study "proves" is that given a certain demographic of participants and all of the other factors of influence including those in charge and the nature of the what is going on, this is what you get.
Burger replicated Milgram's experiment only to a certain degree, and if the same outcomes still held it is because it is the same sort of social psychology pseudo-science, which is in fact exactly what he set out to do. Burger even acknowledges the unethicalities of the original experiment. While he modifies his own and makes nod to what is really happening, that this is not a study of what humans do but a study of what humans will do given such a set up, with some remarks to "situational forces," he still fails to properly talk about the fact that he is really the biggest factor, in that, he would carry out such an experiment. It does not matter that the shocks were not real, the whole pretense was that they were, making him a barbarian who has solicited people to participate in torture. He talks a whole lot -- in contradiction to his knowledge that the experiment is unethical, but now to a degree, he says, less than the original Milgram experiment and to his stated understanding about the situational forces -- about statistical personality and mental and other characteristics of his subjects as though those stats can be applied to drawing inferences from a study which is unethical and not actually studying what he is concluding that it studied. But of course, he is an academic, he was funded to do this study, he carried it out, it has to conclude something like what makes it look respectable.
I say the scientific method in these experiments is dubious because it is not the same as the strict scientific method at all. There is just too much else going on, too many variables not evened out. It is, at best, even if one could stomach the nature of the experiment itself, a very, very tiny foray into theory, data, and conclusion. It is TINY. Milgram was cruel and unethical, had a poor sampling, and made way too much of his results, as have so many others. Burger modified Milgram's experiment because he knows the original was too cruel, but he only modifies it slightly, his sampling is again dubious, and again, the conclusions are rot, especially given what Burger himself says in his own paper!
For specifics, consider a few things. There's all sorts of variables in the experiment, and I talked about the one of the whole big picture of the effect of authority on any given person in this society. "Science" itself is a really big authority figure. There are also variables here not accounted for that call for a very skeptical view of the conclusions, for example, who are they getting to be the torturers? $4 isn't a lot of money, so the demographics of the subjects are really very likely skewed. Then there is the population density of the area in which the study takes place, where the subjects in a big city might accurately presume that the person who (in their mind) is getting the shocks is not likely to be someone they know or would ever know. In Burger's follow-up study, the $50 for two 45-minute sessions is a more significant amount of money, but this is still a determinant of the demographics of the respondents. It is crucial to see these faults of the experiments because they invalidate conclusions anyone might draw like "2/3 of people can be made to torture." 2/3 of what people, under what circumstances. The offer and acceptance of money gives you a demographic and a factor of motivation, not a random sample. They are not obeying on pure volition, they might be obeying because they haven't had anything to eat yet, they are tired.
In my previous post i was talking about the broad circumstances surrounding the entire experiment, and what i think is really important to get is that the scientists who put on this experiment are behaving cruelly to do so in the first place.
As for Milgram's own thoughts on his own violently sadistical experiment, a note at the end of his article (
http://fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?t=21675) shows a disturbing sociopathology. He says, "The ethical problems of carrying out an experiment of this sort are too complex to be dealt with here, but they receive extended treatment in the book from which this article is taken." As if giving a nod to right and wrong makes what he did okay.
So if anyone wants to keep on referencing cruel experiments in an effort to admonish people to think and act for themselves, please stop. Please quit referencing them as though the scientists' conclusions say anything real about human nature, at all. Please stop referring to the subjects and start referring to the cruel scientist who knows darn well what he is doing, has had full opportunity for knowledge and consideration beforehand, does it anyway, and reports his findings as though they reflect on other people instead of on himself. But please do consider the value system of a society in which such a study could take place and be continually misunderstood as to what it actually is.
