Speaking with Carol's mom, Carol's little daughter. Birds would just fall from the air. Radiolab is a radio program produced by WNYC, a public radio station in New York City, and broadcast on public radio stations in the United States. They were gagging, they were choking. And you know there's nothing a closet full of clothes to help balance that out. Hundreds of them were falling to the ground. You need to admit this. Thank you to Jim Shapiro, whose most recent book is called Contested Will. Prince-nez? They're not doing something because they have to. Okay. You know what? He just kind of went crazy. This is Jeff Jensen, and he's a reporter in LA. You know, he does it without humility, without- without a lot of doubt. Certainly friends of his did. Anytime the experimenter said, "You must continue." He knew about it. So, Jeff wrote this book because his father, Tom Jensen, was one of the lead detectives tracking Gary Ridgeway. That was not a real shock. We did a show called The Bad Show. I mean, it's the fact that of course that they're administering main to a strange. And they go, "Why?" It was about how far would these people go? What's the noble cause in this case? Do you leave this experiment in a light mood or in a dark mood? He had an experimenter who wasn't a scientist, but was a member of the general public. Like shocking an innocent stranger over and over. Also from, uh, a Jewish family. And this particular story, it comes from a book that David wrote. This story made us wonder, "Is David's friend-". 'cause this room's echo-ey and you know there's nothing like a closet full of clothes to, like, help balance that out. Or does everybody at some point have something dark in them? Yeah, me too. He could do anything. Because this room's echo-y. Dan doesn't think so, but what's clear is that he saw no reason to question what he had done and that infuriated Clara. plus-circle Add Review. And then he seemed fine. He buried them or left their bodies in these little clumps in the woods. Check out the Casper or the Wave mattress providing supportive comfort for every body type. And I used to socialize with him and his wife. "Have you ever thought about killing someone?" I mean it's a fact, of course, that they're administering pain to a stranger, that's what's horrifying about it, but imagine they were administering pain to themselves. More information about Sloan at www.sloan.org. I mean, I'm not suggesting one should, but I'm just saying there is a sense in which these people are prepared to do something that's very painful to them, and to someone else, because they want to promote science; well, you can see that's a good thing. In 1962 Stanley Milgram shocked the world with his study on obedience. Uh, it makes up four out of every five or so molecules that we breathe. Like you just did, which happens constantly. Investigating a strange world. Why does God allow this to happen? Where sound illuminates ideas, and the boundaries blur between science, philosophy, and human experience. Who is going to do this powerful piece of science. So Stanley Milgram actually begins these experiments the same year that Adolf Eichmann goes on trial for Nazi war crimes. Now what you need to understand about Alex Haslem is that he hates it when interviewers only want to talk about the baseline study. He figures out a way to take a lot of air that's filled with these little nitrogen bonds clinging to each other, and pump it with big iron tank. Gary says, "I needed to kill." Copyright 2019 New York Public Radio. Well, if you dressed it up, and if you had some minor vairance in the paradigm, you could presumable, you know, make- make this up. But we will do it on our own if we think it's good.". We don't exactly know why. They brought in psychiatrists and forensic psychologists to try to get an answer. Radiolab is supported by Casper. My dad said, "I don't want to talk about it." Well, all right. It is- it is arguably the most significant scientific breakthrough of them all. Okay. There's lots and lots of lessons here, but one is I think, you know, when you are enjoying to do something for the greater good, maybe ask yourself the question, what is greater and what is good? In December of 2001, my father and his colleagues-. And, like, it kind of, like, hurt his feelings. Then you left some space at the bottom for them to elaborate if they said, "Yes. He goes straight to the German [inaudible 00:36:56] and- and he pitches this idea. That's radio producer Ben Walker, he'll be our guide for this segment. So, there's a way in which it touch a spark of humanity. I liked her. You know, energy from the sun to grow crops. To the best of your memory, which word was matched with nice? In front of this really impressive looking machine. I'm Robert Krulwich. And it's a craft, but it's a craft with consequences, and to approach it with kind of crazy joy? Our staff includes Simon Adler, Maggie Bartholomew, Becca Bressler, Rachael Cusick, David Gebel, Ethel Hepti, Tracy Hunt, Matt Kielty, the lovely Robert Krulwich, Annie McEwen, Latif Nassar, Malissa O'Donnell, Adrian Wack, Pat Walters, and Molly Webster. Visit our website. That's historian, Fritz Stern, who also happens to be Fritz Haber's godson. And oddly enough, we came- got a really interesting take on the true nature of badness from this guy. All right, just to back up for one second. He's chomping on a Virginian cigar. They're, supposedly, chums but General Othello has no idea that that Iago-. Horrified like, "Oh my God, my students are murderers?" This was one of the bloodiest arenas on the, uh, Western front. And did you go back to the party then and continued dinner partying for a while? An experiment is being conducted in the elegant interaction laboratory at Yale University. It's a pretty (bleep) thing to miss, isn't it really? I got to tell you, I'm not totally comfortable that you're providing all of the information [inaudible 00:57:52]-. In 1962, Stanley Milgram shocked the world with his study on obedience. And that we're not going to be shocked with anything-. You know, solar energy from the sun to grow crops. The experiment requires that we continue. Meaning to life to reveal itself in a way that restores order and gives us hope that all of this isn't just meaningless chaos. He won't answer. He did this experiment a bunch of times, and in a bunch of different ways. radiolab-archive. They couldn't deploy it. But I needed to kill her because of that. So, the subject seemed willing to shock another human being, but as soon as you say it's an order. Radiolab Society & Culture Science Latest Transcripts Kittens Kick The Giggly Blue Robot All Summer 2.7K views over 2 years ago 41:58 With the recent passing of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, there's been a lot of debate about how much power the Supreme Court should really have. Okay, well actually the one thing that the study really doesn't show is that people obey orders. I invited him for dinner. Our thanks to Ben Walker, whose podcast he has a podcast and it's a good one. And Iago-, He refuses what we fully expect, and what everybody on stage, at that moment, fully expects from him. Our food source then moves into our bodies. To find page after page of yeses. Making him the most prolific serial killer in American history. Can't keep holding it all in. Next, we meet a man who scrambles our notions of good and evil: chemist Fritz Haber, who won a Nobel Prize in 1918around the same time officials in the US were calling him a war criminal. Although, clearly, on some level they know it isn't. Each answer just begs another why. In case you've never heard of this, probably have, but in case you haven't, here's what he did. Okay, it's all right, but we've got to know that. Some- some people described it as a cloud, and then, others described it as this kind of 15 foot wall kind of hugging the land. But this was a moment in German history, he says, when Jews had a decent amount of freedom. And my father was recruited to the task force. Speaker 2: With higher and higher voltage. You know, this was like oil is today. We take a look at one particular fantasy lurking behind these numbers, and wonder what this shadow world might tell us about ourselves and our neighbors. This is basically what Stanley Milgram set out to test. Iago. If it doesn't show that people are just obeying orders-, All right, let's go on to our instructions. Thanks. And then, and- So, he says that and you're like, "Okay. You know, I'm really proud of Job. Because actually, he studied between 20 and 40 different variants of this same paradigm. That's my thing and that's where I'm going to stand on it. Radiolab is on a curiosity bender. But if they were prepared to do that, and I suspect a lot of them would, um, then we'd say these are people who really believe in science. They've got a very plausible, very credible, high status scientist at high status scientific institution. That's Stanley Milgram talking about the experiment in a film. One of those very tiny, old fashioned, uh, pair of glasses that would pinch on your nose. And it becomes Zyklon B, the killing gas of the concentration camps. 1933 comes. SciShow Tangents I would rather have scientists who carry doubt with them as they proceed. Thanks to all our great storytellers, Dan Charles, Sam Kean, Latif Nassar, Fred Kaufman, and Fritz Stern. "Well, why can't you deal with it in a normal way?" And he was someone who had very big ambitions. Um, could you just- just tell me, uh, the little story that you begin your book with? Yeah, well. He figured maybe 1% of these men would keep flicking these switches up to the highest voltage, but that's not what he found. There's- there's a lot of-. No reason. He was in this, um, uh, uh, state of fury, he said, and, um, and instead of hitting his wife, he smashed his fist into the bathroom mirror. Oft have I digged up dead men from their graves and sit them up right at the dear friend's door. The thing is that I do have a new boyfriend, but my ex-boyfriend doesn't know that yet, and I'm terrified that he'll do what he says. And shortly after his return, Clara allegedly confronts him and says, "Look, you are morally bankrupt. Shoots herself in the chest, and is found by her son. He actually was very humiliated, uh, that Germany had lost. He works for a general. Hmm. "When I picked them up I was going to kill them." The whole thing happened several years ago. Then, we reconsider what Stanley Milgram's famous experiment really revealed about human nature (it's both better and worse than we thought). A liquid that has captured the nitrogen right out of the air. "I need to kill because of that." David had always known this guy to be pretty mild mannered. He gets promoted to the rank of Captain. I'm good. And to this day they have not talked about that day. Nitrogen is an essential part of amino acids and proteins. No one has ever said about a sex tape that I've ever, so no. But if you could somehow get a real Iago in the room, and subject that person to questioning, and really get them to sort of fess up as to why they did it, would that make a difference? Wow. And so, I went up to the bedroom and he was, you know, in a rage. So, he sends a letter to the Ministry of Education resigning and he leaves Germany, telling a friend he felt like he lost his homeland. According to James, he's not the baddest in Shakespeare or in life because ultimately the play offers up a reason for his nastiness. But the guy is cut to shreds, he's allowed to confess. The shocker would say, "Hell no I don't.". Suddenly I'm thinking this is actually a darker interpretation. Visit casper.com/radiolab and use code radiolab and check out to get $50 towards select mattresses. Nobody had done what she was about to do on the scale that he was about to do it. God. And to make the problem even more annoying. Right. But if you think that's the right thing, if you think that science is worth pursuing you say, "Okay, I'll go along with this.". And so, I ex- expanded the sample where we asked about 5000 people. He stirs up hatred between friends, between lovers. I mean you have to remember, during the Crimean War in the 1850s, Europe starves. But it's suspected that it could be upwards of 75. You know [crosstalk 00:25:00]. For when the subjects didn't want to continue? 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