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1968 Eight Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (book p. 192)
By playing the role of a patient, the psychologist David Rosenhan and seven collaborators discovered how long a sane person could be kept incarcerated in a psychiatric clinic. Among the pseudopatients were a psychology student, three psychologists, a paediatrician, a psychiatrist, an artist and a housewife, who were all charged with the task of getting themselves released from the clinic without any external help, by convincing the staff that they were in fact sane. Not one of the pseudopatients was unmasked. Although they were all discharged in the end, it took three weeks on average for them to be released, and even then they weren’t designated as having been cured but rather, in most cases, were diagnosed as ‘schizophrenics in remission’. On one occasion, Rosenhan even waited 52 days for his discharge. In this segements from a documentary about American psychiatry David Rosenhan talks about his famous experiment.
The Birth of Modern Psychiatry (part 1 of 4)The Birth of Modern Psychiatry (part 2 of 4)The Birth of Modern Psychiatry (part 3 of 4)The Birth of Modern Psychiatry (part 4 of 4)
1969 The Ape in the Mirror (book p. 199)
Watch a short documentary by National Geographic about self recognition in apes and humans (including Gordon Gallups mirror test).
Human Ape (National Geographic)Here a more recent test with an elephant.
1971 The Professor’s Prison (book p.214)
In Spring 1971 social psychologist Philip Zimbardo placed an advertisement in the Palo Alto Times: ‘Male college students needed for psychological study of prison life. $15 per day for 1–2 weeks beginning Aug. 14. For further information & applications, come to Room 248, Jordan Hall, Stanford U.’ What happened afterwards became the notorious Stanford Prison Experiment which explains how good people turn evil. Watch this BBC documentary with astounding original footage. The Stanford Prison Experiment (part 1 of 3, BBC)The Stanford Prison Experiment (part 2 of 3, BBC)The Stanford Prison Experiment (part 3 of 3, BBC)
Watch Philip Zimbardos most impressive talk about the parallels between the Stanford Prison Experiment and the abuse in Abu Ghraib Prison in Bagdad. Zimbardo was in the defense team of one of the soldiers who abused iraki prisoners and is well placed to give revealing background information about the case. It's a long talk, but man it's worth it!
Talk by Philip Zimbardo: "The Lucifer Effect" (part 1 of 6)Talk By Philip Zimbardo: "The Lucifer Effect" (part 2 of 6)Talk By Philip Zimbardo: "The Lucifer Effect" (part 3 of 6)Talk By Philip Zimbardo: "The Lucifer Effect" (part 4 of 6)Talk By Philip Zimbardo: "The Lucifer Effect" (part 5 of 6)Talk by Philip Zimbardo: "The Lucifer Effect" (part 6 of 6)
1971 Galileo on the Moon (book p.223)
On 2 August, 1971, the astronaut David Scott dropped a feather and a hammer weighing forty times as much simultaneously. Both hit the surface of the Moon at exactly the same moment. Although the result was a foregone conclusion, it was still reassuring, as a NASA report on the Apollo 15 mission later stated. After all, the astronauts’ ability to get home safely depended entirely on the theory associated with this experiment holding water. Hammer and Feather on the Moon
1976 Controversy over Life on Mars (book p. 248)
It was 28 July 1976 when, 205 million miles from the Earth, a grasping arm reached out to resolve one of the greatest questions ever posed by humanity. A small shovel on the end of the arm tipped a handful of Mars dust into a funnel leading to the biology module of the Viking I spacecraft. This section of the Mars lander housed three experiments, which should have provided a conclusive answer to the question of whether there is life on Mars. Instead, the results have occupied scientist Gilbert Levin’s every waking (and even dreaming) moment for the past 32 years. His life became one long crusade against the US space agency NASA, which is bent on suppressing the truth, or at least what Levin believes to be the truth. As Levin explains: “The only conclusion consistent with all the known facts is that the Viking Labeled Release Experiment discovered microorganisms in the soil of Mars.” Watch a short documentary about the misson. Mars: Life on the Red Planet
2003 Close Encounters With a Dogbot (book p. 280)
Watch the first scientifically documented meeting between a dog robot and a real dog (it didn't go well for the dogbot). Believe it or not: it lead to the formal scientific publication Social behaviour of dogs encountering AIBO, an animal-like robot in a neutral and in a feeding situation. |