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Half a century ago, social scientist Stanley Milgram carried out a series of experiments. The ''teacher'' is told to administer electroshocks in progressively more painful degrees to the ''learner.'' The teacher-unaware that the learner is an actor receiving no shocks at all-is the real focus of the study. These controversial and criticized experiments illustrate how people will obey authority regardless of consequences. ''[Milgram''s] investigations accomplish what we should expect of responsible social science: to inform the intellect without trivializing the phenomenon.''-Science