LABORATORY SERIES. No.22. DARPA’s new Biological Technologies Office (BTO). Launched in April 1, 2014, the BTO is charged with exploring the intersection of biology, engineering and computer science to harness natural systems for national security. “Biology is nature’s ultimate innovator, and any agency that hangs its hat on innovation would be foolish not to look at this master of networked complexity for inspiration and solutions.” – DARPA Director Arati Prabhakar to U.S. House of Representatives, March 26, 2014. Photo Courtesy of DARPA.
LABORATORY SERIES. No.15. Left: Diagram of the Stanley Milgram Experiment. Conducted at Yale University in 1961, the experiment examined the relationship between obedience and authority. The test involved two actors, one test subject and an electroshock generator: the experimenter (the figure of authority), the teacher (the test subject) and the learner (the accomplice). In this scheme, the experimenter (E) would order the teacher (T) to administer fake electric shocks to the learner (L) for every wrong answer in a series of questions, increasing the voltage each time. Two thirds of all participants (i.e. teachers) administered the highest 450 volt shock. All others continued to 300 volts. Photo: Wikipedia
Right: Advertisement recruiting subjects for the Milgram Experiment on memory. “I set up a simple experiment to test how much pain an ordinary citizen would inflict on another person simply because he was ordered to by an experimental scientist. Stark authority was pitted against the subjects’ strongest moral imperatives against hurting others, and, with the subjects’ ears ringing with the screams of the victims, authority won more often than not. The extreme willingness of adults to go to almost any lengths on the command of an authority constitutes the chief finding of the study and the fact most urgently demanding explanation.” – Stanley Milgram Photo: Wikipedia.
