Cenk of The Young Turks on MSNBC Debates Confederate History Month & More (4/7/2010)

Why do Finland's schools get the best results?

Finland's schools score consistently at the top of world rankings, yet the pupils have the fewest number of class hours in the developed world.

By Tom Burridge BBC World News America, Helsinki

Last year more than 100 foreign delegations and governments visited Helsinki, hoping to learn the secret of their schools' success.

In 2006, Finland's pupils scored the highest average results in science and reading in the whole of the developed world. In the OECD's exams for 15 year-olds, known as PISA, they also came second in maths, beaten only by teenagers in South Korea.

Education in South Korea In South Korea, the school day is long and pupil's have a much stricter study regime. Watch John Sudworth's report on the drive to succeed in Seoul

This isn't a one-off: in previous PISA tests Finland also came out top.

The Finnish philosophy with education is that everyone has something to contribute and those who struggle in certain subjects should not be left behind.

A tactic used in virtually every lesson is the provision of an additional teacher who helps those who struggle in a particular subject. But the pupils are all kept in the same classroom, regardless of their ability in that particular subject.

Finland's Education Minister, Henna Virkkunen is proud of her country's record but her next goal is to target the brightest pupils.

''The Finnish system supports very much those pupils who have learning difficulties but we have to pay more attention also to those pupils who are very talented. Now we have started a pilot project about how to support those pupils who are very gifted in certain areas.''

The BBC's Tom Burridge talks to Henna Virkkunen, the Minister of Education and Science in Finland.

Late learners

According to the OECD, Finnish children spend the fewest number of hours in the classroom in the developed world.

This reflects another important theme of Finnish education.

Children walk around in their socks at Torpparinmäki Comprehensive

Primary and secondary schooling is combined, so the pupils don't have to change schools at age 13. They avoid a potentially disruptive transition from one school to another.

Teacher Marjaana Arovaara-Heikkinen believes keeping the same pupils in her classroom for several years also makes her job a lot easier.

''I'm like growing up with my children, I see the problems they have when they are small. And now after five years, I still see and know what has happened in their youth, what are the best things they can do. I tell them I'm like their school mother.''

Children in Finland only start main school at age seven. The idea is that before then they learn best when they're playing and by the time they finally get to school they are keen to start learning.

Less is more

Education in the United States "If education is expensive, try ignorance" The US education secretary discusses the challenges facing the Obama administration

Finnish parents obviously claim some credit for the impressive school results. There is a culture of reading with the kids at home and families have regular contact with their children's teachers.

Teaching is a prestigious career in Finland. Teachers are highly valued and teaching standards are high.

The educational system's success in Finland seems to be part cultural. Pupils study in a relaxed and informal atmosphere.

Finland also has low levels of immigration. So when pupils start school the majority have Finnish as their native language, eliminating an obstacle that other societies often face.

The system's success is built on the idea of less can be more. There is an emphasis on relaxed schools, free from political prescriptions. This combination, they believe, means that no child is left behind.

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First oxygen-free animals found

By Patrick Jackson BBC News

The creatures are covered in a thick, protective layer or lorica

Scientists have found the first animals that can survive and reproduce entirely without oxygen, deep on the floor of the Mediterranean Sea.

The team, led by Roberto Danovaro from Marche Polytechnic University in Ancona, Italy, found three new species from the Loricifera group.

He told BBC World Service they were about a millimetre in size and looked like jellyfish in a protective shell.

"We plan to go back and see if there are new surprises for us," he added.

It is a real mystery how these creatures are able to live without oxygen because until now we thought only bacteria could do this Professor Roberto Danovaro

One of the three new Loriciferans (so-called because of their protective layer, or lorica) has already been officially named Spinoloricus Cinzia, after the professor's wife.

The other two, currently designated Rugiloricus and Pliciloricus, have still to be formally described.

They were discovered in the course of three oceanographic expeditions conducted over a decade in order to search for living fauna in the sediment of the Mediterranean's L'Atalante basin.

The basin, 200km (124m) off the western coast of Crete, is about 3.5km (2.2m) deep and is almost entirely depleted of oxygen, or anoxic.

Eggs included

Bodies of multicellular animals have been found previously in sediment taken from an anoxic area - or "dead zone" - of the Black Sea, Professor Danovaro told BBC News. But these were believed at the time to be remains of organisms which had sunk there from adjacent oxygenated areas.

The new species are less than a millimetre in size

What the team found in the L'Atalante dead zone was three species of living animals, two of which contained eggs.

Although it was not possible to extract the animals alive in order to show that they could live without oxygen, the team was able to incubate the eggs in anoxic conditions aboard on the ship.

The eggs hatched successfully in a completely oxygen-free environment.

"It is a real mystery how these creatures are able to live without oxygen because until now we thought only bacteria could do this," said Professor Danovaro, who heads Italy's Association of Limnology (the study of inland waters).

"We did not think we could find any animal living there. We are talking about extreme conditions - full of salt, with no oxygen."

The team made three oceanographic expeditions over a decade

The discovery of the new Loriciferans represents, he said, a "tremendous adaptation for animals which evolved in oxygenated conditions".

Dead zones in the world's oceans, he added, were expanding all the time.

Commenting in the journal BMC Biology, Lisa Levin of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography said that before this discovery, "no one had found [animals] capable of living and reproducing entirely in the absence of oxygen".

"Loriciferans are rarely reported," she noted.

"Whether they were overlooked or are exceedingly rare and thus not sampled is unclear. Perhaps scientists have been looking for them in all the wrong places."

Considering the implications of creatures which can exist without oxygen, she said that greater study of animal-microbe interactions in the extreme environment of Earth's oceans could help answer questions about the possibility of life existing on other planets with different atmospheres.

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Fault Lines - Unemployment

Turkish PM Erdogan says Israel is 'threat to peace'

Erdogan's comments will further deepen mistrust

Turkey's Prime Minister has described Israel as the "main threat to peace" in the Middle East.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan was speaking during a visit to Paris.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded saying he regretted Turkey's "repeated attacks" on Israel.

Relations between the two countries have been worsening since the Israeli incursion into the Gaza Strip in 2009, made worse by a recent diplomatic row.

Mr Erdogan was speaking to journalists before meeting the French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

"It is Israel that is the main threat to regional peace," he said.

"If a country uses disproportionate force, in Palestine, in Gaza, uses phosphorus bombs we are not going to say 'well done.'"

Both Israel and Hamas, which control the Gaza Strip, have been accused by the UN of war crimes during the 22-day offensive in December 2008 and January 2009.

Humiliation

Mr Netanyahu said he regretted the Turkish prime minister's comments.

The Turkish envoy was made to sit lower than the Israeli deputy minister

"We are interested in good relations with Turkey and regret that Mr Erdogan chooses time after time to attack Israel," he told reporters in Israel.

The countries have been allies in the past.

But earlier this week, the Turkish ambassador to Israel was recalled by Ankara, weeks after being humiliated in public by the Israeli deputy foreign minister.

Ambassador Oguz Celikkol was called into the Israeli foreign ministry in January and rebuked over a Turkish television series that showed Israeli intelligence agents kidnapping children.

Mr Celikkol was made to sit on a low chair while being lectured by Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon.

Mr Ayalon later apologised for the rebuke.

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has compared Mr Erdogan to Presidents Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Libya's leader Muammar Gaddafi.

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Late-running Bolivia considers punctuality 'bonuses'

By Andres Schipani BBC News, La Paz

Many Bolivians admit they struggle to be on time

In almost any city, anywhere in the world, you could find yourself stuck in a traffic jam from 0700 to 0900.

But not in La Paz in Bolivia - 9am is when rush hour really starts.

People begin heading to work then, even if they were supposed to be at their office or factory 30 minutes or even an hour earlier.

This chronic lateness is the result of what is known as "Bolivian time" which the government is now aiming to tackle with bonuses for punctual workers.

Samuel Mendoza, a taxi driver in La Paz, considers himself a Bolivian exception. Because he works mainly with foreigners, he says, he is forced to be on time.

Taxi driver Samuel Mendoza has got used to being on time

Mr Mendoza knows his compatriots well. Most Bolivians, he explains, take being late as part of their duty.

"Bolivians are really irresponsible, there is no culture of punctuality here, they don't arrive on time to work or anywhere else, it seems they don't wear a watch on their wrist," he says.

"It is just something very Bolivian."

Indeed it is. In Bolivia, if you are told to meet somebody at a certain time, it is quite likely that the person will show up 30 minutes late - if you are lucky.

But the Bolivian government thinks things should change. It is working on a labour reform that, among other things, aims to break this national habit of arriving late for everything, from work to meetings to dates.

Bolivians aren't known for their time-keeping Victor Hugo Chavez Ministry of Labour lawyer

And the government has decided that the only way to change habits is to offer a financial incentive. In one of South America's poorest countries, that extra money might mean a lot to many people.

"Bolivians are not traditionally known for their time-keeping. So Bolivians who arrive at work on the dot every day could get a 'punctuality bonus', a recognition," Victor Hugo Chavez, a lawyer from the Ministry of Labour, told the BBC.

And it might mean a lot for the economy. The government of President Evo Morales believes Bolivians' tardiness costs the country millions of dollars in lost work time.

National sickness

"We think this will increase productivity, and hence be good for the economic development of our impoverished country," Mr Chavez said.

The reform is likely to be voted into law this month without being drastically changed, because Mr Morales' party has a majority in Congress.

It should be noted that Mr Morales also seems to suffer this national trait. He is often late for rallies and public appearances.

On one occasion, journalists - including your correspondent - walked out of the presidential palace in anger after he made them wait nearly two hours for a news conference.

Government projects seem to proceed at the same languid pace. Roadworks in the middle of La Paz, for example, should have produced a tunnel months ago. It has just been completed.

Bolivian student Patricia says even lecturers cannot be on time

"Workers are sometimes late, sometimes very late", said Aristoteles Ona, one of the site managers. "There's nothing one can do, that's 'Bolivian time'."

Students at a central university in La Paz also struggle to shed light on the national "condition".

"Sometimes my lecturers show up 15 minutes, sometimes half an hour late. And sometimes they don't even show up," says Patricia, who is taking a degree in computer science.

"It was the same when I was at kindergarten, primary and secondary school. So a lot of times I'm late too. I've been absorbing that lateness for years."

She adds, with some resignation: "That is our time, the 'Bolivian time'. I am not sure this bill will manage to change something so quintessentially Bolivian."

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Gaza tunnel smugglers trade in new cars

By Jon Donnison BBC News, Gaza

Advertisement

Video of a car being smuggled into the southern Gaza Strip

In the gloomy half light, a bulldozer strains to pull something through a roughly cut tunnel.

It's over 2m (6.5ft) high and close to 3m (10ft) wide, propped up by wooden supports.

Workers shout encouragement as the ceiling begins to collapse.

Suddenly a car, headlights glaring, lurches forward.

Filmed deep underground on the border between Gaza and Egypt, the mobile phone footage obtained by the BBC is conclusive proof of what has been rumoured in Gaza since last year - the tunnelling operation is now so advanced that entire brand new cars are now being smuggled into Gaza.

Desperate times

"What else could I do?" says Ahmed Bahloul, a successful businessman who owns a car garage, standing next to his brand new black Hyundai saloon.

"I wanted a new car, but because of Israel's blockade, the only way I could get it is through the tunnels."

We only have one car in the showroom... I can't sell it because it is the only new car I have to put on display Marwan Kishawi, Car dealer

For the past three years, Israel has enforced a tightened economic blockade on Gaza, only allowing in limited humanitarian aid.

Israel says this is necessary to stop weapons being smuggled in to Palestinian militant groups inside Gaza and to put pressure on the Islamist movement Hamas, which controls the Strip.

Egypt has also closed its border with Gaza, only opening it occasionally.

But hundreds of tunnels have been dug under the border, through which a vast range of goods is smuggled in from Egypt.

Mr Bahloul paid $38,000 (£25,000) for his new car. Of that, $10,000 went to the tunnel operators, he says.

"It's a lot of money, but I wanted a new car," he says.

Bigger tunnels

There are very few new cars in Gaza. Locals estimate that only around 200 have been smuggled in through the tunnels in the past three years.

In the past, cars were cut up to smuggle them though narrower tunnels. But the tunnels have now been widened.

Ahmed Bahloul, proud owner of a brand new Hyundai

The lack of new cars means many cars in Gaza have seen better days.

It is not uncommon to see cars 20 or 30 years old belching black smoke from the exhaust.

Many Gazans resort to re-spraying old cars to make them look new.

In a busy paint shop just outside Gaza, workers in face masks are sanding down the bodywork of old cars before repainting them.

"Lots of people come back here over and over again," says Mohammed who works in the paint shop. "Some of the cars are 30 years old."

The number of motorbikes in Gaza has risen dramatically in the past three years because they are easier to smuggle.

Empty showrooms

There are still new car dealers in Gaza, but their showrooms are virtually empty.

Marwan Kishawi's family has been dealing Mercedes cars in Gaza City for more than 40 years.

Mohamed's paint shop does a thriving business

"Now we only have one car in the showroom," he says pointing at a bright yellow stretch taxi limousine.

"I have had this car for seven years. I have had many offers to buy it, but I can't sell it because it is the only new car I have to put on display."

Mr Kishawi says he used to import more than 100 cars a year from Israel, as well as $300,000 (£200,000) worth of parts a year.

Mr Kishawi says he cannot bring his cars in through the tunnels because they are too valuable and his suppliers at Mercedes will not allow it to happen.

He says he is spending thousands of dollars to keep the cars he has bought in storage at the border because Israel and Egypt will not allow them in.

"I haven't sold a new car for almost three years," he says, shaking with frustration. "It's desperate now."

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Kyrgyzstan opposition sets up 'people's government'

Violence on the streets of Bishkek as protesters and police clash

The opposition in Kyrgyzstan says it is setting up a "people's government" after deadly clashes left dozens dead.

An opposition leader and former foreign minister, Roza Otunbayeva, told the BBC that new defence and interior ministers had been appointed.

The whereabouts of President Bakiyev are not clear but reports say that he has flown out of the capital, Bishkek.

Protests at rising prices, corruption and the arrest of opposition leaders had erupted in three cities.

Ms Otunbayeva said the interim government would remain in power for six months and draw up a new constitution.

Kyrgyzstan is a strategically important Central Asian state and houses a key US military base that supplies forces in Afghanistan. Russia also has a base there.

Ms Otunbayeva said these military bases could continue as before.

The United States said it deplored the violence and urged "respect for the rule of law". It also said it believed the government was still in control.

Russian PM Vladimir Putin denied that Moscow had played any role in the unrest, saying it was a "domestic affair" and that there should be "restraint".

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said the protests showed the "outrage at the existing regime".

A spokesman for Ban Ki-moon said the UN secretary general was "shocked by the reported deaths and injuries that have occurred today in Kyrgyzstan. He urgently appeals for dialogue and calm to avoid further bloodshed".

AT THE SCENE Rayhan Demytrie, BBC News, Bishkek Stun grenades and live rounds were fired at protesters in Bishkek's main square. The situation was chaotic with protesters attempting to move towards the presidential administration. They were shouting that President Bakiyev must go. A young protester was shot dead at the scene. His body was lying on a marble pavement and a large crowd was gathering around it. There was anger, lots of it. The protesters attacked riot police with rocks and machetes - some police officers were badly injured. Men in Kyrgyzstan compare Wednesday's riots to the ones five years ago when mass protests brought President Bakiyev to power. He was the hero of the so-called Tulip Revolution - a politician who many in Kyrgyzstan hoped would bring democratic changes to the country. But today, people are angry and frustrated. The detention of opposition leaders on Tuesday night backfired. Wednesday's protests were uncontrollable. The day angered boiled over

Gunfire is continuing into the night in Bishkek with shops set alight.

The BBC's Rayhan Demytrie in Bishkek says there is widespread looting, with hundreds of protesters moving from one store to another.

The Kyrgyz health ministry said 40 people had died in the clashes and more than 400 were injured.

But the opposition says that is far too low. In a broadcast on a TV channel it took over, spokesman Omurbek Tekebayev said at least 100 demonstrators had been killed.

The opposition used its channel to say that it was setting up a government that would be headed by former foreign minister, Rosa Otunbayeva.

Ms Otunbayeva said in a broadcast: "Power is now in the hands of the people's government. Responsible people have been appointed and are already working to normalise the situation."

The Associated Press news agency reported that an opposition leader had taken over the National Security Agency, the successor to the Soviet KGB.

But Galina Skripkina, of the opposition Social-Democratic Party, told Reuters news agency that the president had not yet resigned.

"He must... formally submit his resignation to parliament so we can appoint a caretaker government," she said.

Reuters also quoted the Kyrgyz border control as saying the frontier with Kazakhstan had been closed.

Agence France-Presse says the US has suspended military flights at its base in Kyrgyzstan.

Curfews

The whereabouts of the president remain unknown. Opposition figures said he had flown out of Bishkek and had landed in the southern city of Osh.

KYRGYZSTAN FACTS One of the poorest of the former Soviet states Hosts both US and Russian military air bases Population mostly Kyrgyz but 15% are Uzbek and a significant number of Russians live in the north and around the capital Kurmanbek Bakiyev has been president since the Tulip Revolution of 2005, which overthrew the government of Askar Akayev Mr Bakiyev vowed to restore stability but has been accused of failing to tackle corruption Opponents also complain he has installed relatives in key government posts Domestic media have come under increasing pressure from the government in recent months In pictures: Kyrgyzstan crisis Kyrgyz crisis: Eyewitness accounts Country profile: Kyrgyzstan Kyrgyzstan: Superpower hub Violence leaves uncertainty

Mr Bakiyev came to power amid a wave of street protests in 2005 known as the Tulip Revolution, but many of his allies have deserted him claiming intimidation and corruption.

The unrest had broken out in the provincial town of Talas on Tuesday and spread to Bishkek and another town, Naryn, on Wednesday. All three were put under curfew.

Interior Minister Moldomusa Kongatiyev, who was believed to have gone to Talas to calm the situation, was reportedly severely beaten.

Some reports said he had been killed by the mob, others that he was taken hostage, but there is no confirmation of his fate.

The violence may also have been exacerbated by the arrest of several opposition leaders, including Temir Sariyev, who was detained after arriving on a flight from Moscow on Wednesday. He was freed by protesters on Wednesday.

Police in Bishkek initially used tear gas and stun grenades to try to disperse protesters.

But the demonstrators overcame the police and marched to the presidential offices in the city centre.

Police cars were overturned and set alight and officers attacked by the crowd.

Gunfire could be heard crackling through the centre of Bishkek. The prosecutor's office was also set alight.

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Israel & Palestine w/ Author Mark Braverman

CrossTalk on IMF: To be or not to be...

Obedience To Authority

A commentary on Stanley Milgram's psychology classic

Being aware of our natural tendency to obey authority may lessen the chance that we blindly follow orders that go against our conscience.

In 1961 and 1962, a series of experiments were carried out at Yale University. Volunteers were paid a small sum to participate in what they understood would be 'a study of memory and learning'. In most of the experiments, a white-coated experimenter took charge of two of the volunteers, one of which was given the role of 'teacher' and the other 'learner'. The learner was told he had to remember lists of word pairs, and if he couldn't recall them, the teacher was asked to give the person, who was strapped into a chair, a small electric shock. With each incorrect answer, the voltage rose, and the teacher was forced to watch as the learner moved from small grunts of discomfort to screams of agony.

What the teacher didn't know was that there was actually no current running between his control box and the learner's chair, and that the volunteer was in fact an actor who is only pretending to get painful shocks. The real focus of the experiment was not the 'victim', but the reactions of the teacher pressing the buttons. How would they cope with administering greater and greater pain to a defenseless human being?

The Milgram experiment is one of the most famous in psychology, written up in his 1974 book Obedience to Authority. Here we take a look at what actually happened and why the results are important.

Expectations and reality

If you are like most people, you would expect that at the first sign of genuine pain on the part of the person being shocked, you would want the experiment halted. After all, it is only an experiment. This is the response Milgram got when, separate to the actual experiments, he surveyed a range of people (psychiatrists, graduate students, psychology academics, middle-class adults) on how they believed the subjects would react in these circumstances. Most predicted that the subjects would not give shocks beyond the point where the other subject asked to be freed. These expectations were entirely in line with Milgram's own. But what actually happened?

Most subjects were very stressed by the experiment, and protested to the experimenter that the person in the chair should not have to take any more. The logical next step would be then demand that the experiment be terminated.

In reality, this rarely happened.

Despite their reservations, most people continued to follow the orders of the experimenter and inflict progressively greater shocks. Indeed, as Milgram notes, “...a substantial proportion continue to the last shock on the generator”. This is even when they could hear the cries of the other subject, and even when that person pleaded to be let out of the experiment.

How we cope with a bad conscience

Milgram’s experiments have caused controversy over the years; many people are simply unwilling to accept that normal human beings would act like this. Many scientists have tried to find holes in the methodology, but the experiment has been replicated around the world with similar outcomes. As Milgram notes, the results astonish people. They want to believe that the subjects that volunteered are sadistic monsters. However, he made sure the subjects covered a range of social classes and professions, were 'normal' people put in unusual circumstances.

Why don't the subjects administering the 'shocks' get guilty and just opt out of the experiment? Milgram is careful to point out that most of his subjects knew that what they were doing was not right. They hated giving the shocks, especially when the victim was objecting to them. Yet even though they thought the experiment cruel or senseless, most were not able to extract themselves from it. Instead they developed coping mechanisms to justify what they were doing. These included:

• Getting absorbed in the technical side of the experiment. People have a strong desire to be competent in their work. The experiment and its successful implementation became more important than the welfare of the people involved.
• Transferring moral responsibility for the experiment to its leader. This is the common “I was just following orders” defense found in any war crimes trial. The moral sense or conscience of the subject is not lost, but is transformed into a wish to please the boss or leader.
• Choosing to believe that their actions need to be done as part of a larger, worthy cause. Where in the past wars have been waged over religion or political ideology, in this case the cause was Science.
• Devaluing the person who is receiving the shocks: ‘if this person is dumb enough not to be able to remember the word pairs, they deserve to be punished’. Such impugning of intelligence or character is commonly used by tyrants to encourage followers to get rid of whole groups of people. They are not worth much, the thinking goes, so who really cares if they are eliminated? The world will be a better place.

Perhaps the most surprising of the above is Milgram's observation that the subject's sense of morality does not disappear, but is reoriented, so that they feel duty and loyalty not to those they are harming but to the person giving the orders. The subject is not able to extract themselves from the situation because – amazingly – it would be impolite to go against the wishes of the experimenter. The subject feels they have agreed to do the experiment, so to pull out would make them appear as a promise-breaker.

The desire to please authority is seemingly more powerful than the moral force of the other volunteer's cries. When the subject does voice opposition to what is going on, he or she typically couches it in the most deferential terms – as Milgram described one subject: “He thinks he is killing someone, yet he uses the language of the tea table.”

From individual to 'agent'

Why are we like this? Milgram observed that the tendency of human beings to obey authority evolved for simple survival purposes. There had to be leaders and followers and hierarchies in order to get things done. Man is a communal animal, and does not want to rock the boat. Worse even than the bad conscience of harming others who are defenseless, it seems, is the fear of being isolated.

Most of us are inculcated from very young that it is wrong to hurt others needlessly, yet
we spend the first twenty years of our life being told what to do, so we get used to obeying authority. The experiments threw subjects right into the middle of this. Should they 'be good' in the sense of not harming, or 'be good' in the sense of doing what they're told? Most subjects chose the latter – suggesting our brain is hardwired to accept authority above all else.

The natural impulse not to harm others is dramatically altered when a person is put into a hierarchy structure. On our own we take full responsibility for what we do and consider ourselves autonomous, but once in a system or hierarchy we are more than willing to give over that responsibility to someone else. We stop being ourselves, and instead become an 'agent' for someone or something else.

How it becomes easy to kill

Milgram was influenced by the story of Adolf Eichmann, whose job it was to actually engineer the death of six million Jews under Hitler. Hannah Arendt's book Eichmann in Jerusalem had argued that Eichmann was not really a psychopath, but an obedient bureaucrat whose distance from the actual death camps allowed him to order the atrocities in the name of some higher goal. Milgram's experiments confirmed the truth of Arendt's idea of the 'banality of evil' - that is, humans are not inherently cruel, but become so when cruelty is demanded by authority. This was the main lesson of his study: that “...ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process.”

Obedience to Authority can make for painful reading, especially the transcript of an interview with an American soldier who participated in the Mai Lai massacre in Vietnam. Milgram concluded that there was such a thing as inherent psychopathy, or 'evil', but that it was statistically not common. His alarm was more about your average person (his experiments include women too, who showed almost no difference in obedience to men) if taken off the street and put into the right conditions, can do terrible things to other people – and not feel too bad about it.

This, Milgram notes, is the purpose of military training. The trainee soldier is put in an environment separate from normal society and its moral niceties and instead is made to think in terms of 'the enemy'. He or she is instilled with: a love of 'duty'; the belief that they are fighting for a great cause; and a tremendous fear of disobeying orders: “Although its ostensible purpose is to provide the recruit with military skills, its fundamental aim is to break down any residues of individuality and selfhood.” The trainee soldier is made to become an agent for a cause, rather than a freethinking individual, and herein lies his or her vulnerability to dreadful actions. Other people stop being human beings, and become 'collateral damage'.

The ability to disobey

What makes one person able to disobey authority, while the rest cannot? Disobedience is difficult. Subjects generally feel their allegiance is to the experiment and experimenter; only a few are able to break this feeling and put the person suffering in the chair above the authority system. There is a big gap, Milgram noticed, between protesting that harm that was being done (which nearly all subjects did), and actually refusing to go on altogether. Yet this is the leap that is made by those few who do disobey authority on ethical or moral grounds. They assert their individual beliefs despite the situation, whereas most of us bend to the situation. It is the difference between a hero who is willing to risk their own life to save others - and an Eichmann.

Culture has taught us how to obey authority, Milgram remarks, but not how to disobey authority that is morally reprehensible.

Final comments

Obedience To Authority seems to give little comfort about human nature. Because we evolved in clear social hierarchies over thousands of years, part of our brain wiring makes us want us to obey people above us. Yet it is only through knowledge of this strong tendency that we can avoid getting ourselves into situations in which we might do evil.

Every ideology requires a lot of obedient people to act in its name, and in the case of Milgram's experiment, the ideology that awed subjects was not religion or communism or a charismatic ruler. Apparently, people will do things in the name of science in the same way the Spanish Inquisitors tortured people in the name of God. Have a big enough 'cause', and it is easy to see how giving pain to another living thing can be justified without too much difficulty.

That our need to be obedient frequently overrides previous education or conditioning towards compassion, ethics or moral precepts would suggest that the cherished idea of human free will is a myth. On the other hand, Milgram's descriptions of people who did manage to say 'no' to further shocks should give us all hope for how we might act in a similar situation. It may be part of our heritage to obey authority mindlessly, but it is also in our natures to set aside ideology if it means causing pain, and to be willing to put a person above a system.

Milgram's experiments might have been less well-known were it not for the fact that Obedience To Authority is a gripping work of scientific literature. This is a book that anyone interested in how the mind works should have in their library. The genocide in Rwanda, the massacre at Srebrinica, and the affronts to human dignity at Abu Ghraib Prison are all illuminated and partially explained by its insights.

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Secret world of Vietnamese workers in Russia

By Hung Nguyen BBC Vietnamese, Moscow

Vietnamese migrants work up to 20 hours a day in this Russian factory

Three years ago, Cuong left his wife and two children in Vietnam and went to Russia in search of a job.

The young man from Hai Duong province thought he could make a good living as a garment factory worker.

Like many other Vietnamese illegal workers, he even changed his name - Cuong is an assumed identity - in order to avoid being detected and thrown out of the former communist state.

Vietnam has a rapidly growing economy, but many people still go and work in Russia, whose ties with the South East Asian nation date back to the Cold War era.

Cuong is one of thousands of Vietnamese who have left the heat of the countryside for the Russian cold to become "ghost workers" - people who are employed in factories that are not registered and do not pay taxes.

Now, three years after arriving, Cuong's dream of making lots of money has become a nightmare.

It all started when he could not find work in Moscow, so had to travel to Tula 200km (125 miles) away to find a job.

Cuong says from there everything went downhill.

Bad conditions

"I had to work 20 hours a day to make just over $30 (£19)," he says.

Despite working day and night, Cuong soon ended up in financial trouble because he could not earn enough money to make ends meet.

"Within a few months I was in the red by more than $165."

He says his passport was confiscated by the owner and foreman to prevent him and other workers from leaving.

Eventually Cuong managed to escape and found another job in a Russian construction company.

I am lucky to have a good employer. Work is hard but I made enough to make it worthwhile Thanh Ghost worker in Russia

Just as things began to pick up the owner of the firm withheld several months of his salary for no reason.

Today Cuong is worse off than when he first arrived.

He is desperate to go back to Vietnam because his mother has been diagnosed with cancer and his wife is raising their two daughters without any help from him.

Legal issues

Under Russian law migrant workers like Cuong and the companies they work for do not actually exist.

Critics say this means employees can easily be exploited.

Some factory owners told me they survive by paying bribes to rogue Russian police, tax officials and people in charge of overseeing foreign visitors.

Working in these invisible factories is very risky because it is illegal and as some workers told me, they over-stay their visas and live in constant fear of being deported.

Russian law bars deportees from returning for five years. But people have found ways around the system.

Some workers explained that with a certain amount of money, they bought new passports with new names to come back and earn more dollars.

Some Vietnamese told me, that despite the dangers, they have made money that they would not dream of earning back home.

Opportunities

Thanh, a young woman, comes from the same province as Cuong. She returned to Moscow for the second time in 2006.

She admits that there are many pitfalls, but has absolutely no regrets.

Workers clean a van as they prepare to go on a rare shopping trip

"I am lucky to have a good employer. Work is hard but I make enough to make it worthwhile."

Thanh works 12-14 hours a day in a "ghost" factory just outside Moscow and earns $700-800 a month.

She does not spend any money on rent because she sleeps at the factory for free.

Thanh fell in love with a Vietnamese man in the same factory.

They went home to get married and returned to Russia under the names they have now.

She is now seven months pregnant, but her bump is still tiny - she says the long work hours have probably taken their toll on the baby's development.

The couple have already decided to return to Vietnam for the baby's birth.

They say they are prepared to take the risk because it is too expensive to deliver the child in Moscow.

Once the baby is born they will go back to Russia with their new baby and new names.

However some, like Cuong, cannot wait to get out of Russia.

He obtained a document from the Vietnamese embassy in Moscow which will allow him to travel back home - a new passport is too costly.

His hopes of making a living have been well and truly dashed and now he just wants to be with his family in Vietnam.

The only problem is he is stranded in Russia because he does not have the plane fare to go home, and he cannot leave until his family sends the money for the flight.

Source