I was horrified by the Milgram experiment (psychological test to test obedience to authority) that the author cites: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment

And (but not related to the article) I was amazed to find out that Milgram is the same researcher who created the first "six degrees of separation" experiments, that lead to the creation of the first global-scale social networks: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_world_experiment