news.bbc.co.uk — When psychology professor Judith Kleinfeld went back and studied Milgram's notes she found he came to the conclusion based on a 5% success rate. It was not supported by other studies either. Somehow it persists in academia, even though the studies don't back it up.
Jul 14, 2006 View in Crawl 4
daisukeJul 15, 2006
isn't there a wikipedia feature that allows you to determine the degrees of separation between two articles? (only for links, that I remember...) when I used it it seemed to work pretty well, and the degree of separation between any two random articles was usually pretty low. she should've used that, and then called it urban myth.
zaidJul 15, 2006
There have been so many more tests after Milgram's not only verifying Milgram's results, but doing it with a much higher degree of scientific merit, that a psychologist's assessment of a very old test is a moot point in the history of network theory. Please read up on Duncan J. Watts and network theory studies.
billdoorJul 16, 2006
Hey, I know a guy who knows a guys, who knows a guys, who knows a guys, who knows a guys, who knows a guys that knows were Bin Laden is.
skeuomorphJul 16, 2006
Judith Kleinfeld's article from April 2001 referenced by BBC as if news: <a class="user" href="http://www.judithkleinfeld.com/ar_sixdegrees.html">http://www.judithkleinfeld.com/ar_sixdegrees.html</a>
mrtribalJul 17, 2006
I'm connected to Kate Moss in three steps, shame its not one. Hehe.
roguemanJul 30, 2006
Oh, bush and bin laden are quite closer then 6 degrees. After all, bush _is_ good friends with the bin laden family. No seriously, google it up.
nim278Apr 5, 2007
"The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell studies the phenomenon rather interestingly. The key though is that it's not about an average number of acquaintances -- it's about a few critical people people in the chain that are particularly socially gifted. It's misleading to think about each of the 6 degrees having an average of 50 acquaintances -- it's that while most of the people have 40, the 2nd last person has 1000.