Looking for the source of 2 different stories

Chrono Helix

Story 1:
There's this god (Greek or Roman or something) who's really good at hunting or archery or both, and he's got a dog. He's been challenged to hunt a specific fox/wolf, and he sent his dog to find the fox/wolf. The story ends with him firing his arrow, and I seem to remember it turning both animals to stone. Anyone know the name of this guy?

Story 2:
Some scientists brought in a bunch of people to do an experiment. They'd call out the people 2 at a time to do a coin flip, and it's been rigged that one guy would lose (who was actually with the scientists). The loser would be taken to a seperate room. Then the scientist would tell the winner to press a button, which would supposedly deliver a mild electric shock to the loser (the winner cannot actually see the loser at this point). Then the winner would be told to gradually increase the current, and the loser's screams of pain (which were being faked) could start being heard over the intercom. I can't remember what the scientists were trying to prove, but I think they found that no one ever refused to press the button.

Grislo

Cephalus, but I don't think he was a god.

Not sure on the second one.

Lokarn

The second story sounds like the Milgram Experiment. They wanted to see how far people would go with regards to obedience to authority, and found that a good number of people would administer supposedly life threatening shocks when ordered to.

loosecannon460

The second one I think is an embellished version of the Milgram experiment, an important and slightly terrifying test that gauged how eager people are to conform to an authority figure.
Around 65% or so conformed, the rest apologized and quietly left.

whitey9

Video of the Milgram Experiment from Derren Brown's show. HEY HEY!

Daenris

They didn't prove that no one refuses to press the button, but they went to dangerously high levels before ever questioning the experimenter, and the majority of people did indeed go all the way up.

If you watch videos of it, some of the subjects have pretty intense reactions to what their doing, but they continue pressing the button as the confederate 'shockee' progresses through asking them to stop, begging, screaming, and eventually silence.

Try getting something like that past an institutional review board today and you'd be laughed at. Though Dateline or some show did a TV replication of it within the past year or so -- with I believe much lower pretend voltages and they pretty much stopped right at the point where it started getting intense.

KalTorak

I heard there was a similar later experiment (forget the name) where instead of having fake screams from hidden victims, the real shocks were delivered to real puppies that were visible to the person being experimented on. The results were pretty much the same, and a lot of the puppies died.

Daenris

Yep... it's disturbing what people will do.

jothki

Chrono Helix wrote: »

Story 1:
There's this god (Greek or Roman or something) who's really good at hunting or archery or both, and he's got a dog. He's been challenged to hunt a specific fox/wolf, and he sent his dog to find the fox/wolf. The story ends with him firing his arrow, and I seem to remember it turning both animals to stone. Anyone know the name of this guy?

Was that the one with the deer that was impossible to catch and the dog that could catch anything, creating a paradox?

Chrono Helix

Many thanks to all who responded, I suddenly remembered these 2 stories and it's been bugging me for the past 2 days.