October 2019
Reflections on Behaviorism and Society. Chapter 7: Can We Profit from Our Discovery of Behavioral Science? Quote 2
“It is easy to understand why the question should be asked: “When shall we have the behavioral science and technology we need to solve our problems?” I believe that that is the wrong question and that we should be asking: “Why do we not use the behavioral science we already have?” “(p. 84)
Reflections on Behaviorism and Society. Chapter 7: Can We Profit from Our Discovery of Behavioral Science? Quote 1
“With the technologies of physics and biology the species has solved problems of fantastic difficulty. Yet with respect to its own behavior something always seems to go wrong.” (pp. 83-84)
Reflections on Behaviorism and Society. Chapter 6: The Steep and Thorny Way to a Science of Behavior. Quote 24
“Much remains to be done, and it will be done more rapidly when the role of the environment takes its proper place in competition with the apparent evidences of an inner life . . . It is an important and promising shift in emphasis because, unlike the remote fastness of the so-called human spirit, the […]
Reflections on Behaviorism and Society. Chapter 6: The Steep and Thorny Way to a Science of Behavior. Quote 23
“The role of the environment has become clearer in the present century. Its selective action in evolution has been examined by the ethologists, and a similar selective action during the life of the individual is the subject of the experimental analysis of behavior.” (pp. 81-82)
Reflections on Behaviorism and Society. Chapter 6: The Steep and Thorny Way to a Science of Behavior. Quote 21
“The science I am discussing is the investigation of the relation between behavior and the environment—on the one hand, the environment in which the species evolved and which is responsible for the facts investigated by the ethologists and, on the other hand, the environment in which the individual lives and in response to which at […]
Reflections on Behaviorism and Society. Chapter 6: The Steep and Thorny Way to a Science of Behavior. Quote 18
“… Louis Pasteur, was responsible for a dramatic test of the theory of spontaneous generation, and I suggest that the spontaneous generation of behavior in the guise of ideas and acts of will is now at the stage of the spontaneous generation of life in the form of maggots and microorganisms 100 years ago.” (p. […]
Reflections on Behaviorism and Society. Chapter 6: The Steep and Thorny Way to a Science of Behavior. Quote 17
“The success of [the struggle for freedom], though it is not yet complete, is one of man’s great achievements, and no sensible person would challenge it. Unfortunately, one of its by-products has been the slogan that “all control of human behavior is wrong and must be resisted.” (p. 79)
Reflections on Behaviorism and Society. Chapter 6: The Steep and Thorny Way to a Science of Behavior. Quote 16
“… if the credit due a person is infringed by evidence of the conditions of which his behavior is a function, then a scientific analysis appears to be an attack on human worth or dignity.” (p. 78)
October 2019 Update
TRANSLATIONS in PROGRESS The Foundation continues to receive requests to translate Skinner books into languages other than English. On October 4th the Foundation received a request by the Spanish publisher Dogalia to translate The Behavior of Organisms into Spanish. PUBLICATIONS The Foundation is beginning a new series called Skinner for the 21st Century starting with […]
Reflections on Behaviorism and Society. Chapter 6: The Steep and Thorny Way to a Science of Behavior. Quote 13
“Even when helpful, an observed or hypothetical inner determiner is no explanation of behavior until it has itself been explained, and the fascination with an inner life has allayed curiosity about the further steps to be taken.” (p. 77)
Reflections on Behaviorism and Society. Chapter 6: The Steep and Thorny Way to a Science of Behavior. Quote 11
“The verbal community which teaches us to make distinctions among things in the world around us lacks the information it needs to teach us to distinguish events in our private world.” (p. 72)
Reflections on Behaviorism and Society. Chapter 6: The Steep and Thorny Way to a Science of Behavior. Quote 10
“… I am not willing to give introspection much of a toehold … , for there are two important reasons why we do not discriminate precisely among our feelings and states of mind and hence why there are many different philosophies and psychologies.” (p. 72)
Reflections on Behaviorism and Society. Chapter 6: The Steep and Thorny Way to a Science of Behavior. Quote 9
“I welcome the view, clearly gaining in favor among psychologists and physiologists and by no means a stranger to philosophy, that what we introspectively observe, as well as feel, are states of our bodies.” (p. 72)
Reflections on Behaviorism and Society. Chapter 6: The Steep and Thorny Way to a Science of Behavior. Quote 8
“In short, the bodily conditions we feel are collateral products of our genetic and environmental histories. They have no explanatory force; they are simply additional facts to be taken into account.” (p. 71)
Reflections on Behaviorism and Society. Chapter 6: The Steep and Thorny Way to a Science of Behavior. Quote 6
“Very little biology is handicapped by the fact that the biologist is himself a specimen of the thing he is studying, but that part of the science with which we are here concerned has not been so fortunate. We seem to have a kind of inside information about our behavior.” (p. 70)