Talk:B. F. Skinner/archive 1

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This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

misc

However much the point about Mary Pezzati is an interesting tidbit, a kind of six degrees of separation between Skinner and Bob Dylan, it seems entirely irrelevant to the article. If no one objects, I'll remove it. -- 13:06, Aug 5, 2004 (UTC) Robertoalencar

rumours

I have just removed a popular misconception in "Rumours" - that the 2004 book by Lauren Slater ("Opening Skinnner's Box") gives credence to rumours about Skinner mistreating his daughter Deborah. In fact the book very clearly states that there's no basis to such rumours. It does this immediately after mentioning them. The problem here seems to have been a duff initial review that has since been propagated without adequate fact checking. Even Deborah herself has complained in one newspaper (the UK Guardian), presumably without reading the book either! Please don't help perpetrate this particular mutant meme. -- Apr 28, 2005 MatthewMorris

I'm still confused on this article!!! Did she accuse Deborah Skinner of suing her father? Whether the description of the box/crib was accurate is somewhat irrelevant, If it was written that she brought legal action against her father when she didn't... Well no wonder she didn't read the book!!! ---- 9/16/06

chomsky

I dropped the Chomsky link. Chomsky adds nothing to understanding Skinner and adds much to misinformation about Skinner and his ideas and works. -- 10/17/05 -mr

As much as I agree with mr that the page about Chomsky adds much misinformation about Skinner, I think that if there is a mention of Chomsky, there should be a link to the page about him.

-- Stahr 09:59, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Stahr. I would go further to say that Chomsky certainly deserves some mention in a section on Skinner's political views. They knew each other well and were only enemies in the battlefield of science, to the best of my knowledge. The particular mention of Chomsky in the article is a bit misleading for a casual reader, though. (I'm not sure if Chomsky ever referred to Skinner's views of the role of psychology in society as "totalitarian". I could be wrong.) So although Chomsky was not a hard-ball political opponent of Skinner, he certainly disagreed with his "scientistic" viewpoint on behavior in society. This is a fundamental distinction which ought to be made clear in the article. I'll see what I can do about it. Silly rabbit 10:25, 17 November 2005 (UTC) P.S. For those of you who don't know, I recently moved the Political Views section here from the radical behaviorism article, where it was really out of place. So it's going to take some time to integrate it into this more appropriate location.

If there is to be no link to a specific critic like Chomsky (which is fine) then there should at least be a criticism section which discusses the arguments made by Chomsky and others against Skinner and behavioralism. As it stands a reader might assume that the philosophy of behavioralism goes unchallenged today, which is far from the truth.

-- I'm just now getting up on the Wiki stuff, so help me get the technical aspects straight but it ought be said that Chomsky and Skinner did NOT know each other well. A very young and brash Chomsky wrote an absolutely vitriolic review of Skinner's _Verbal Behavior_ (Skinner, 1957) in 1959, that Skinner found to misunderstand the theses so fundamentally that he never so much as responded or mentioned the article again. Skinner continued to ignore Chomsky, much to Skinner's peers dismay. Many of them have answered the Chomsky article since Skinner's death. But Skinner and Chomsky did *not* know each other, and Skinner knew nothing of Chomsky's (now outmoded) generative grammar work.

My father was close to Skinner, and I am also in the field. I'd be happy to help fact check all this....--Dirtypants 10:33, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

learno link

The Learno link has no business here. It has very little to do with Programed (sic) Instruction as developed by Skinner. Is this spam? Can we remove it?--Dirtypants 01:15, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

picture

This drawing is rather unimpressive. There are many pictures on www.bfskinner.org which are much better.

--Florkle 05:18, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

I have permission to use audience.jpg for this page but it is not in the public domain (or LGPL'd to my knowledge). Can we use it? --florkle 22:22, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

We now have a picture but it is ripped and scratched. I have gimp'd it and it seems to look a bit better to me. However, I am not sure if the licensing is set up correctly since it has been modified. Is it "an original work" at this point, am I a co-author to the original, or what? Michaelrayw2 (talk) 23:04, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Social engineering

Dignity is the practice of giving individuals credit for their actions. To say "Skinner is brilliant" means that Skinner is an originating force. If Skinner is right, he is merely the locus of his environment. He is a not an originating force and he had no choice in saying the things he said or doing the things he did. Skinner's environment and genetics allowed and made him write his book. This is not to say that that means it is not true. The environment and genetics of the advocates of freedom and dignity make them fight the reality of their activity being grounded in determinism.

This is comentary and violates NPOV. I'd like to remove it. Does anyone disagree?--Serf 17:19, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree about NPOV. It is a restatement of an argument against behaviorism (mentioned explicitly in About Behaviorism (1974) actually. However it ends with "it doesn't mean it's not true" which is the usual conclusion. It is unclear though, and not very well written (although I've foisted some bad prose here and there so I am not guiltless there either). --florkle 04:43, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

I disagree; I think the author was trying to illustrate how Skinner would define 'dignity' by applying Skinner's definition to Skinner's own work, which is a very confusing construct, but I don't think the author is trying to say, "Skinner didn't really do anything special here, because he was destined to do what he did."

If I'm right (and I admit my reading could be bad), I think the section just suffers from being torturously unclear, and should be re-written as something like:

"Dignity, as Skinner defines it, is the practice... For instance Skinner's response to anyone calling him "brilliant" would be that he [Skinner] is just the originating force; the locus of his environment..." WilliamJonShipley 10:24, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

After looking over it again, you're probably right. The POV is fine. It seems awkward in it's current form though. I'll remove the tag--Serf 17:44, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Heir Conditioner?!

Is it just me, or is this histories worst pun?

That should be history's worst pun. ;-)   It seems clear that Skinner didn't take this device very seriously- and was probably amused that a reporter from the Gaurdian took interest. He was, unfortunately, rather unaware of his 'image' and how he might appear in the media.

Skinner never used, coined, nor was aware of the pun "Heir Conditioner." That term post-dated his baby-tender by more than 50-years, and was used in the following journal article:

Benjamin, L. T. & Nielsen-Gammon, E. (1999). B. F. Skinner and psychotechnology: The case of the heir conditioner. Review of General Psychology, 3, 155-167.

Debbie even made this point in her Guardian response.

Skinner had one published article on the baby-tender in Ladies Home Journal, called "Baby in a Box" (the title coined by the editors, not by Skinner.

A tutorial on the air-crib can be found here (with a link to an image of the LHJ article's picture of Debbie in the baby-tender: [1]

I use an air-crib with my child (and my older son). I used one as a crib, as did my sister, and many of my friends as a child. They are amazingly useful and progressive.--Dirtypants 10:23, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

The non-effectiveness of punishment

A simple example of this is the failure of prison to eliminate criminal behavior. If prison (as a punishing stimulus) were effective at altering behavior, there would be no criminality, since the risk of imprisonment for criminal conduct is well established.

To me, this is not a very convincing argument in its present form. If prison were effective, wouldn't it just mean that there would be no repeated criminality? The effect of knowing the risk of imprisonment doesn't sound like operant conditioning to me, more like learning by example. Thoughts on this? /Skagedal 22:32, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Punishment by definition is effective. Punishment occurs when a stimulus reducings a behavior or the removal of a stimulus reducings a behavior. Positive punishment vs negative punishment. In many cases prision is a reinforcer because it provides free meals and a roof for the criminals to sleep.whicky1978 20:37, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

The article claims that reinforcement is more effective than punishment. First of all, if this were true, then the long awaited solution to the problem of crime has been found. But obviously this is not the case. Secondly, if this were true, then it would immediately be universally implemented. This, also, is not the case. I, personally, have never seen reinforcement used successfully. However, I have seen punishment, when it is certain and prompt, used effectively to stop unwanted behavior. This occurs because punishment acts as a counter-motive. It opposes and outweighs a criminal motive.Lestrade 17:17, 25 July 2006 (UTC)Lestrade

Skinner has long claimed punishment "didn't work". However, it depends on how you define "work" as to whether this is true or not. Skinner's claim that it didn't suppress responding (one definition) has been more or less disproven in work in the 1960s (Azrin comes to mind, and others). However, Skinner's position was that it may work for "the wrong reasons" including generating emotional responses that disorganize or disrupt the behavior but don't really "reduce" it even if the response is not emittable (as in a lever press). A recent paper explored this ("Punishment a primary process" I think it's called in JEAB or JABA) and it is, I believe, not clear why "punishment works". The role of punishment in generating countercontrol is still extent whether it "works" or not and these arguments are still relevant. fwiw.--florkle 04:40, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Work and the Good Life

" 'What is the Good Life?' Skinner answers that it is ... a minimum of work and unpleasantness." -- In Walden Two, Skinner specifically says that a lack of physical work tends to produce dissatisfaction and advocates instead a balance between work and other activities, therefore I'm modifying this sentence. -- 27 december 2005

Skinner an ethologist?

Could someone comment on whether he can really be considered an ethologist, as indicated in Ethology#List of ethologists. I'm trying to decide whether he should stay in Category:Ethologists, to which I've added him for now. The "without recourse to inner mental states" makes me somewhat uneasy, as that would be ignoring one of the four "why"s of ethology. - Samsara 19:17, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Pos/Neg Reinforcement/Punishment

Since it is confusing, someone should explain how positive and negative are like additive and subtractive not "good" and "bad."128.6.175.32 17:55, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

"Positive" and "negative" are very ambiguous words. These words designate many different concepts. They are mistakenly taken to mean "good" and "bad" by many people. There is a similar problem with these words in the Wikipedia Nirvana article.Lestrade 17:05, 25 July 2006 (UTC)Lestrade

Place of birth

COuld somebody please find out the real place of birth? Susquehanna is the name of many places --Bahnmoeller 16:02, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Actual edits

Since this page is vandalized so much, it's hard to find the actual edits. This is a diff from a few days ago. I put back the "Behaviorism" header. I'm quite unsure of the "as if the Slater" -> "about whether this" edit, I guess this is meant to be an NPOVification, but just removes all meaning from the sentence imho... /skagedal^... 08:33, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Bertrand Russell

What was the actual work by Bertrand Russell that influenced Skinner? What is there at the moment is very vague. This is sufficiently important to get right, I think, before the article gets its "good article" approval. Otherwise, I probably would have been prepared to take the needed action. For now, I've just done some copyediting (I don't think any more is needed unless I've introduced typos or other such glitches) and left the article in the list. Metamagician3000 06:13, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

I see that someone has given the article its badge anyway. That's fine, but the sentence about Russell is currently terribly imprecise. I've been checking, and I believe that Skinner actually read some articles by Russell, which led him to An Outline of Philosophy (1927). I am not aware of any work by Russell called simply "Philosophy", even if Skinner referred to it that way somewhere. I was able to establish this much just from general knowledge and some quick google searches. Surely someone with expertise on Skinner can confirm it and fix up the sentence. Metamagician3000 23:32, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

I've corrected the sentence. The book in question is indeed An Outline of Philosophy. -- Eb.hoop 17:01, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

Proposed move to B. F. Skinner

Burrhus Frederic Skinner → B. F. Skinner – I've never seen his name as anything except "B.F. Skinner", and there seems to be somewhat of a consensus on this already, which I've moved down the talk page below. Teemu08 05:45, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Survey

Add "* Support" or "* Oppose" followed by an optional one-sentence explanation, then sign your opinion with ~~~~

Discussion

Add any additional comments

Comment. It should be B. F. Skinner per naming convention. --Usgnus 06:12, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Move to B. F. Skinner?

Normally, we try to locate articles under the most common title. Since virtually no one ever refers to Skinner by his full name (it's almost always "B.F." Skinner) we should move it to the abbreviated form. (W.E.B. DuBois and C.S. Lewis are examples of this principle.)

I tend to agree. Metamagician3000 05:51, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
I agree as well. Also, i think the picture should be changed because a photograph is more accurate than a sketch--81.165.32.47 14:49, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Strong support per nom. Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley _talk _contrib 00:35, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
Strong support per nom. I don't think I have ever heard his full name used. --My old username 00:23, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
Support with suggestion that opening sentence begins "Burrhus Frederic Skinner (commonly known as B. F. Skinner; March 20, 1904 – August 18, 1990) was..." Regards, David Kernow 03:31, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
Support. Go ahead. As for David Kernow's suggestion. --E Asterion ^{u talking to me?} 19:18, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

A note on the Requested move

If there is no serious opposition within five days, I will move the page. Teke ^(talk) 06:09, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Moved. Teke ^(talk) 05:31, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Minor revision

Hope you don't mind I changed the name to "B. F." per naming conventions. I also support the move. -Justin (koavf)·T·C·M 18:35, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Death by Leukemia

This is a lot like the fish that got away, but there was a powerful interview of B. F. Skinner on National Public Radio--probably All Things Considered--just a few months before Skinner passed away. Unfortunately, NPR has provisions for searching only up to the previous ten years--so far as I know. Maybe someone else can get further with this than I.

The cause of death is easily established with a very simple Google search. That's as far as I can take it at this hour of night (CDT), but a link to that interview would be golden.

--C-U RPCV 07:11, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Delisted GA

I don't know who passed this, because nobody said anything, (Which is sort of against the GA system rules anyway) but only five references at the bottom, four of which seem to be for specific facts only, is not well-referenced. Also, I recommend you shorten the lead, some of those details could probably go into lower sections, and as per WP:LEAD, lead's are supposed to summarize, so having it be too long isn't quite right. Homestarmy 13:08, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism

Yeah, uhhh, some one just totally vandalized this page.

Wrong

"The program design is designing a program"

Ametex-Medical claims

I'm removing this pending discussion:

Dr. S. Kaniadakis,Ametex-Medical, continues to own the Common Law Rights to use of the word "Programmed" Learning, backed by The United States Patent & Trademark Registrations and Certifications. The "Programmed" Learning Formula is more specifically discribed in the filed documents. A number of other Trademarks they own Rights to include, "Programmatic" Learning, Featuring Autommatic Learning Without Trying operational system for with learning cassetes akin to computer online educational platforms, "Program Yourself", and "Future Genetics". Therefore, the use of the word became a Registered Trademark and specific design originally initiated on mircofisch. Now, an educational design replicated on computer systems,such as "PDF" format, as a means to deliver effective educational programs. The "Programmed" learnig has been the subject of deabate. As some school of thought think that "Programmed" learning techniques are a form of "mind control". Given the very powerful effectiveness it delivers. Like movies did with "sublimination", to infleuence audiances to become "Programmed" to buy popcarn and drinks. It was banned from that arena.

This seems long and promotional; at the moment it does not seem to meet the verifiability policy because it does not cite any sources for the claim. And the claim itself is very unclear. Before this goes in the article, I'd like to see two things clarified.

1) Does Ametex-Medical have a registered trademark on the use of the word "Programmed" in connection with learning? What are the registration numbers (which are easily verifiable online) and what do they actually cover? The phrase "common law rights" is puzzling and seems to suggest that there is not a registered trademark; why is it mentioned?

2) I'd like to see a verifiable reference to a published source meeting reliable source guidelines, such as a book or an educational journal, that discusses the Ametex-Medical products, so that we can be sure that this is really an important and well-known line of products. Dpbsmith (talk) 13:42, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

There's a bug: "which seeks to uyou are a fattynderstand behavior as a function of environmental". I couldn't find it in the edit text section, but it is in the text. ???

Spelling

The bird behaves as if there were a casual relation between its behavior and the presentation of food,

Rather than "casual" it should probably be "causal" —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.142.130.47 (talk) 20:14, 3 March 2007 (UTC).

I have a lot of knowledge on this subject and am interested in working on this article. How do I go about doing it? Can someone e-mail me instructions (at removed)? Thanks. I updated this article but my updates are gone.

The reason why your edits (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=B._F._Skinner&diff=117857330&oldid=117594073) have been removed is that they were based on your own interpretation, which falls under the "original research" policy, see Wikipedia:No original research. Our content must follow an encyclopediac style and tone and everything even slightly controversial must be referenced to a reliable source, see Wikipedia:Attribution. We welcome you as a contributor and hope that you will continue to contribute to this article as well as the rest of Wikipedia. We know that it is sometimes a bit difficult for beginners to to become accustomed to the Wikipedia conventions. If you have further question, feel free to ask me on my user talk page. Cacycle 17:19, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

"Skinner box" versus "Operant Chamber"

Operant conditioning is done using "operant conditioning chambers" not Skinner Boxes. I have changed a british spelling to the american one (-iour -ior) since Skinner was an American. Describing Skinner as an "experimental psychologist" is semantically correct but historically incorrect. He is not from the tradition of Wundt in any meaningful way.

--Florkle 15:28, 8 May 2007 (UTC) f

I have changed the link from Operant Chamber back to Skinner box, for the following reasons: a) Operant Chamber is currently up for speedy deletion as a POV fork, b) Skinner box is a more informative article. WatchAndObserve 16:24, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

See my proposed move of Skinner box to operant conditioning chamber. There is some discussion in the article itself about the pejorative connotation implied by the term Skinner box. Silly rabbit 16:47, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Silly Rabbit. I have no opinion as to what the correct name for the article should be, my only concern is that as is stands now, Operant Chamber is not a suitable article to link to. WatchAndObserve 18:02, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree. Silly rabbit 18:09, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

state design

considering "News From Nowhere, 1984" lists Walden Two as a more or less explicitly "anarchist" idea, I think the reference to state design is even less plausible. --florkle 04:36, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Why is Lost not notable for the trivia section?

I put in a reference to B.F. Skinner in Lost and it was undone for being "unnotable". Why is it less notable then a Simpsons reference? Also, the reference has created speculation amongst the show's fanbase as to how it relates to the mythology of the show. --Occono 13:55, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I am unaware of who removed it (I don't think it was me). I see no reason not to put it back...? --florkle 22:15, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Inventions

I am thinking of grouping Skinner's inventions under a new header "inventions" and adding a few more - such as teaching machines and his potty training device. So it would operant chamber, cumulative record, air crib, teaching machines, potty training device...? --florkle 22:22, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

perhaps "books", "science", "philosophy", "inventions", ? --florkle 08:57, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Date errors in footnotes

There are a few errors in publication dates in the footnotes. Beyond Freedom and Dignity was published in 1971 and About Behaviorism in 1974. I couldn't figure out how to correct them myself, so I'm posting this note. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.153.144.38 (talk) 17:57, 5 July 2007

Thanks for the heads up! The refs are fixed for now. In the future, you can fix the footnotes yourself by going to the place in the main text body where the superscript footnote is located. However, when one footnote is used more then one time (indicated by "a", "b" etc down in the footnotes section), you'll have to find the one particular usage in the text where the actual information is located--enclosed by <ref> and </ref>. Hope that helps! --gwc 07:28, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Verbal Behavior

This article implies that Chomsky gave "Verbal Behavior" a positive review in the Journal "Language". Chomsky actually wrote a famously scathing review of the book that ultimately overshadowed the book itself. A reprint of the original review can be found here: http://cogprints.org/1148/00/chomsky.htm

In fact, Chomsky's review was so potent, it was considered by many to be one of the factors that brought about the downfall of behaviorism and helped usher in the age of cognitive psychology. An example of the criticism from the Chomsky review:

"The magnitude of the failure of this attempt to account for verbal behavior serves as a kind of measure of the importance of the factors omitted from consideration, and an indication of how little is really known about this remarkably complex phenomenon."

Another example:

"It is not unfair, I believe, to conclude from Skinner's discussion of response strength, the basic datum in functional analysis, that his extrapolation of the notion of probability can best be interpreted as, in effect, nothing more than a decision to use the word probability, with its favorable connotations of objectivity, as a cover term to paraphrase such low-status words as interest, intention, belief, and the like."

Therefore, I think this Wikipedia page is unbalanced and needs to either omit the Chomsky quote or add that, overall, the Chomsky review was extremely negative. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.127.208.209 (talk) 03:40, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Influence on education

The "Influence on education" section is awkwardly written. Skinner had little influence on education because positive reinforcement doesn't work. The only language that students understand is the language of negative reinforcement. Skinner should have read Hobbes and Schopenhauer.Lestrade (talk) 02:21, 29 December 2007 (UTC)Lestrade

This statement is rather untrue. You are simply repeating the mantra of the martinet. Michaelrayw2 (talk) 23:05, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Awards

The Epstein articl covers all of the awards mentioned. I used to know how to do references, but I forgot, and I'm too lazy to look it up right now :p whicky1978 ^talk 23:25, 2 February 2008 (UTC)