On January 4, 2016, the B. F. Skinner Foundation launched a new project – Skinner’s Quote of the Day. Quotes from B. F. Skinner’s works, selected by renowned scientists, appear daily Monday-Friday in order, starting with Chapter 1 of each book and running all the way through the last chapter. We started with the Science and Human Behavior (January-December 2916), followed by About Behaviorism (January-November 2017), Contingencies of Reinforcement (January-October 2018), Recent Issues (October 2018-May 2019), Reflections on Behaviorism and Society (May 2019-February 2020), and now moving on to Upon Further Reflection (from February 10 2020).

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Reflections on Behaviorism and Society. Chapter 6: The Steep and Thorny Way to a Science of Behavior. Quote 14

"Many years ago I suggested that the letters CNS could be said to stand, not for the central nervous system, but for the conceptual nervous system." (p. 74)

Continue ReadingReflections on Behaviorism and Society. Chapter 6: The Steep and Thorny Way to a Science of Behavior. Quote 14

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…

Continue ReadingReflections on Behaviorism and Society. Chapter 6: The Steep and Thorny Way to a Science of Behavior. Quote 13

Reflections on Behaviorism and Society. Chapter 6: The Steep and Thorny Way to a Science of Behavior. Quote 12

"To put it crudely, introspection cannot be very relevant or comprehensive because the human organism does not have nerves going to the right places." (pp. 72-73)

Continue ReadingReflections on Behaviorism and Society. Chapter 6: The Steep and Thorny Way to a Science of Behavior. Quote 12

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…

Continue ReadingReflections on Behaviorism and Society. Chapter 6: The Steep and Thorny Way to a Science of Behavior. Quote 11

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…

Continue ReadingReflections on Behaviorism and Society. Chapter 6: The Steep and Thorny Way to a Science of Behavior. Quote 10

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…

Continue ReadingReflections on Behaviorism and Society. Chapter 6: The Steep and Thorny Way to a Science of Behavior. Quote 9

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…

Continue ReadingReflections on Behaviorism and Society. Chapter 6: The Steep and Thorny Way to a Science of Behavior. Quote 8

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…

Continue ReadingReflections on Behaviorism and Society. Chapter 6: The Steep and Thorny Way to a Science of Behavior. Quote 6

Reflections on Behaviorism and Society. Chapter 6: The Steep and Thorny Way to a Science of Behavior. Quote 5

"There will be certain temporal gaps in such an analysis [of behavior in terms of contingencies of reinforcement]. The behavior and the conditions of which it is a function do…

Continue ReadingReflections on Behaviorism and Society. Chapter 6: The Steep and Thorny Way to a Science of Behavior. Quote 5

Reflections on Behaviorism and Society. Chapter 6: The Steep and Thorny Way to a Science of Behavior. Quote 4

"[We do not] need to consider anatomy and physiology in order to see how the behavior of the individual is changed by his exposure to contingencies of reinforcement during his…

Continue ReadingReflections on Behaviorism and Society. Chapter 6: The Steep and Thorny Way to a Science of Behavior. Quote 4

Reflections on Behaviorism and Society. Chapter 6: The Steep and Thorny Way to a Science of Behavior. Quote 3

"We know something about the chemical and electrical effects of the nervous system and the location of many of its functions, but the events that actually underlie a single instance…

Continue ReadingReflections on Behaviorism and Society. Chapter 6: The Steep and Thorny Way to a Science of Behavior. Quote 3

Reflections on Behaviorism and Society. Chapter 6: The Steep and Thorny Way to a Science of Behavior. Quote 2

"I must begin by saying what I take a science of behavior to be. It is, I assume, part of biology. The organism that behaves is the organism that breathes,…

Continue ReadingReflections on Behaviorism and Society. Chapter 6: The Steep and Thorny Way to a Science of Behavior. Quote 2

Reflections on Behaviorism and Society. Chapter 5: Walden Two Revisited. Quote 7

"In an experimental community contingencies of reinforcement which encourage unnecessary spending can be corrected. As for pollution, small communities are optimal for recycling materials and avoiding wasteful methods of distribution."…

Continue ReadingReflections on Behaviorism and Society. Chapter 5: Walden Two Revisited. Quote 7

Reflections on Behaviorism and Society. Chapter 5: Walden Two Revisited. Quote 2

"In anthropology, sociology, and psychology the preferred formulations are those that do not dictate action. A thoroughgoing developmentalism, for example, almost denies the possibility of effective action." (p. 59)

Continue ReadingReflections on Behaviorism and Society. Chapter 5: Walden Two Revisited. Quote 2

Reflections on Behaviorism and Society. Chapter 4: Humanism and Behaviorism. Quote 7

"What distinguishes the human species . . . is the development of a culture, a social environment that contains the contingencies generating self-knowledge and self-control. It is this environment that…

Continue ReadingReflections on Behaviorism and Society. Chapter 4: Humanism and Behaviorism. Quote 7

Reflections on Behaviorism and Society. Chapter 4: Humanism and Behaviorism. Quote 4

"Knowing requires special contingencies of reinforcement that must be arranged by other people, and the contingencies involving private events are never very precise because other people are not effectively in…

Continue ReadingReflections on Behaviorism and Society. Chapter 4: Humanism and Behaviorism. Quote 4

Reflections on Behaviorism and Society. Chapter 3: The Ethics of Helping People. Quote 15

"Why does the Ervin Committee not consider constitutional safeguards against the power which a person can amass by accumulating money? We have minimum wage laws and other laws restricting some…

Continue ReadingReflections on Behaviorism and Society. Chapter 3: The Ethics of Helping People. Quote 15