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B. F. Skinner
(20 Mar 1904 - 18 Aug 1990)
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Science Quotes by B. F. Skinner (8 quotes)
A vast technology has been developed to prevent, reduce, or terminate exhausting labor and physical damage. It is now dedicated to the production of the most trivial conveniences and comfort.
— B. F. Skinner
Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.
— B. F. Skinner
Instead of saying that a man behaves because of the consequences which are to follow his behavior, we simply say that he behaves because of the consequences which have followed similar behavior in the past. This is, of course, the Law of Effect or operant conditioning.
— B. F. Skinner
It is still true, even at the graduate level, that students study to avoid the consequences of not studying.
— B. F. Skinner
Physics does not change the nature of the world it studies, and no science of behavior can change the essential nature of man, even though both sciences yield technologies with a vast power to manipulate their subject matters.
— B. F. Skinner
The hypothesis that man is not free is essential to the application of scientific method to the study of human behavior. The free inner man who is held responsible for the behavior of the external biological organism is only a prescientific substitute for the kinds of causes which are discovered in the course of a scientific analysis.
— B. F. Skinner
The Law of Inhibition. The strength of a reflex may be decreased through presentation of a second stimulus which has no other relation to the effector involved.
— B. F. Skinner
The real question is not whether machines think but whether men do.
— B. F. Skinner
See also:
- 20 Mar - short biography, births, deaths and events on date of Skinner's birth.
- B.F. Skinner: A Life, by Daniel W. Bjork. - book suggestion.