Twenty-five hundred years ago it might have been said that man understood himself as well as any other part of the world. Today he is the thing he understands least. B. F. Skinner More Quotes by B. F. Skinner More Quotes From B. F. Skinner A fourth-grade reader may be a sixth-grade mathematician. The grade is an administrative device which does violence to the nature of the developmental process. B. F. Skinner doe education may No theory changes what it is a theory about. Nothing is changed because we look at it, talk about it, or analyze it in a new way. Keats drank confusion to Newton for analyzing the rainbow, but the rainbow remained as beautiful as ever and became for many even more beautiful. Man has not changed because we look at him, talk about him, and analyze him scientifically. ... What does change is our chance of doing something about the subject of a theory. Newton's analysis of the light in a rainbow was a step in the direction of the laser. B. F. Skinner light beautiful men An important fact about verbal behavior is that speaker and listener may reside within the same skin. B. F. Skinner skins important education Society attacks early, when the individual is helpless. B. F. Skinner positive-reinforcement individual society No one asks how to motivate a baby. A baby naturally explores everything it can get at, unless restraining forces have already been at work. And this tendency doesn't die out, it's wiped out. B. F. Skinner curiosity education baby The problem of far greater importance remains to be solved. Rather than build a world in which we shall all live well, we must stop building one in which it will be impossible to live at all. B. F. Skinner impossible education world I've had only one idea in my life - a true idee fixe. To put it as bluntly as possible - the idea of having my own way. 'Control!' expresses it. The control of human behavior. In my early experimental days it was a frenzied, selfish desire to dominate. I remember the rage I used to feel when a prediction went awry. I could have shouted at the subjects of my experiments, 'Behave, damn you! Behave as you ought! B. F. Skinner damn-you selfish ideas Was putting a man on the moon actually easier than improving education in our public schools? B. F. Skinner moon men school Teachers must learn how to teach ... they need only to be taught more effective ways of teaching. B. F. Skinner teaching teacher needs The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do. B. F. Skinner technology real science The consequences of an act affect the probability of its occurring again. B. F. Skinner probability consequence Society attacks early, when the individual is helpless. It enslaves him almost before he has tasted freedom. The 'ologies' will tell you how its done Theology calls it building a conscience or developing a spirit of selflessness. Psychology calls it the growth of the superego. Considering how long society has been at it, you'd expect a better job. But the campaigns have been badly planned and the victory has never been secured. B. F. Skinner psychology jobs long Unable to understand how or why the person we see behaves as he does, we attribute his behavior to a person we cannot see, whose behavior we cannot explain either but about whom we are not inclined to ask questions. B. F. Skinner behavior doe justice A first principle not formally recognized by scientific methodologists: when you run into something interesting, drop everything else and study it. B. F. Skinner principles running interesting If freedom is a requisite for human happiness, then all that’s necessary is to provide the illusion of freedom. B. F. Skinner human-happiness illusion humans The simplest and most satisfactory view is that thought is simply behavior - verbal or nonverbal, covert or overt. It is not some mysterious process responsible for behavior but the very behavior itself in all the complexity of its controlling relations. B. F. Skinner mysterious views education Some of us learn control, more or less by accident. The rest of us go all our lives not even understanding how it is possible, and blaming our failure on being born the wrong way. B. F. Skinner understanding education way At this very moment enormous numbers of intelligent men and women of goodwill are trying to build a better world. But problems are born faster than they can be solved. B. F. Skinner intelligent numbers men The juvenile delinquent does not feel his disturbed personality. The intelligent man does not feel his intelligence or the introvert his introversion. B. F. Skinner intelligent personality men Many instructional arrangements seem "contrived," but there is nothing wrong with that. It is the teacher's function to contrive conditions under which students learn. It has always been the task of formal education to set up behavior which would prove useful or enjoyable later in a student's life. B. F. Skinner tasks teaching teacher
