Word: skinnerism
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Professor B.F. Skinner [Sept. 20] has put himself on the side of Dostoevsky's Grand Inquisitor and offers us bread for our freedom. His ideas are terrifying because he has hit upon the nerve of truth; man always faces the temptation to sacrifice freedom for security. I for one will defy him and all he stands for to the end. Better death than a living death. He himself would not be tolerated in the world he conjures...
...Surely those who characterize Skinner's thesis as "philosophically distasteful and morally wrong" would have said the same about the theories of Galileo or Darwin. Just because an idea is revolutionary does not make it false. This is particularly true in science...
...earth did you devote a feature story, thus lending a degree of credence, to a weirdo like B.F. Skinner...
...would have us paralyzed with conditioned minds, existing in a controlled environment that bears the most hideous aspects of Huxley's Brave New World. Skinner, presumably, would be World Controller, or at least Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning, thus avoiding the consequences he would force upon the rest of us. Right now, a great many people are trying desperately in their loud or quiet, influential or meek ways to avoid exactly the kind of social-political disaster that Skinner advocates...
...Apparently the Freudians and the theologians have a talent for speaking about man's dignity and magnificence, which gives them an advantage over B.F. Skinner in capturing popular acceptance. But a tree is best judged by the fruit it bears. The psychoanalysts have had half a century to demonstrate the practical effectiveness of their formulations in solving human problems, and they have been dismal failures...