and poet. He was the Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology at Harvard University
from 1958 until his retirement in 1974.
Skinner invented the operant conditioning chamber, innovated his own philosophy of science called radical behaviorism
, and founded his own school of experimental research psychology—the experimental analysis of behavior
.
Society attacks early, when the individual is helpless.
The strengthening of behavior which results from reinforcement is appropriately called "conditioning". In operant conditioning we "strengthen" an operant in the sense of making a response more probable or, in actual fact, more frequent.
Let men be happy, informed, skillful, well behaved, and productive.
Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.
The real question is not whether machines think but whether men do. The mystery which surrounds a thinking machine already surrounds a thinking man.
We admire people to the extent that we cannot explain what they do, and the word "admire" then means "marvel at."
A person who has been punished is not thereby simply less inclined to behave in a given way; at best, he learns how to avoid punishment.