Quote

Science, not religion, has taught me my most useful values, among them intellectual honesty. It is better to go without answers than to accept those that merely resolve puzzlement.

B. F. Skinner

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

B. F. Skinner
Age: 86 †
Born: 1904
Born: March 20
Died: 1990
Died: August 18
Autobiographer
Ethologist
Inventor
Philosopher
Psychologist
University Teacher
Writer
Susquehanna Depot
Pennsylvania
Burrhus Frederic Skinner
Skinner BF
moiksu moiii
Language
Intellectual
Science
Among
Puzzlement
Better
Accepting
Behaviorism
Without
Answers
Resolve
Taught
Useful
Education
Honesty
Values
Merely
Religion
Accept

More quotes by B. F. Skinner

Image
Give me a child and I'll shape him into anything.
B. F. Skinner
Image
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.
B. F. Skinner
Image
The consequences of an act affect the probability of its occurring again.
B. F. Skinner
Image
Let men be happy, informed, skillful, well behaved, and productive.
B. F. Skinner
Image
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
Image
Many social practices essential to the welfare of the species involve the control of one person by another, and no one can suppress them who has any concern for human achievements
B. F. Skinner
Image
The human species took a crucial step forward when its vocal musculature came under operant control in the production of speech sounds. Indeed, it is possible that all the distinctive achievements of the species can be traced to that one genetic change.
B. F. Skinner
Image
Do not intervene between a person and the consequences of their own behavior.
B. F. Skinner
Image
In the world at large we seldom vote for a principle or a given state of affairs. We vote for a man who pretends to believe in that principle or promises to achieve that state. We don't want a man, we want a condition of peace and plenty-- or, it may be, war and want-- but we must vote for a man.
B. F. Skinner
Image
Society already possesses the psychological techniques needed to obtain universal observance of a code - a code which would guarantee the success of a community or state. The difficulty is that these techniques are in the hands of the wrong people-or, rather, there aren't any right people.
B. F. Skinner
Image
The speaker does not feel the grammatical rules he is said to apply in composing sentences, and men spoke grammatically for thousands of years before anyone knew there were rules.
B. F. Skinner
Image
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
Image
Overcrowding can be corrected only by inducing people not to crowd, and the environment will continue to deteriorate until polluting practices are abandoned.
B. F. Skinner
Image
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
Image
A disappointment is not generally an oversight. It might just be the best one can do the situation being what it is. The genuine error is to quit attempting.
B. F. Skinner
Image
A permissive government is a government that leaves control to other sources.
B. F. Skinner
Image
That's all teaching is arranging contingencies which bring changes in behavior.
B. F. Skinner
Image
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.
B. F. Skinner
Image
I may say that the only differences I expect to see revealed between the behavior of the rat and man (aside from enormous differences of complexity) lie in the field of verbal behavior.
B. F. Skinner
Image
Any single historical event is too complex to be adequately known by anyone. It transcends all the intellectual capacities of men. Our practice is to wait until a sufficient number of details have been forgotten. Of course things seem simpler then! Our memories work that way we retain the facts which are easiest to think about.
B. F. Skinner