Big Bang Theory: Operant Conditioning

Quotes of B.F. Skinner

"A failure is not always a mistake, it may simply be the best one can do under the circumstances. The real mistake is to stop trying."
 

"Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten."
 

"The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do."
 

"If you're old, don't try to change yourself, change your environment."
 

"The consequences of an act affect the probability of it's occurring again."
 

"We shouldn't teach great books; we should teach a love of reading."
 

"Give me a child and I'll shape him into anything."
 

"Society attacks early, when the individual is helpless."
 

"I did not direct my life. I didn't design it. I never made decisions. Things always came up and made them for me. That's what life is."

Thanks to,
B.F. Skinner Quotes-BrainyQuote

Biography

  B.F. Skinner was born in Susquehanna, Pennsylvania on March 20, 1904.  He got married in his early 30s to a woman named Yvonne.  Together they had two children named Julie and Debbie.  He attended Harvard after a short writing career in Manhattan to study psychology.  B.F. Skinner was a professor at Indiana 1945-1948 and at Harvard 1948-1974. In the article “Skepticism of Caricatures: B.F. Skinner Turns 100” Scott T. Gaynor stated, “He was one of the most influential and controversial psychologists of the twentieth century.”  Sadly, on August 18^th, 1990, B.F. Skinner passed away from leukemia.







SIRS: Skepticism of Caricatures: B.F. Skinner Turns 100