🚀 go-pugleaf

A side note to the debate on the status of science in human affairs:  Skinner w
as above all things a humanist.  He received the Humanist of the Year award at
UC Berkely in 1972, and gave an address entitled "Behaviorism is a humanistic p
sychology."  More than any psychologist his work has had a profound effect on i
mproving education, parenting, and training.  Certainly a morte profound impact
 on society than other theorists labeled as humanists.  He was deeply concerned
 about the human condition.  He simply had different ideas about how best to
address society's ills and little or no tolerance for fiction.  I think it is i
n this area that he runs into trouble.  Ideas like "mind" "soul" "Freedom" and
"dignity" are just that:  ideas.  Social constructions that humans utilize.  Wh
at Skinner did not appreciate is that while all meanings are constructed by peo
ple, these constructions are meaningful for people.  While not real objectively
, they serve a societal purpose and as such are not easily replaced simply by p
ointing out their historical nature, absurdity or non-reality.  "Minds" do not
exist as nouns in the same way that rocks do, but are a useful way of talking a
bout humans (and sometimes other organisms).  I recommend Gilbert Ryle's Concep
t of Mind on this point.  The problem (and what Skinner is after when he talks
about explanatory fictions) is the logical error people make when the reify the
se ideas and presume that they are real in the same way the physical objects ar
e.

I think it is important to distiguish between the ideals of scientific inquirey
 and the practical reality.  Now if the practical reality is in reality the bes
t approximation of the ideal then it becomes a meaningless distinction.  Howeve
r I think the jury is out.  "Science" is frequently nothing more than a rhetori
cal device used to delimit inquirey and discredit alternate views.  It doesn't
necessarily follow that that is what science is *for*.  In general, culture
finds it's own uses for any tools, technologies or ideas.   Which leads to my n
ext point and major concern about a science of human behavior.  It is not the c
ase that such a science is impossible.  We already have it, and it is always al
ready being exercised against us by commercial and political interests.  As soc
ial scientists we have failed to take responsibility for the products we create
.  Instead we hand them over to politicians, advertising agencies and corporate
 interests either for money or by ignoring the problem and failing to take resp
onsibility.  As Oppenheimer noted that "I have become Shiva, Destroyer of World
s" at the culmination of the Manhattan Project, we have created the tools for p
ower interests to control populations quietly and invisibly.  When I teach rese
arch methods I always add this point in on the unit on the ethics of research.
  For some reason this dimension is ignored in most texts.  (If someone knows o
f a good undergraduate text that covers scientists responsibility for the socie
tal consequences of their creations I would appreciate a citation).

I have some initial thoughts on the danger of allowing subjectivity to be the b
asis of our decisions (for example, the idea that we have some inner self that
is wise and knowing automatically).  However, that is another post altogether.

Ken Heard
Univ. Rhode Island