On Wed, 06 Jan 2016 15:25:42 -0800, Kenneth Steele wrote:
On Jan 6, 2016, at 5:29 PM, Mike Palij wrote:
(2) However, in spite of BSS not being a valid category until 1980,
the list of NMS laureates in the list linked to below has as its
first entry in this category as Neal Miller in 1964. Skinner comes
in 1968. However, Neal Miller is officially in BSS while Skinner
is in "Biological Sciences" (note the footnote in the Wiki list).
IMHO, I think the NSF got it backwards for these two
Hi Mike:
Hi Ken,
Respectfully, I disagree with your assessment. Skinner's dissertation
was
concerned with the definition of "reflex" which he concluded was best
considered as a reliable correlation between stimulus and response.
Both
Lorenz and Tinbergen followed very similar paths (i.e., Fixed Action
Patterns;
although Tinbergen was much more concerned with mechanism).
For the record, this is the dissertation you're referring to, right?
Skinner, Burrhus Frederic (1931) The Concept of the Reflex in the
Description
of Behavior. . Harvard University, ProQuest Dissertations Publishing,
0304318.
A form of which was published in the following reference:
Skinner, B. F. (1931). The concept of the reflex in the description of
behavior.
The Journal of General Psychology, 5(4), 427-458.
Which was reprinted in Skinner's "Cumulative Record" (pp321-346),
a copy of which I think I swiped from your website in a Google search.
;-)
All this leads to the point that I am very confident that I read this
paper a
long time ago (because I read all of "Cumulative Record" as an
undergrad)
but don't exactly remember what it is about. However, let me suggest
a later paper that Skinner wrote, the reference is the following:
Skinner, B. F. (1998/2013). The experimental analysis of operant
behavior:
A history. In R.W. Rieber and K. Salzinger (eds.) Psychology,
Theoretical/historical
perspectives, (pp289-298) Academic Press.
And this chapter can be read (most of it anyway) on books.google.com at
the following ungodly URL:
https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=yfFFBQAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA191&ots=Y0yRT6WrMi&sig=XbTnNtPbrjIJ-r4aZgs2-Byg_i4#v=onepage&q&f=false
The chapter provides Skinner's memory about his intellectual development
as an undergraduate to his dissertation and how his conception of the
reflex
differed from others, especially in a particular example.where he
contrasts
it with Tolman's conception. He goes over an equation that
characterizes
both his and Tolman's conception of how behavior/performance is a
function
several different factors (e.g., genetics, prior training, etc.) and
Skinner points
out that the key difference between he and Tolman was that Tolman
assumed
that a couple of these factors were cognitive while Skinner thought that
they
were environmental. He even mentions how "reductionist" the traditional
neurophysiology folks were in contrast to his view of
organism-environment
interactionism. I think that this chapter better captures Skinner's
view of
what he was trying to do throughout his life and explains where his
anti-cognitive and anti-biological reductionism comes from (the latter
being
a traditional view in the biological sciences which accommodates Neal
Miller
and makes him more of the "biologist" than Skinner, hence my comment
that
I thought that the NSF got the disciplines wrong).
Skinner, as far as I can tell, always considered himself a
whole-organism
biologist, as distinct from a reductionist biologist. He was closer to
field
ecology and eschewed slice and dice anatomy.
Well, the chapter I refer to above, I think, shows Skinner being more
concerned with organism-environment interactions and putting into the
environment those variables and factors that others would either put
into
the neurophysiology of the organism or its cognitive system.
But I'm a lapsed behaviorist so what do I know? ;-)
-Mike Palij
New York University
m...@nyu.edu
P.S. I'm surprised no one has mentioned that I can't count. ;-)
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