Hey. Yeah... Skinner also wrote a novel called 'Walden Two' which was part of the inspiration behind 'A Clockwork Orange' and 'Brave New World'. She actually turned out to be fairly sympathetic to Skinner... He did choose an unfortunate terminology (e.g., 'Beyond Freedom and Dignity') but he was something of a humanist and he had a lot of good ideas as to how to achieve a utopian like society. I think most of the criticisms have been based on misunderstanding his view... But that being said, I guess Chomsky was thought to have a nail in the coffin with respect to his poverty of the stimulus arguments etc etc regarding language acquisition. On with the Cognitive Revolution ho...

I have some really mixed feelings about the Harry Harlow experiments. He wanted to study the nature of love and so he proceeds to deprive monkeys of love to study the effects. Seems that he has resulted in lasting policy changes (doctors now place newborns on the stomachs of mothers to help promote the touch bond; kids in orphanages and infants in hospitals are now held and stroked and stuff etc etc). Put an end to some of the authoritarian childraising practices (shake hands goodnight and don't overindulge with touch).

But... Look at the monkeys... Horrific. The rape rack etc etc. I guess that for the mostpart... A person who is willing to devote so much time to their work is going to be a little odd... But I do have some serious ethical problems with the monkey experiments... Yeah...

There are some problems with the book in that she says someone said xxx and turns out that that is completely unsubstantiated. She has been called on a couple of things (sorry - can't remember precisely which) and looks like she got a little too liberal with the poetic lisence. Still, that being said, it is a great read for people who don't know anything about the people / experiements and it is a great read for people who do know something about them. It can be all too easy to lose sight of the humanist aspects when you are simply reading findings reported in a text book...