B.F. Skinner and the Metaphysics of Darwinism
Treat each client’s behavior as a unique product of selection, not a symptom of an inner essence.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Ghiselin (2018) digs into Skinner’s philosophical roots. The paper says Skinner saw behavior as a Darwinian process.
Ideas of fixed ‘human nature’ or hidden minds get tossed out. Only real, observable acts count.
What they found
The review shows Skinner treated responses like organisms under selection. Successful acts survive and multiply.
Therefore, behavior analysts should describe each person’s unique history, not hunt for universal laws inside the head.
How this fits with other research
Durand (1982) set the stage. It told analysts to stay skeptical and test every claim. Ghiselin (2018) keeps that spirit but swaps the analogy from 19th-century medicine to Darwinian evolution.
Shyman (2016) extends the same anti-essential point to disability. If we drop fixed labels like ‘autistic essence,’ we can tailor ABA goals to the individual instead of the diagnosis.
Van der Molen et al. (2010) give the idea teeth. Their computer simulation let virtual organisms evolve under reinforcement. The model spit out the same matching-law patterns seen in live pigeons, turning Skinner’s metaphor into numbers.
Why it matters
Next time you write a program, skip phrases like ‘because he has autism’ and state what the learner actually does. Describe the action and the context that keeps it alive. Then shape new responses the same way evolution shapes species: one small, successful step at a time.
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Rewrite one goal in plain behavior language: drop the label and state the exact response plus its maintaining context.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
B. F. Skinner viewed behaviorism not as the science of behavior, but a philosophy of that science. Such philosophizing is a legitimate part of a scientist’s investigative behavior. He sought to eliminate confusion and error by getting rid of objectionable posits such as homunculi, vital forces, intentionalities, purposes and essences, sticking to overt behavior and spurning “mentalism.” Skinner believed that there are hard analogies between learning and natural selection, such that what is appropriate in the study of one may be appropriate in the study of the other. Dispensing with teleology is but one example. Where there is selection by consequences, variation has to be taken seriously. Essentialism or typology screens out variation and leads to stereotypes. It may be viewed as treating individuals (in a broad, philosophical sense) as if they were classes. Individuals are concrete, particular things, including species and many other groups, whereas classes are abstract. Individuals can engage in processes, such as behavior. But they do not have definitions (or essences), and there are no laws of nature for them. Trying to find a definition, or an essence, for the human species is trying to find a definition for an indefinable instead of a description for a describable. Idealism has introduced a kind of mentalism into behavioral discourse that behavior analysts should scrupulously avoid. There are no laws for individuals, only for kinds of individuals, and care needs to be taken to avoid confusing laws of nature with contingent, historical fact. Skinner was a (perhaps somewhat inconsistent) realist who presupposed the uniformity of nature in his investigations. Investigative behavior may be more lawful than even he maintained.
Perspectives on Behavior Science, 2018 · doi:10.1007/s40614-018-0139-8