Ernst Mach and B. F. Skinner: Their similarities with two traditions for verbal behavior.

The author compared two thinkers: physicist Ernst Mach and psychologist B. F. Skinner. He showed that both men first followed a simple 'stimulus-response' view of science. Later, both switched to a 'selectionist' view that says consequences, not triggers, shape behavior.

The paper is pure history and philosophy. No kids, no pigeons, no data tables. It tracks how Skinner’s 1957 book Verbal Behavior broke away from his own earlier ideas.

Skinner ended up rejecting 'meaning is inside the word.' Instead, he said meaning lives in the speaker’s past and future consequences. Words survive like species: if they work, they stay; if they don’t, they die out.

The shift matters. Early Skinner treated talking like a knee-jerk reflex. Late Skinner treated talking like a tool that gets shaped by listener reactions.

Neuringer et al. (1968) gave toys and praise each time a quiet preschooler spoke. Talking shot up, proving social and material reinforcers work. That lab test is exactly the kind of consequence-driven process the target paper says Skinner finally championed.

Hartmann et al. (1979) and Brown et al. (1968) showed pigeons pecking keys just because lights predicted food, even with no response requirement. These studies celebrate pure stimulus-control, the very S-R tradition the target says Skinner later dumped.

Martinez-Perez et al. (2024) used modern group designs to study punishment and resurgence. Their tight operant methods stem from Skinner’s legacy, but they never question 'meaning'—something the target paper insists we must do.

Check your own language in therapy notes and parent training. If you write 'the word bottle means milk,' you sound like early Skinner. Try 'the word bottle has been reinforced by getting milk.' That small shift keeps you aligned with selectionist science and may sharpen how you teach mands, tacts, and intraverbals.