[From Rick Marken (960813.2130)]
Bill Powers (960813.1430 MDT)]
He [Skinner] was completely committed to the idea that the
environment is the ultimate controller of behavior...He was
on the very brink of discovering PCT, and turned his back on it
We can see that he was on the brink -- but I think we can see this
in the same way we can see that a monkey who has just typed "To be,
or not tx chyt" was on the brink of a great phrase. I don't think
there was ever any chance that Skinner would have "gotten it" (PCT)
for the reason you give above; he was committed to seeing behavior
as controlled by the environment. When he spoke of the pigeon as a
controlling agent it was probably because he had let down his
linguistic guard and succumbed to taking about behavior the way all
of us unscientific types talk about it -- as though the bird actually
had wants, desires, intentions and, yucch, purposes;-)
In mitigation, I think it's clear that Skinner ran afoul (or is that
afowl?) of the "modern control engineers" of his time. At a hearing
where he presented his case to the top scientists in the field, one
observer objected that the system would hunt wildly and lose the target.Fortunately, another scientist was present who had seen the
simulator performing under excellent control and who could confirm
our report of the facts. But reality was no match for mathematics.I wonder to what extend plain old bitterness, well-justified, might
account for Skinner's abandonment of the concepts of control theory.
The phrase you quote suggests a bitterness towards mathematics
rather than control theory. I read (or my graduate adviser, who
knew Skinner, told me) that Skinner didn't like math, probably
because he was not very good at it. But he was a good tinkerer
so he found his niche in research psychology; he was (as you note)
a clever experimenter. But his dislike of math led to a dislike of
theory (modeling) as well (most real theories are mathematical) so
he became a clever experimenter with no quantitative theory to test.
Of course, you can't be a researcher for long without some kind of
organizing principle to motivate new research; Skinner's organizing
principle was "environmental selection". His research program was
devoted to testing (demonstrating, really) the qualitative relationship
between environment and behavior suggested by the phrase "environmetnal
selection".
I think Skinner really disliked mathematical modelling -- even when
his disciples did it. I think he liked to talk a theory -- not only
becuase talking came so much easier than math but also because it was
so much easier to make things come out right that way. I think Skinner's
comment that "reality was no match for mathematics" was his way of
saying "see, my experimental tinkering reveals a reality that is
not even dreamed of in your mathematics".
I think it's possible that if Skinner had done better in his math
and physics courses he might, indeed, have stumbled on PCT after all.
But, unfortunately, Skinner was an English major (like my daughter;
maybe I'd better have a word with her;-))
Best
Rick