Editing B. F. Skinner (section)

=== Noam Chomsky ===
American linguist [[Noam Chomsky]] published a [[Verbal Behavior#Chomsky's review|review]] of Skinner's ''[[Verbal Behavior]]'' in the linguistics journal ''[[Language (journal)|Language]]'' in 1959.<ref name="Chomsky review">{{Cite journal|last=Chomsky|first=Noam|author-link=Noam Chomsky|year=1959|title=Reviews: ''Verbal Behavior'' by B. F. Skinner|url=http://www.chomsky.info/articles/1967----.htm|journal=[[Language (journal)|Language]]|volume=35|issue=1|pages=26–58|jstor=411334|doi=10.2307/411334|access-date=May 20, 2007|archive-date=September 29, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150929070654/http://www.chomsky.info/articles/1967----.htm}}</ref> Chomsky argued that Skinner's attempt to use behaviorism to explain human language amounted to little more than word games. Conditioned responses could not account for a child's ability to create or understand an infinite variety of novel sentences. Chomsky's review has been credited with launching the [[cognitive revolution]] in psychology and other disciplines<!-- <ref>see Chomsky page for citation</ref>-->. Skinner, who rarely responded directly to critics, never formally replied to Chomsky's critique, but endorsed [[Kenneth MacCorquodale]]'s 1972 reply.<ref name=MacCorquodale>{{Cite journal|last=MacCorquodale|first=Kenneth|date=1970-01-01|journal=Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior|language=en|volume=13|issue=1|pages=83–99|doi=10.1901/jeab.1970.13-83|issn=1938-3711|pmc=1333660|title=On Chomsky's review of Skinner's Verbal Behavior}}</ref>

{{blockquote|I read half a dozen pages, saw that it missed the point of my book, and went no further. [...] My reasons, I am afraid, show a lack of character. In the first place I should have had to read the
review, and I found its tone distasteful. It was not really a review of my book but of what Chomsky took, erroneously, to be my position.<ref name="Skinner_1972">{{cite book | last=Skinner | first=B. F. | editor-last=Skinner | editor-first=B. F.| title=Cumulative Record | edition=3rd | publisher=Appleton-Century-Crofts | date=1972 | pages=345–355 | chapter=A Lecture on 'Having' a Poem | isbn= 978-0-9899839-9-0  | url=https://userpages.umbc.edu/~catania/ABACNJ/bfs%20lecture%20poem.pdf | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210807071303/https://userpages.umbc.edu/~catania/ABACNJ/bfs%20lecture%20poem.pdf | access-date=2021-08-07| archive-date=August 7, 2021 }}</ref>}}

Many academics in the 1960s believed that Skinner's silence on the question meant Chomsky's criticism had been justified. But MacCorquodale wrote that Chomsky's criticism did not focus on Skinner's ''Verbal Behavior'', but rather attacked a confusion of ideas from behavioral psychology. MacCorquodale also regretted Chomsky's aggressive tone.<ref name=MacCorquodale /> Furthermore, Chomsky had aimed at delivering a definitive refutation of Skinner by citing dozens of animal instinct and animal learning studies. On the one hand, he argued that the studies on animal instinct proved that animal behavior is innate, and therefore Skinner was mistaken. On the other, Chomsky's opinion of the studies on learning was that one cannot draw an analogy from animal studies to human behavior—or, that research on animal instinct refutes research on animal learning.<ref name="Chomsky review" /><ref name="Palmer_2006">{{cite journal | last=Palmer | first=David C. | date=2006 | title=On Chomsky's appraisal of Skinner's Verbal Behavior: a half century of misunderstanding | journal=The Behavior Analyst | volume=29 | issue=2 | pages=253–267 | doi=10.1007/BF03392134 | pmid=22478467 | pmc=2223153 }}</ref>

Chomsky also reviewed Skinner's ''[[Beyond Freedom and Dignity]]'', using the same basic motives as his ''Verbal Behavior'' review. Among Chomsky's criticisms were that Skinner's laboratory work could not be extended to humans, that when it was extended to humans it represented "[[Scientism|scientistic]]" behavior attempting to emulate science but which was not scientific, that Skinner was not a scientist because he rejected the [[hypothetico-deductive model]] of theory testing, and that Skinner had no science of behavior.<ref>Chomsky, Noam (1971). "The Case Against B. F. Skinner". ''New York Review of Books''.</ref>