Variation and Selection: The Evolutionary Analogy in Skinner’s Theory

Abstract

Many aspects of Skinner’s thinking have been persistently misinterpreted by his opponents. His views on the role of the environment or on verbal behaviour are cases in point. Skinner has been classified among S-R psychologists, in spite of his numerous explicit statements to the contrary (Skinner, 1953, 1969). Few contemporary psycholinguists, still confident in Chomsky’s influential attacks (Chomsky, 1959), would recognize that their current research is exactly fulfilling Skinner’s suggestion that the ‘global episode’ of verbal exchanges between speaker and listener should be considered. However, no misrepresentation of Skinner’s views seems more difficult to eradicate than that concerning the relation of a science of behaviour to biology.

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