B. F. Skinner (1904–1990)

Easily ranks w/The Fountainhead as one of the worst poxes ever hoisted on humanity. Almost single handedly stole psychology from the hands of Jung, who had succeeded in giving creedence to the introvert and the play of fantasy in the inner life, Skinner reduces humanity to a succession of outward behaviors. And because when you're dealing with academia, you're looking at people who want things that are easily measured, Skinner and his ilk easily won out, leading to the Prozac-zombie state of the States and most of the Western world today. To be fair, perhaps Skinner has had a positive effect on education and inner-city renewal, but his dissolution of autonomous man, as he puts it, is vile. The other thing that bothers me about this book is how terribly it's written. Anyone with a good sense of English or logic could work out his methods without thinking. By placing his opinions between obvious facts, he makes his opinions appear as facts, i.e. "The sky is blue. Humans can be trained like guinea pigs. The grass is green." Or long paragraphs of substituting one set of phrases for his behaviorist terminology. Almost as horrible to read as Freud. But at least Freud was on the right track by mapping the subconscious. It wasn't until Jung and von Franz that psychology really came into its own. It's a vicious shame that it's been overrun by this Pavlovian charlatan.… (more)

Easily ranks w/The Fountainhead as one of the worst poxes ever hoisted on humanity. Almost single handedly stole psychology from the hands of Jung, who had succeeded in giving creedence to the introvert and the play of fantasy in the inner life, Skinner reduces humanity to a succession of outward behaviors. And because when you're dealing with academia, you're looking at people who want things that are easily measured, Skinner and his ilk easily won out, leading to the Prozac-zombie state of the States and most of the Western world today. To be fair, perhaps Skinner has had a positive effect on education and inner-city renewal, but his dissolution of autonomous man, as he puts it, is vile. The other thing that bothers me about this book is how terribly it's written. Anyone with a good sense of English or logic could work out his methods without thinking. By placing his opinions between obvious facts, he makes his opinions appear as facts, i.e. "The sky is blue. Humans can be trained like guinea pigs. The grass is green." Or long paragraphs of substituting one set of phrases for his behaviorist terminology. Almost as horrible to read as Freud. But at least Freud was on the right track by mapping the subconscious. It wasn't until Jung and von Franz that psychology really came into its own. It's a vicious shame that it's been overrun by this Pavlovian charlatan.… (more)