A historical Pachinko machine, a relative of Francis Galton's
Quincunx and the AAKKOZZLL, and the predecessor of the widely popular amusement
in today's Japan. Click here for more info – photo
by Gnsin.
Science has probably never demanded a more sweeping change in a traditional
way of thinking about a subject, nor has there ever been a more important
subject. In the traditional picture a person perceives the world around
him, selects features to be perceived, discriminates among them, judges
them good or bad, changes them to make them better (or, if he is careless,
worse), and may be held responsible for his action and justly rewarded
or punished for its consequences. In the scientific picture a person is
a member of a species shaped by evolutionary contingencies of survival,
displaying behavioral processes which bring him under the control of the
environment which he and millions of others like him have constructed and
maintained during the evolution of culture. The direction of the controlling
relation is reversed: a person does not act upon the world, the
world acts upon him.
It is difficult to accept such a change simply
on intellectual grounds and nearly impossible to accept its implications.
The reaction of the traditionalist is usually described in terms of feelings.
One of these, to which the Freudians have appealed in explaining the resistance
to psychoanalysis, is wounded vanity. Freud himself expounded, as Ernest
Jones has said, “the three heavy blows which narcissism or self-love
of mankind had suffered at the hands of science. The first was cosmological
and was dealt by Copernicus; the second was biological and was dealt by
Darwin; the third was psychological and was dealt by Freud.” (The
blow was suffered by the belief that something at the center of man knows
all that goes on within him and that an instrument called will power exercises
command and control over the rest of one’s personality.) But what
are the signs and symptoms of wounded vanity, and how shall we explain
them? What people do about such a scientific picture of man is call it
wrong, demeaning, and dangerous, argue against it, and attack those who
propose or defend it. They do so not out of wounded vanity but because
the scientific formulation has destroyed accustomed reinforcers. If a person
can no longer take credit or be admired for what he does, then he seems
to suffer a loss of dignity or worth, and behavior previously reinforced
by credit or admiration will undergo extinction. Extinction often leads
to aggressive attack.
Another effect of the scientific picture has been
described as a loss of faith or “nerve,” as a sense of doubt
or powerlessness, or as discouragement, depression, or despondency. A person
is said to feel that he can do nothing about his own destiny. But what
he feels is a weakening of old responses which are no longer reinforced.
…
These reactions to a scientific conception of man are certainly unfortunate. They immobilize men of good will, and anyone concerned with the future of his culture will do what he can to correct them.
Skinner, B.F. Beyond Freedom & Dignity, A Bantam/ Vintage Book 1971, pp. 201-203.
