466 Part VI Learning-Cognitive Theories
disposition to deal with facts rather than with what someone has said about them”
(p. 12). In particular, there are three components to the scientific attitude: First, it
rejects authority—even its own authority. Just because some well-respected person,
such as Einstein, says something, that in itself does not make the statement true. It
must stand the test of empirical observation. Recall from Chapter 1 our discussion
of Aristotle’s belief that bodies of different masses fall at different rates. That was
accepted as fact for roughly 1,000 years simply because Aristotle said it. Galileo,
however, tested that idea scientifically and discovered that it was not true. Second,
science demands intellectual honesty, and it requires scientists to accept facts even
when these facts are opposed to their wishes and desires. This attitude does not
mean that scientists are inherently more honest than other people. They are not.
Scientists have been known to fabricate data and misrepresent their findings. How-
ever, as a discipline, science puts a high premium on intellectual honesty simply
because the right answer ultimately will be discovered. Scientists have no choice
but to report results that go against their hopes and hypotheses, because if they do
not, someone else will, and the new results will show that the scientists who mis-
represented data were wrong. “Where right and wrong are not so easily or so quickly
established, there is no similar pressure” (Skinner, 1953, p. 13). Finally, science sus-
pends judgment until clear trends emerge. Nothing is more damaging to a scientist’s
reputation than to rush into print findings that are insufficiently verified and tested.
If a scientist’s report of findings does not hold up to replication, then that scientist
appears foolish at best and dishonest at worst. A healthy skepticism and willingness
to suspend judgment are therefore essential to being a scientist.
A third characteristic of science is a search for order and lawful relationships.
All science begins with observation of single events and then attempts to infer
general principles and laws from those events. In short, the scientific method con-
sists of prediction, control, and description. A scientist makes observations guided
by theoretical assumptions, develops hypotheses (makes predictions), tests these
hypotheses through controlled experimentation, describes honestly and accurately
the results, and finally modifies the theory to match the actual empirical results.
This circular relationship between theory and research was discussed in Chapter 1.
Skinner (1953) believed that prediction, control, and description are possible
in scientific behaviorism because behavior is both determined and lawful. Human
behavior, like that of physical and biological entities, is neither whimsical nor the
outcome of free will. It is determined by certain identifiable variables and follows
definite lawful principles, which potentially can be known. Behavior that appears
to be capricious or individually determined is simply beyond scientists’ present
capacity to predict or control. But, hypothetically, the conditions under which it
occurs can be discovered, thus permitting both prediction and control as well as
description. Skinner devoted much of his time to trying to discover these condi-
tions, using a procedure he called operant conditioning.Conditioning
Skinner (1953) recognized two kinds of conditioning, classical and operant. With
classical conditioning (which Skinner called respondent conditioning), a response
is drawn out of the organism by a specific, identifiable stimulus. With operant