B.F. Skinner

1904–1990 · American behaviorist

Topics: learning, artificial intelligence

• It is the teacher's function to contrive conditions under which students learn. Their relevance to a future usefulness need not be obvious.

  — B.F. Skinner

• Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.

  — B.F. Skinner

• We shouldn't teach great books; we should teach a love of reading. Knowing the contents of a few works of literature is a trivial achievement. Being inclined to go on reading is a great achievement.

  — B.F. Skinner

• The real question is not whether machines think but whether men do. The mystery which surrounds a thinking machine already surrounds a thinking man.

  — B.F. Skinner