Sorry, Beth, I�m still not convinced! First let me say that I was not precise enough in my question (as I realised after I posted my message, but by then I�d already posted two messages, and I didn�t want to use up my third for the day correcting it!).
I asked: >Beth, you quote Slater�s writing, �This much we presume we >know:�[�]�, but I don�t see any specific disowning of the >account she presented (above) [in Beth�s quoted passages on 23 March]. By �the account she presented� I meant (but didn�t make clear) the account of *the supposed training of Deborah* that immediately followed �This much we presume to know�, namely, > Her name was Deborah. He wanted to train her, so he kept > her caged for two full years, placing with her cramped square > space bells and food trays and all manner of mean punishments > and bright rewards, and he tracked her progress on a grid. Beth writes: > Slater disowns the fabricated account several times throughout the > chapter. Early in the chapter she writes how she typed "B. F. Skinner" > into a search engine and got thousands of hits, much of it trash >(there's that hyperbole of mine again) but also including one about > Deborah Skinner, with a picture of her, and Deborah's words: > > "'My name is Deborah Skinner,' the caption read, 'and my suicide is a > myth. I am alive and well. The box is not what is seems. My father is > not what he seems. He was a brilliant psychologist, a compassionate > parent. I write to dispel the legends.' > "Legends. Stories. True tales. Tall tales. Perhaps the challenge of > understanding Skinner's experiments will be primarily discriminatory, > separating content from controversy, a sifting through. Writes > pychologist and historian John A. Mills, '[Skinner] was a mystery > wrapped in a riddle wrapped in an enigma.' > "I decided to wade in, slowly." > > Slater then interviews Bryan Porter, "an experimental psychologist" who > clarifies Deborah's "doing fine, really." > > Then she connects with Skinner's other daughter, Julie Vargas, a > professor of education at the University of West Virginia: > > "My sister is alive and well," she says. I have not, of course, even > asked her this, but it's clear many others have; it's clear the question > tires her; it's clear she knows that every query about her family begins > and ends > in the sordid spots, bypassing entirely the work itself. > "I saw her picture on the Web," I say. > "She's an artist," Julie says. "She lives in England." > "Was she close to your father?" I say. > "Oh, we both were," Julie says, and then she pauses, and I can > practically feel things pushing against the pause - memories, feelings, > her > father's hands on her head - "I miss him terribly...He had a way > with children," she says. "He loved them...He used to make us kites, box > kites > which we flew on Monhegan, and he took us to the circus every > year and our dog, Hunter, he was a beagle and Dad taught him to play > hide and seek. He could teach anything, so our dog played hide and seek > and we > also had a cat that played the piano, it was a world," she says, > "...those kites." > > Julie then goes on to tell Slater: > > "You know, if my father made one mistake, it was in the words he chose. > People hear the word 'control' and they think fascist...He was a > pacifist. He was a child advocate. He did not believe in ANY punishment > because > he saw firsthand with the animals how it didn't work. My father > is responsible > for the repeal of the corporal punishment ruling in > California, but no one remembers him for that." > > > I think that if Slater herself made one mistake, it was that she chose > the wrong words, inserted the suggestion of this silly myth, and in an > awkward way worded her description of how others think it. She even > suggested at first that there was a hint of something fishy in Porter's > > description. But then she meets with Julie Vargas, they go to the house > where > Skinner died, and Slater makes it clear she understands she's in > the presence of > brilliance and history. > > In the end, Slater denies that the story is true three different times: > in her > early Web search, after talking to Porter, and after talking to > Julie Skinner > Vargas. Beth, I don�t see in the words you�ve quoted here a specific denial of the following account: > Her name was Deborah. He wanted to > train her, so he kept her caged for two full years, placing with her > cramped square space bells and food trays and all manner of mean > punishments and bright rewards, and he tracked her progress on a grid. The nearest seems to be: > ...Early in the chapter she writes how she typed "B. F. Skinner" > into a search engine and got thousands of hits, much of it trash >(there's that hyperbole of mine again) but also including one about > Deborah Skinner, with a picture of her, and Deborah's words: > > "'My name is Deborah Skinner,' the caption read, 'and my suicide is a > myth. I am alive and well. The box is not what is seems. My father is > not what he seems. He was a brilliant psychologist, a compassionate > parent. I write to dispel the legends.' > "Legends. Stories. True tales. Tall tales. Perhaps the challenge of > understanding Skinner's experiments will be primarily discriminatory, > separating content from controversy, a sifting through. Deborah being quoted as saying, �The box is not what it seems. My father is not what he seems�, is not an explicit denial of the training scenario described above. (It comes across as more like, �It looks bad, but it wasn�t all that terrible�! Reminds me of the classic scene in a film, with someone saying �This is not what it seems�, with a bloody knife in his hand and a stabbed victim at his feet!) Slater writes: > "Legends. Stories. True tales. Tall tales. Perhaps the challenge of > understanding Skinner's experiments will be primarily discriminatory, > separating content from controversy, a sifting through. This is precisely the kind of language that I felt uneasy with when I heard it on BBC radio. What does all that really mean? It certainly doesn�t qualify as a rebuttal of the Deborah training story (and presumably is not meant to be that specific). Unless Beth can come up with a more specific quote, I remain unconvinced that Slater made clear that the �training� story was false and that Deborah has no cause for complaint. > So I hope this clears up Slater's name, at least on TIPS. There IS a > lot of literary self-insertion in the story, but that's the way Slater > writes. She brings her own history to her writing, and readers who are > familiar > with her writing expect this. She is not writing a > third-person biography of Skinner, but rather just describing what her > experience was when trying to find out the story of Skinner. There are still the denials from various folk that they said what she quoted them as saying. And, as I�ve already said, I disbelieved her quote of Spitzer as improbable in the extreme before I read his emphatic denial. And the question Deborah asks also remains on the table. Why didn�t Slater contact Deborah, who was at the very heart of the �training� story? It seems unlikely that Deborah�s sister in America wouldn�t have given Slater her address/phone number if she�d asked (and Slater doesn�t say she was denied access to Deborah). I should add that I went into a bookstore today and skimmed through the chapter on Skinner in Slater�s book. I couldn�t find any passage in which Slater stated that the Deborah �training� story was false. Of course perusing a book in a store is not the best way to do research, so I could be wrong. So over to you again, Beth! Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.human-nature.com/esterson/index.html http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/articleprint.php?num=10 --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
