LOEB,JACQUES, SKINNER,B.E, AND THE LEGACY OF PREDICTION AND CONTROL

The biologist Jacques Loeb is an important figure in the history of be havior analysis. Between 1890 and 1915, Loeb championed an approach to experimental biology that would later exert substantial influence on the work of B. F. Skinner and behavior analysis. This paper examines s ome of these sources of influence, with a particular emphasis on Loeb' s firm commitment to prediction and control as fundamental goals of an experimental life science, and how these goals were extended and broa dened by Skinner. Both Loeb and Skinner adopted a pragmatic approach t o science that put practical control of their subject matter above for mal theory testing, both based their research programs on analyses of reproducible units involving the intact organism, and both strongly en dorsed technological applications of basic laboratory science. For Loe b, but especially for Skinner, control came to mean something more tha n mere experimental or technological control for its own sake; it beca me synonomous with scientific understanding. This view follows from (a ) the successful working model of science Loeb and Skinner inherited f rom Ernst Mach, in which science is viewed as human social activity, a nd effective practical action is taken as the basis of scientific know ledge, and (b) Skinner's analysis of scientific activity, situated in the world of direct experience and related to practices arranged by sc ientific verbal communities. From this perspective, prediction and con trol are human acts that arise from and are maintained by social circu mstances in which such acts meet with effective consequences.