Unpossessed evidence: what’s the problem?

Abstract

Pat is a precocious 16 year old; her reading varies widely, and when she is not devouring War and Peace or the Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, she picks up scientifc works that are listed in a great books program. One of these books is B.F. Skinner’s Science and Human Behavior. It is the first work on psychology Pat has read all the way through and she is fascinated by Skinner’s ambitions, struck by his confident tone, and carried away by his arguments. Upon reading it, Pat becomes enthralled with the idea of behaviorism; she spends months reading and refecting daily on Skinner’s book, looking for whatever faw she can find in the argument. At the end of several months' time, she becomes a convinced behaviorist.