PSYCHOLOGY IN THE YEAR 2000

Abstract

This article presents a hitherto unpublished address by B. F. Skinner given on May 10, 1968 to the Department of Psychology in commemoration of the Centennial of Wayne State University. The topic was "Psychology in the Year 2000." The comment is made that it's tempting to approach this topic in the spirit of science fiction. Interesting as all that may be, we must not forget that 2000 A.D. is only 32 years away. It lies as near us in the future as 1936 in the past, and many of us remember that very well indeed. It is quite possible that the final third of the 20th century will see greater progress in psychology than the middle third, because science is always accelerating, but it's unlikely that progress will be of an entirely different order of magnitude. It is more likely that certain current trends will continue and that our best guess about the year 2000 will come from a rather conservative extrapolation of what is going on now. By the year 2000 we will have to leave fewer of our problems to personal experience, to historical analogy, or to the kind folk wisdom that at the present time go into their solution. Possibly this is science fiction but it may nevertheless come true-a scientific analysis of human behavior is generating a technology that may have extraordinary consequences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved)