Renowned behavioral psychologist BF Skinner codified much of the science behind positive reinforcement-based animal training, and is a hero to many dog trainers. But for over half a century, his reputation has been tarnished by rumors that his daughter went crazy and killed herself because he raised her in a box. Annie interviews said daughter, Deborah Buzan, who is alive and sane. She was in fact raised in a box... sort of. Buzan discussed the "Air Crib," aka the "Baby Box," and growing up with a genius father who was devoted to engineering ways to make life easier and happier for his wife and daughters.

Notes -  Music: Hello My Baby cover by Melissa Mahony of the Channel Drifters - Blue Danube cover by David Beckingham - BF Skinner Foundation: BFSkinner.org - Sponsor: Is your Inbox a mess? You need SANEBOX! Get a free trial and $15 off SchoolForTheDogs.com/Sane
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Partial Transcript:

Today I am speaking to a very famous baby. Of course she is not a baby any more. She is a woman in her seventies. The story of her babyhood has become something of an urban legend. The misunderstandings about her youth I think actually dovetail with a lot of misunderstandings about dog training. Deborah Buzan is an artist who lives in England and we spoke via Skype, and, unfortunately, we didn’t have a great connection. So, this recording isn’t wonderful but I did my best to clean it up. But even if it is not the most easy listening I hope you’ll make it through this episode because we had a really interesting conversation. She is the daughter of B.F. Skinner and if you’ve listened to this podcast before, you’ve probably heard me talk about Skinner. He is one of my heroes and a hero to many good dog trainers out there. Skinner, who sadly passed away in the early 1990s, is considered to be one of the founders of the science of behavior.He codified a lot of what we know about the science and philosophy of behaviorism. If you’re not familiar with Skinner, I suggest going out and getting all of his books, or at least one of them. About Behaviorism a good one to start with, or Beyond Freedom and Dignity. He also wrote a novel called Walden Two which is kind of about how you could create a utopia creating positive reinforcement.

Anyway, I thought the best way to introduce Deborah would be with this clip of her father discussing some of the misunderstandings about how she was raised.
“I’d like to correct some rumors that go around. I am sure that some of you have heard them. A distinguished psychiatrist whose name you all know, I won’t mention it, told a distinguished person whose name you also would know, that the child that we raised in the so called box, the air crib, became psychotic. I wrote to him that we’ve heard this before and I’ve often heard this, would you mind telling me where you heard this rumor? Our daughter is very intelligent and talented, married, her husband teaches international studies at the Univ. Of Warwick, they live in London. My daughter is an artist, she does large color etching and sells all she can produce and so on. I don’t see any ill effects of the air crib on her. Well, he sent me a very apologetic letter, I must say that. But he didn’t tell me where he heard it."

Full Transcript available at SchoolfortheDogs.com/Podcasts

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