The Strategic Misdeﬁning of the Natural Sciences Within ... · of the Natural Sciences Within...

�ehaviorology �oday � Volume 6, Number 1, Spring 2003 (issn 1536–6669) 5

The Strategic Misdefiningof the Natural Sciences

Within Universities

Lawrence E. FraleyWest Virginia University

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Natural scientists and scholars define natural sci-ence in terms of the natural ontological and epis-temological foundations that inform theirinquiries. In contrast, people outside of the natu-ral science community tend to define natural sci-ence in terms of the subject matters studied in thetraditionally established natural science fields.Within universities, the political containment ofthe natural sciences is facilitated by that conve-nient error, which lends justification to refusals tosanction the expansion of the formally organizednatural sciences, especially into the subject mat-ters of behavioral and social phenomena, whichhave long been regarded as the province of thetraditional social sciences. People outside of thenatural science community generally concedethat the previously established natural sciencesare necessary for coping with the environment,yet many deem the followers and practitioners ofthe natural sciences prone to socio–cultural irre-sponsibility. Accordingly, in their view, the ac-tions of natural scientists must be tempered bycertain kinds of counter–controls exerted fromthe more humanistic sector. They resist the emer-gence of a strictly natural social science megafieldthat would bring the efficacy of the natural sci-ences to bear on the very cultural function thatthe humanists, traditional philosophers, religion-ists, and similar keepers of the cultural humanitytend to see as their piece of the cultural business.Furthermore, that kind of revolutionary natural-ism would be practiced by a subset of the naturalscientists themselves. It would represent a funda-mental change in the system of cultural checksand balances from which the traditional keepersof the values of humanity would, for the mostpart, see themselves excluded. While the pres-sures of history are building against one side of

(issn 1536–6669) �ehaviorology �oday � Volume 6, Number 1, Spring 2003

that door, it is not surprising that the traditionalstewards of humanism brace it from the other—a cultural conflict explored in this article, espe-cially with respect to its implications for theindependent discipline of environment–behaviorrelations known as behaviorology.

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Prelude

�he behaviorologists have organized an independentnatural science discipline that is focused on the func-tional relations between behavior and the environment inwhich it occurs. Behaviorology is not yet represented inuniversities by independent academic departments. Incontrast with the disciplinary aims of the behaviorolo-gists, the majority of behaviorists, most of whom self–identify as behavior analysts, favor integration withfollowers of the superstitious alternatives to natural sci-ence, especially the traditional psychologists. Those be-haviorists tend to be represented within universities byindividuals who are scattered throughout the social sci-ence units and who, with few exceptions, are limited withrespect to the programmatic integrity with which theycan endow training arrangements that produce more oftheir own kind.

Neither of those two divergent strategies for disci-plinary development (independence versus integration)have ever represented an officially defined mission objec-tive of either the behavior analysis community in generalnor its principal organization, the Association for Behav-ior Analysis (). However, the relative efficacy of thoseincompatible programs of disciplinary development havebeen debated within the general forum of the behavioranalysis community. Increasingly, political control of theorganizational infrastructure of the behavior analysismovement has passed to the majority faction that favorsfundamental change in the traditional social sciencesthrough integration, the strategic alternative that keepsits advocates in contact with the copious resources of theentrenched mystical establishment.

Advocates of that approach express the hope that suchmerging will lead to an internal conversion of the traditionalsocial science community to a philosophy of naturalism.Particularly, they would like to convert the psychologists,because psychology has long provided the basic philo-sophical foundations and scientific methodologies formost of the other more applied social science fields.

In the meantime, among the natural scientists andscholars who study human behavior, an independent dis-

ciplinary movement has been organized apart from thebehavior analysts under the banner of behaviorology.That movement is now represented by two organizations,the International Society for Behaviorology (, whichemphasizes the experimental science component of be-haviorology) and The International Behaviorology Insti-tute (, which emphasizes the educational andcultural–interface components of behaviorology). Thosetwo organizational entities, along with their various profes-sional activities and publications, represent the indepen-dently organized natural science of behavior. Its followersare now working to establish the science of environment–behavior functional relations (called behaviorology) as oneof the recognized basic natural sciences within our culture.

Against this historical backdrop, I report the natureof a recent probe that I conducted into the issue of how,and on what basis, the natural science of environment–behavior relations could take its place among the moretraditional natural science units within a university. I amconvinced that the maturation and fruition of a naturalscience of environment–behavior relations can occureffectively only with disciplinary organizational autonomyplus appropriate institutional placement—which, withrespect to universities, means exclusive and intellectuallyunadulterated academic departments located within clus-ters of other natural science departments.

Introduction: The Academic Vagrants

The natural science departments in contemporary uni-versities are grouped into clusters, often in a College ofArts and Sciences. Although any measurable phenomenacan be studied from a natural science perspective, suchgroupings do not currently include natural science de-partments devoted to the study of functional relationsbetween environments and behaviors. Within the acad-emy, scholars who pursue that subject matter from theperspective of a natural philosophy and science are typi-cally kept away from the organized natural sciences anddispersed throughout what are known as social sciencedepartments located elsewhere within universities.

The phrase social sciences is an innocuous label thatalludes to behavioral interactions among people, a namederived from the most common aspect of the subject–matters within the various social sciences (Ledoux,a). However, the disposition of natural scientists ofenvironment–behavior relations in contemporary univer-sities is important because the social sciences, throughoutwhich they are dispersed, tolerate and often encourage mys-tical or superstitious philosophical fundamentals. Unlikethe phrase natural science, which implies a particular sup-portive ontological and epistemological perspective, thephrase social science carries no philosophical connotations.

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While the general subject matter of the social sciencespertains in various ways to behavioral phenomena, theinterpretations of the nature of human beings and theirbehaviors that are rendered by social scientists are typicallyinformed by postulates rooted in mysticism. Such funda-mental assumptions may be of religious origin, or theymay arise as secular fallacies, as when an observer concludesmistakenly that the behaviors exhibited by an organic bodycould only manifest as the executed will of a putative in-ner body–driving agent that autonomously chooses theactions that the body subsequently produces. Because so-cial science faculty members tend to be drawn from thegeneral intellectual faction of the culture at large, wemust presume that the so–called social science depart-ments in universities include about the same percentageof persons whose personal ontology and epistemology in-corporate superstitious behavior as may be found withinthe more intellectual subset of the general population.

In contrast, the organized natural sciences feature andpromote a kind of ontology and epistemology that an-chor them in naturalism, at least in regard to the subjectmatters upon which studies in the various natural sciencedepartments are focused. As an illustration, consider thatthe practices of water dowsing follow logically from cer-tain mystical basic assumptions if the implications ofthose assumptions are pursued to the level of practicaltechnology—a development that is facilitated in a com-munity that accepts the relevant superstition as valid(Baum, ; Bird, ; Voit, ). However, waterdowsing is not included in the curriculum of geology de-partments even though experienced water dowers do findground water often enough to preclude their outrightdismissal as totally ineffective fakes.

Water dowsing is excluded from geology because ofqualitative distinctions with respect to its superstitiousunderpinnings (Fraley, ). To the extent that experi-enced water dowsers are reliably effective, the assumptionwithin the geology community is that those dowsers havebecome intuitively skilled in the practices of ground wa-ter geology while concurrently wasting their capacities forrelevant verbal behavior that could be sharing in the evenmore effective control of those practices. That is, they havebecome intuitively effective geologists for reasons that theythemselves cannot describe, while their verbal capacity ispreoccupied with a repertoire of superstitious nonsensepertinent to their redundant manipulation of forked sticks.

A training curriculum in groundwater geology condi-tions an effective verbal repertoire (called hydrology) toshare in the control of water–related practices, whichthereby renders water–seeking practices even moreeffective as a result of those verbal enhancements to theirevocative stimuli. Theoretically, such geological training,if provided to a water dowser, would presumably result inthat dowser’s coming to grips with the redundancy of the

forked stick. Former dowsers, once they were geologicallytrained, could then be more explicit about the antecedentcontrols on the skills that had been present only in moreprimitive forms as intuitive behaviors that had seemedmysterious even to them.

Unfortunately, this popular inclination to re–educatesuperstitious people almost always proves ineffective,because demonstrations of the greater efficacy of theproffered approach are merely interpreted by superstitiouspeople from the perspective of their fundamental super-stitious assumptions, which go unaffected by those data.Furthermore, in the rare cases in which such re–educa-tion proves possible, it tends to be relatively inefficient. Itis economically inefficient to have to eliminate a trou-blesome repertoire before relevant retraining can proceed.In the interests of both feasibility and efficiency, supersti-tious people usually have to be left alone and cir-cumvented. That is, new people, properly trained fromthe outset, who can think more effectively and thereforedo better practical work, progressively eclipse and isolatetheir superstitious counterparts (for a relevant case study,see Fraley, ).

Like other university–based scholars of the naturalscience of human behavior, I have pursued my careerwithout an opportunity to work and teach in a naturalscience department of environment–behavior relations.Throughout my career, I have been compelled to work,with minority status, in a department primarily devotedto studies of human behavior that are based on funda-mentally mystical postulates. Such departments attractstudents who are already predisposed to view human be-havior as the manifest will of a mystical self–agent(Fraley, , ). The students in my educational psy-chology graduate courses, most of whom were at the doc-toral level, were, in general, steeped in mythicalconstructs of mind–body dualism and assumptions ofparallel universes in which the physical world of practicalexperience coexists interactively with an ethereal world ofspirits and deities.

The bulk of the students’ formal training program intraditional educational psychology comported with thosekinds of fundamental assumptions, which most studentsbrought to that training. The traditional psychology cur-riculum with which they interacted taught only a kind ofmethodological science that precipitated no conflicts withthose mystical fundamentals. Any scientific principle orfunctional relation that implied an underlying naturalismwas absent from their psychology curriculum. That is,most students brought their philosophy with them, usu-ally of a mystical sort, and no additional philosophy ofsocial science was explicitly taught in the traditional psy-chology curriculum. The kind of science that the tradi-tional psychology professors taught was suited only tohelping students explore what was construed to be the


practical implications of the mystical postulates that moststudents uncritically accepted and respected—as did theirmentalistic psychology professors.

Departmental EpistemologicalDichotomy

Because I and a couple of other behaviorologists werecompelled by the prevailing organizational circumstancesto work in such a department, our department featureda lopsided epistemological dichotomy: superstition ofvarious strips aligned in the majority on one side, withversions of naturalism represented on the other. Basedupon their respective and very different fundamentals,each faction contributed to the maturation of its kind ofscience and to the development of its kind of technolo-gies for the address of the practical problems upon whichthe department was supposed to focus. In general, suchdifferent philosophical foundations logically supportdifferent sciences on the bases of which different interven-tion technologies develop.

It follows logically that such differently derived tech-nologies will almost always be of unequal effectiveness indealing with practical matters. In such contests, the cur-rents of modern history seem strongly to favor thenaturalists: Regardless of the subject matter upon whichthe natural sciences are focused, those disciplines seldomif ever lose fair contests of efficacy to their superstition–based alternatives.

Differing basic assumptions about the nature of hu-man beings and their behavior result in different interpre-tations of what practitioners think that they were actuallydoing in given situations. For example, within my aca-demic department what one was doing when one wasteaching, and the processes by which that activity couldhave an effect, were construed quite differently by mem-bers of the mystical and naturalist factions (Fraley, ,). Not surprisingly, the conditioned reinforcers of thetwo factions often differed, which resulted in differingvalues (Fraley, a). The two factions therefore re-spected the different ethical prescriptions that comportedwith their respective values (Fraley, , chap. ). Fre-quently the psychologists and the behaviorologists disap-proved of each others’ professional conduct on ethicalgrounds that they did not share in common.

Outsiders can perhaps appreciate the depth of the in-terpersonal conflicts among colleagues in such a depart-ment by imagining the relations between geologists andwater dowsers who would actually be forced to work inthe same academic department with the imposition of asomewhat formal expectation that, in an intellectualsense, they take each other seriously. Both water dowsersand traditional psychologists, operating on the basis of

their respective kinds of mystical and often superstitiouspostulates, may nevertheless come under strong naturalcontingencies that result in instances of intuitively effec-tive practical work.

Regardless of any such intuitively pursued effectivepractices, for a common reason, neither water dowsersnor traditional psychologists gain informed collegial re-spect in a natural science community. The scientific pro-fessionalism of both of those kinds of people isdisrespected in a natural science community becausewhat is construed to be the waste of their respective ver-bal capacities on superstitious verbal indulgences pre-cludes a class of supplementary scientific controls overtheir professional activities that presumably would insureeven greater effectiveness. Natural scientists and scholarsof behavior typically interpret the work of traditionalpsychologists, first, by specifying the verbal behavior,both philosophical and scientific, that should have sharedin the control of that kind of work, and second, by exam-ining the differences between what was produced andwhat potentially could have been produced had appropri-ate scientific and philosophical verbal behavior shared inthe control of the professional activity in question.

The disciplinarily mismatched organizational arrange-ment under which my department was constituted maysound absurdly counterproductive, and would be so con-strued were a corresponding version of it to be seriouslyproposed with respect to physics, chemistry, biology, orgeology (Fraley, b). Yet, in contemporary universities,that is the current organizational disposition of naturalscientists and scholars of environment–behavior relations.

My thesis is that counter–productivity, with respectto the dispersed natural science faction, may be preciselythe point of that dispersal. Not all who supportively ac-cept the organizational dispersing of behaviorists can beexpected to clearly understand the strategic implicationsof such an arrangement. However, we must prudently as-sume that among those defenders of the organizationalstatus quo are others whose contemplation of this issuedoes rise to valid analyses of the implications of an or-ganizational scheme that disintegrates the natural sciencecommunity of behaviorists. One ironic implication isthat, with sufficient adaptation to such dispersal, even itsvictims may come to defend it (e.g., Grote, ;Johnston, ; Rakos, ; Wulfert, ).

A Deliberate Probe of the Issues

I do not enjoy the internal politics of universities andhave avoided involvement in institutional politicsthroughout my career. However, my interest in theapparently enforced academic vagrancy of natural scien-tists of behavior led me to spend a couple of years in the


late s exploring the politics through which this dis-persal is made to occur within universities.

The occasion arose when I sought to get an under-graduate version of my basic natural science course in be-haviorology approved for credit in the Faculty Senate’sLiberal Studies Program within my university. The aca-demics who operated that program oversaw requirementsthat undergraduate students select a certain number ofapproved courses from each of three clusters representingrespectively the arts, the sciences, and the humanities.Courses in the sciences were divided into two groups: thesocial sciences and the natural sciences. That required dis-tribution of studies was intended to insure the generaleducation of university undergraduates prior to their pur-suit of a specialization. I formally requested that the Lib-eral Studies Program Committee approve my generalbehaviorology course for credit in both the social scienceand the natural science categories.

Liberal Studies credit in the natural sciences wassubsequently refused, because, according to thecommittee’s letter of determination, my behaviorologycourse dealt with behavior, and behavior was a subjectmatter studied in the social sciences. However, the com-mittee went further. Not only was the course rejected forcredit in the natural science area, it was completely re-jected for inclusion within the curriculum of the LiberalStudies Program.

The stated reason for its unsuitability for the LiberalStudies Program, even in the social sciences, was thatthere were “other theories of behavior.” That phrase al-luded to the fact that my course was constructed as a purenatural science offering, which did not systematically ad-dress non–natural approaches to its behavior–related sub-ject matter. In my course that exclusive focus on thesubject matter from the perspective of naturalism wassimilar to the kind of focus that has long been main-tained in traditional natural science courses.

Aside from the fact that the committee members didnot seem to know the difference between a theory and abasic epistemology, they had, in effect, informed me thatundergraduate students fulfilling their Liberal Studies re-quirements at my university would not be permitted tostudy human behavior in any course that took an exclu-sively natural science perspective. Such philosophical ex-clusivity, the most definitive characteristic of the naturalsciences, was not tolerated in the social sciences, andwithin the university any study of human behavioral phe-nomena was strictly confined to the social sciences.

Due to progress in establishing the organized naturalsciences during the past few centuries, students had longbeen free, within the Liberal Studies Program, to studynon–behavioral phenomena from an exclusively naturalperspective as was characteristic of courses offered by suchdepartments as physics, chemistry, and biology. Teaching

about epistemological alternatives to naturalism has notbeen an expectation or requirement in the traditionalnatural science departments. In general, teachers in thetraditional natural sciences have never devoted valuablecourse time to equally detailed instruction in the mysti-cal or superstitious alternatives to naturalism and itsscientific implications as if those alternatives representedpotentially worthwhile options. Such instruction has oc-curred there in limited ways only occasionally, usually forcomparative purposes, especially to explicate the implica-tion of ineffectiveness that inheres in scientific practicesthat are informed by superstitious assumptions.

The committee’s action had raised important issueswith profound implications—some ominous. To posturemyself for a probe of these issues and the political machi-nations that surround them, I took three practical steps:(a) The following year, I resubmitted the course to theLiberal Studies Program Committee—again applying forapproval in both the natural science and social sciencecategories; (b) I seized on an opportunity to serve out theremainder of the term of a Faculty Senator from my col-lege who had resigned from the Faculty Senate; and (c) Ialso volunteered to serve as a member of the FacultySenate’s Liberal Studies Program Committee. Fortu-itously, I was selected by the Faculty Senate’s Committeeon Committees, somewhat at random from among thevolunteers, to serve on the Liberal Studies Committee.From my new seat on the Liberal Studies Committee,and with the added prestige of my concurrent senatorialstatus, I then set out to press the issues that had beenraised by the previous year’s Liberal Studies ProgramCommittee as intensely as I could manage to do it.

It had become clear that much of the anti–science re-sistance to a natural science of human behavior wasmanifesting covertly. My objective was to plumb thedepths of that resistance, to understand it as accurately aspossible, and to distinguish between deliberate tacticalexpressions of that bias and instances that were only intu-itive. The kind of outcomes that were preferred by theopposition had become clear, but I wanted to learn howmembers of the opposition described to themselves and toeach other what they were doing when acting to containexpansion of the natural sciences within the university.

I did not delude myself about actually getting a be-haviorology course approved in the natural science area.The substantial majority of the university faculty mem-bers represented fields outside of the established naturalsciences, and I encountered no other faculty memberswho appeared to support the expansion of the naturalscience concept implicit in what I was requesting. Manyof the faculty members within the traditional naturalsciences per se were, in general, insufficiently schooled inthe philosophical underpinnings of the natural sciencesto overcome ambiguity about the possibility of a natural


science that focuses on human behavior. Their trainingcurricula had, in general, launched into the technicaltreatment of their respective subject matters while pro-viding relatively little study explicitly in comparative phi-losophy through which natural science trainees mightcome to a better general appreciation of the naturalismthat is supposed to characterize the intellectual integrityof their academic community.

Thus, many of the university faculty members whoregarded themselves as natural scientists were somewhatunprepared to entertain the concept of a scientific ap-proach to human behavior that is informed exclusively bya philosophy of naturalism. While specialists in any oneof the traditional natural sciences typically had at leastminimal training in some of the other natural sciences,behaviorology per se had not been available to them onthe curricular menus from which they had elected theirextra–major natural science courses. With such a deficitin their preparation, some members of the current natu-ral science community can be skeptical about even thepossibility of a natural science of human behavior.

That general lack of sophistication about the generalphilosophy that informs natural science is understandable.The behaviorology that was unavailable to the vastmajority of current natural scientists during their formaltraining is precisely the natural science of philosophy per se.That practitioners of natural science should understandthe philosophy that informs their work is too much to ex-pect from persons who have had no opportunity to studythe nature of philosophy per se or its functional capacityin relation to scientific behavior. People who are vagueabout the nature of philosophy and how it works, evenwith respect to their own scientific practices, are left toreap the benefits of natural philosophy only in an intuitiveway. They are quite unprepared to deal explicitly withphilosophy–related issues at the debating table. Thus, thenatural scientists employed as faculty members at my uni-versity did not represent a community to which I could turnfor unified support in the debate that I was initiating.

In fact, the general lack of sophistication with respectto a naturalistic approach to the study of behavioral phe-nomena throughout the natural science community maybe partly responsible for the intrusion of psychology de-partments into schools and colleges of natural sciencewithin a small number of important universities (e.g., theUniversity of California and San Diego State University).Students in those universities are then led to assume that,in studying psychology in a department that is lodgedamong natural science departments, the quality of thattraining is equivalent to that in their natural sciencecourses. After scientific methodology has been masteredin the natural science curriculum, that methodology maythen be carried to psychological training where it is ap-plied to probing the implications of the mystical and su-

perstitious postulates that tend to prevail within the psy-chology discipline. The result can be good scientific prac-tice wasted on attempts to get answers to nonsensicalquestions and the misinterpretation of what may be in-trinsically valid data.

My own university had long had a small contingentof behavior analysts whose philosophy of science sug-gested the possibility of support for my position. How-ever, at my university the behavior analysts wereconcentrated in the social science area, mostly as a minor-ity faction in the psychology department where their re-spective activities comported with a strategy ofinfiltration. That strategy precluded their overt supportfor actions that would have implied that they belongedelsewhere. Thus, the local behavior analysts could be ofno help in my effort to breach the traditional natural sci-ence establishment with the natural science of humanbehavior. In the nearly complete absence of any support,it was me against everyone.

While, realistically, my publicly proclaimed objectiveremained politically beyond reach, an astute analysis ofthe central issue, which was my real objective, could beaccomplished. By listening carefully to what was saidboth during my participation in the university FacultySenate and while serving as a member of its Liberal Stud-ies Committee (sometimes after my own deliberatestimulation of the rhetoric), I soon gained an importantinsight: Among the political operatives who manage thefaculty governance of the university—and also amongthose who hold formal administrative positions withinthe central governance of the university—the natural sci-ences are defined strictly in terms of the subject matters stud-ied, not in terms of any natural ontology and epistemologyupon which operations in a natural science unit must bebased. Within the university, the definitive epistemologyand ontology of naturalism may be recognized at a per-sonal level by various individuals, but it is not formallyacknowledged as the basis for the independent existenceof the natural science departments.

I discovered that, among those who controlled themachinery of university government, natural science wasregarded merely as the study of energy, matter, life func-tions, and such combinations of those things as may beapropos of the study of whatever solid, gaseous, liquid, orradiant entities that may be encountered in the knownuniverse. To the extent that a philosophy of naturalismprevailed in natural science departments, the people whogoverned the university did not, and seemingly wouldnot, recognize a philosophy of naturalism as a definitivecharacteristic, treating it instead merely as a conceptualartifact. The people who, at various levels, governed theuniversity assigned both courses and faculty members tothe natural science units exclusively according to the kindof phenomena that they addressed.


However, the hiring of a new faculty member for aunit was traditionally conducted according to the recom-mendations of the current faculty in that unit. Thus, thephilosophical integrity of a discipline or field was main-tained only through that hiring mechanism. The centraladministrators alone were legally empowered to hire, andtheir adherence to faculty recommendations was drivenonly by policy.

Neither the university administration nor the inter-nal faculty–operated government of the institution for-mally recognized the philosophy of naturalism thatrenders the natural sciences natural. One implication,relevant to my situation, was that the strict natural sci-ence perspective that was maintained in my course onenvironment–behavior functional relations remained ir-relevant to how that course was officially categorized rela-tive to the university organizational scheme.

This issue of that irrelevance is complex. The activitiesof the individuals who, at various levels of control, gov-ern a university, are typically informed by fundamentallymystical assumptions about human beings and their be-havior. For such people to acknowledge philosophicalnaturalism as a definitive characteristic of the well estab-lished beachhead that the natural sciences have securedwithin universities would be counterproductive with respectto their personal and collective investments in superstition.

However, the analysis of this issue reaches beyond thesimple matter of personal or even factional self–service.The constitutional endorsement of “free speech” is widelyinterpreted, in the context of universities, to mean that apublic university must not advocate a way of thinkingnor require one as a condition of participation at anylevel of activity. One implication is that a public univer-sity, in its teaching program, is permitted only to present,comparatively, a menu of explicated options on intel-lectual approaches to a subject matter but may not for-mally impose a particular philosophy as a condition ofeither student or faculty retention.

In theory, that view on curriculum development doesnot prohibit a presentation to students of the advantagesand disadvantages of various approaches to a given sub-ject matter. However, the emphasis on tolerance for dis-parate intellectual styles often encourages people toignore the qualitative differences among disparateintellectual approaches. Also, economic contingenciesimpinge on this issue. University students often take theirtuition dollars elsewhere if they are finding their lessonsunwelcome, and that can be especially true of lessons thatreveal the fallacies and adverse implications of havingmade major personal investments in superstition. In suchan atmosphere, for a faculty member to explicate thegreater efficacy of a particular way to think may come tobe deemed socially impolite and offensive, especially if

the less effective alternatives are subjected to an invidiousif valid comparison.

In such a social atmosphere, respectful public dem-onstrations may be garnered equally by evidence of(a) assumptions that foster intellectually immatureexplanatory recourse to blatant superstition and (b) an al-ternative class of verbal behavior that functions to pre-clude such illogic. Students caught in the midst of suchsocially enforced ambiguity about the qualitative aspectsof alternative philosophical repertoires may be confused.Furthermore, a university education that has failed toprobe comparatively the implications of blatant su-perstition and its more valid alternatives hardly representsthe best return on students’ tuition dollars.

The essence of effective science inheres in a particularapproach to a subject matter. When a putatively “scien-tific” pursuit fails to comport with that approach it is nolonger regarded as scientific. The study of a subject mat-ter by effective scientists is governed by the philosophicalassumption that all relevant events are functionally de-termined. Nature is presumed to manifest as a matrix offunctional relations—a presumption which, in each in-stance of inquiry into certain particulars of that matrix,justifies attempts to discover, measure, predict, and ulti-mately control relations between independent and de-pendent variables. Thus, the effective and efficient practiceof science is based on adherence to a particular phi-losophy. Proper teaching about science involves an analy-sis of how philosophy functions in general and acomparative analysis of how competing philosophies bearon scientific activity, with emphasis on the practical im-plications of those alternative philosophies.1

However, science is not just taught in universities.Science is also practiced there, and during that scientificwork (often called research), the practitioners are expectedto respect the tenets of the philosophy of science. A per-son, employed on a funded science project, who, becauseof superstitious assumptions, entertains recourse to mys-tical explanations and interpretations of data, may be____________________________________________

1 In actual practice, within contemporary universities,where that teaching is typically controlled by a mysticalmajority, those critical comparative analyses are typicallyavoided. The philosophy of naturalism may be includedamong mere presentations of alternatives in ways that im-ply that the alternatives may be equally worthwhile.Often students are led to conclude that the best possibleoutcomes are realized when at least some kinds ofphenomena are considered on the basis of supersti-tious assumptions. Unfortunately, those phenomena of-ten include the essential nature of human beings andtheir behavior, which happens to be the subject matter ofthe natural science of behaviorology.


subject to dismissal for engaging in “invalid” procedures.The person’s outwardly exhibited procedures are con-trolled in part by the person’s thoughts. That person’s fir-ing must be justified, however, on the basis of exhibitinginvalid publicly evident procedures, even though, func-tionally, the objectionable procedures are determinedlargely by how the person thinks. The distinction be-tween thought and action is functionally meaningless insuch a case, but the apparent respect for that forceddistinction circumvents potential difficulties that couldescalate to the status of a federal offense.

Some may argue that university sponsored research isconducted apart from the teaching of students. They mayargue that behavior that comports with the philosophy ofscience may be required in the conduct of scientific researchto a degree that would be inappropriate to demand in theclassroom. However, all aspects of university operationsare constitutionally bound and remain within the reachof federal law and policy. Furthermore, within universities,students are usually involved in the on–going scientificresearch projects as part of their training. Under such re-alities the teaching–research distinction becomes tooblurred to endow a right to discriminate among peopleaccording to the philosophies that inform their practices,even when credible evidence of its nature is available.

Consider just the teaching. On what basis may reli-gious creationists, for example, receive failing marks ongeology or biology tests if those students’ responses havecomported with their personal basic assumptions? Sup-pose for example that a test features the following singlethematic item: Explain the proliferative development ofdifferent species from a common ancestral species whosemembers long ago dispersed among various ecological niches.Further suppose that a religious creationist student ig-nores the intrinsic predicates that are imbedded in thatquestion and responds that God spontaneously createdthose various similar species and installed them in their vari-ous niches, each such niche having been brought spontane-ously into existence by God as part of that same creativeexercise. May a geology or biology professor then attach afailing mark to that student’s simplistic response?

The answer is “no,” because the university may notteach natural science in the sense of discriminatively cull-ing students according to the extent to which their prac-tices are implicitly informed by the philosophy ofnaturalism. The university may teach only about naturalscience. For the professor to flunk that student, the ques-tion would have to have been recast. It would have tohave begun with a qualification along these lines: “Ex-plain, in accordance with the philosophy of naturalism, theproliferative development of different species….”

In that same vein, while religious mysticism is seldomexplicitly advocated within public universities due towhat remains of the constitutional prohibition of state

endorsed religion, those who operate within universitieson the basis of common secular superstitious fundamen-tals typically teach on the basis of those secular mysticalnotions with impunity. Such teachers may allude to theassumed mystical events or refer more explicitly to themin ways that assert or imply their existence. Typicallythose faculty members simply assume or expect that stu-dents share their superstitious assumptions. It amounts toa routine breach of the same constitutional guaranteesthat often inhibit a corresponding kind of advocacy bythe natural scientists.

For example, an incoming university student, who ar-rives harboring superstitious assumptions about humanbehavior manifesting as the executed will of a body–drivingspirit (a.k.a. a willful self), is normally treated to a broadcurriculum that presumes and advocates that idea andmakes virtues of its implications. The general requirementthat presentations of the natural aspect of the behavioralsubject matter be accompanied by qualifications that implytentativeness—a requirement that can be enforced withrespect to the teachings of a university’s natural sciencecommunity—is not similarly imposed on the purveyorsof secular superstition about human behavior. Through-out the university, in the various departments that teachsubject matters pertaining to human behavior, the cur-riculum is typically built around unchallenged assump-tions of the reality of a proactive, willful, and responsibleself–agent that mysteriously dictates the behavior that itshost body then executes. The existence of such a self–agent is treated as a fact. Nobody insists that, in eachsuch instance, the mention or implication of such a be-havior–originating entity be prefaced by a qualificationsuch as “according to prevailing secular superstition….”

Throughout the governing bodies at my institution,behavior—especially human behavior—was widely pre-sumed to originate in various spiritual ways. Human be-havior (actually, only its operant kinds) was variouslyconstrued, by what seemed to be a substantial majority,as a manifestation of the will of either (a) a secular body–driving self, (b) a religiously defined internal soul–likeself, or (c) an ethereal body–possessing extension of a ex-ternal deity. In any such case, behavior, especially the hu-man version, was construed to be of a differentfundamental character than the phenomena that definednature. Nature was all else. Nature included the biologi-cal body serving as host for the behavior–directing agentplus the surrounding environment toward which behav-ior was believed to be directed from a somewhat proac-tive agential source within the body.

The people who were involved in the governance ofthe university, most of whom entertained such popularmystical notions of human beings and their behavior,were mostly drawn from the academic scholarly ranks.Few if any of them thought of themselves as superstitious


even though, with respect to human behavior, they wereblatantly if unwittingly so. Through various routine ac-tivities that comported with the general and prevailingconcept of behavior driven by a mystical self–agent, thenormally functioning governmental operations of theuniversity were impeding the development of a naturalscience of behavior—not just through themisclassification of my course, but more importantly, bykeeping natural scientists and scholars of behavior–envi-ronment relations thinly dispersed among the mysticaland superstitious majority where, in most cases, the natu-ralists can operate only as isolated and disorganized intel-lectual vagrants (Fraley, 1998b).

That dispersal depends on misdefining the naturalsciences in terms of commonly accepted traditional sub-ject matters instead of the underlying philosophy of natu-ralism that informs the practices of natural scientists.Obviously, such an invalid concept of the natural sci-ences, in addition to its comfortable compatibility withconstitutional implications, can be convenient to theforces of anti–naturalism. In the effort to promote mycourse as a natural science course, I was led to wonderwhether the strictly thematic organization of the curricu-lum with which I had to contend was to some degree astrategic political contrivance to maintain the universityas a haven for popular kinds of superstition in which somany people within my university community wereheavily invested.

I probed for the answer to that question by first forc-ing the members of the Liberal Studies Committee toconfront the more correct concept of natural science. Iconcluded that I stood to learn more if I charged thewindmills with what the other members would construeto be a vigorously pursued and unrelenting resolve. As amember of the Liberal Studies Program Committee aswell as a Faculty Senator, my presentations were likely toreceive more consideration than those of a remote facultymember with whom the committee could dispense in amore perfunctory manner.

As was true of the application that was submittedduring the previous year, the current request was for in-clusion of my natural science course on human behaviorin both the social science and natural science course clus-ters approved by the Liberal Studies Program. I began byappending a special section to that course re–applicationform, which I submitted to the committee a few monthsinto the academic year. That attachment to my LiberalStudies Program course application, which is quoted be-low, specifically addressed the issue of how the naturalsciences are defined:

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Supplementary Statement of Justificationfor Required Cluster Assignments

This request is for approval of this course for in-clusion in both Cluster b [social sciences] andCluster c [natural sciences]. This course wouldthen be applicable to whichever of those two re-quired areas within the Liberal Studies programthat the student would prefer to apply it.

Cluster b, as now constituted, is definedlargely by one general subject matter. Its coursesaddress social behavioral phenomena in variouscontexts. Cluster c, on the other hand, consists ofa collection of diverse subject matters all studied inthe manner to which we refer as the natural scienceperspective. Thus, while Cluster b (social science)is defined essentially by a single broadly definedclass of subject matter upon which its courses arefocused (i.e., social phenomena), Cluster c (natu-ral science) is held together by how things arestudied rather than by which things are studied.While Cluster b is thus defined largely by thegeneral kind of subject matter being addressed(i.e., interpersonal behavior among humans), theintegrity of Cluster c, which is reserved for thenatural sciences, inheres in an implicit epis-temological approach to knowledge.

This distinction can be appreciated throughsome simple examples: Chemistry is the study ofthe composition, structure, properties, and reac-tions of substances, especially at the analyticallevel of molecular systems. More importantly,however, it is the study of that subject matter ina natural science way. Suppose, for example, thatthose same matter–related phenomena were to bestudied from the perspective of a substantiallydifferent epistemology, (e.g., the principles andinterpretive viewpoint of mystical sorcery). Evenif such courses were to be taught in an intellectuallyrespectable manner, because they would involveexplanatory recourse to supernatural variables andprocesses, such courses would not be welcome inCluster c in parallel with chemistry courses. Like-wise, while geology courses pertain to the struc-ture and history of the earth’s crust, they also featurea strict natural science perspective. If other coursesarose to offer studies of the earth’s crust, but fea-tured non–natural analytical perspectives (e.g., anexplanatory appeal to a relatively abrupt and re-


cent miraculous creation), such courses wouldnot be inserted into Cluster c in parallel withcorresponding geology courses regardless of theintellectual respectability with which they may becast, because they would not represent a naturalscience. Similarly, we would not install astrologycourses into the astronomy curriculum in Clusterc even though they may focus in part on the po-sitioning of celestial bodies and be offered in ascholarly manner. Only when star systems arestudied in accordance with a natural science epis-temology do we categorize the courses as astron-omy and put them in Cluster c.

Likewise, when courses are devoted to thestudy of behavioral phenomena and are intellec-tually worthy of inclusion in a university curricu-lum, yet feature any form of mysticalepistemology, we place them in Cluster b. For ex-ample, that is where we find behavior–relatedcourses that feature religious faith–based analyti-cal perspectives on behavior, and that is where wealso find courses that feature explanatory relianceon fundamentally mystical but secular conceptssuch as autonomous or semi–autonomous behav-ior–directing (and implicitly ethereal) self–agents. Whole disciplines exist to study behaviorfrom such epistemological perspectives, a numberof which are possessed of sufficient intellectualmerit to claim places in the university curricu-lum. However, as is appropriate, they are notgrouped with the natural sciences. At this uni-versity they are included in Cluster b, and in ouruniversity libraries their literature is shelved apartfrom the literature of the natural sciences, as istrue in university libraries everywhere. Thus,while a place can be found within public univer-sities for most any intellectual perspective, whichmay represent a reasonable inclusiveness, we havedeveloped these traditional groupings by whichto organize them.

The course now before the Liberal StudiesCommittee poses a simple question with pro-found implications. It is the same kind of ques-tion posed by each of the other natural sciences:If we strip away all of the traditional explanatoryreliance on mystical or metaphysical variables,can we develop an effective and worthwhile per-spective on the phenomena of concern (i.e., onthe subject matter)? With respect to energyforms, the answer was yes, and the result is mod-ern physics. With respect to the structure of mat-ter, the answer was yes, and the result is modernchemistry. With respect to life functions, the an-swer was yes, and the result is modern biology.

And with respect to behavioral events, the courseto which this application pertains brings intellec-tual resources to the students that they need toconstruct their own respective answers to thatsame basic question. To help them do that, thiscourse includes appropriate opportunities forinterdisciplinary comparisons. Students not onlylearn the natural science perspective on the sub-ject matter but also are invited to relate that per-spective comparatively to other culturallyprevalent perspectives that students are likely tobring to this course.

This course will provide a student with acomprehensive introductory study of human be-havior, including its nature and its occurrences.That makes it appropriate for Cluster b, becauseCluster b is devoted to subject matters centeringaround human interactive behavior, a topic thor-oughly addressed in this course. Any studentposting a passing grade in this course will haveprobed deeply into the general behavior–relatedsubject matter definitive of Cluster b.

At the same time, because this course intro-duces a natural science address of its subject mat-ter as is characteristic of courses in physics,chemistry, and biology, and also includes under-graduate–level data–based applied research, a stu-dent should be allowed to post a passing grade inthis course in fulfillment of the Cluster c require-ment. Natural science is an intellectual perspec-tive—a particular ontological andepistemological framework of postulates and pro-cedural principles through which a person attainsthe state of “knowing.” In designating a course asrepresentative of the natural sciences, the particu-lar subject matter that gets studied in that wayremains irrelevant. The study of any measurablesubject matter from that perspective represents anatural science and belongs in Cluster c amongthe natural sciences. Students will emerge fromthis course knowing natural science per se as wellas, or perhaps better than, students who take atraditional course in physics, chemistry, or biol-ogy, especially because of the attention withinthis course to the philosophy of science and itsrole. The student who takes this course will un-derstand well the natural science approach, andthat is precisely the point of studies undertakenwithin Cluster c—especially within the LiberalStudies Program.

Specifically, it is requested that a studentwho has passed this course be allowed to countthe credit from this course in either the Cluster bcategory or the Cluster c category, but not both.


Note on the background of the instructor:The instructor of this course has a year ca-

reer at this university as a professor in the Collegeof Human Resources And Education during whichhe has taught behavior science foundations for vari-ous specializations featured among the trainingprograms in that college. He holds a doctorate ineducation that was earned through studies in thetechnology of teaching and a masters degreeearned in a program focused on the principles ofnatural science with emphasis on physics and bi-ology. His formal training in the natural sciencesincludes semester hours (and an undergradu-ate degree) in geology, plus to semesterhours in each of physics, chemistry, biology, andmathematics. The instructor’s first professionalemployment (pre–doctoral) was a five–year out-ing as a high school teacher of physics and math-ematics. He has published in the branch ofphilosophy devoted to the nature of knowledge.

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In accordance with established procedures, the submis-sion package pertinent to this course, including the aboveaddendum, was copied and distributed to all members ofthe Liberal Studies Program Committee for their indi-vidual review in advance of its consideration by the com-mittee. My objective was to educate the members of thecommittee so that, regardless of what actions the com-mittee ultimately took, those actions could be interpretedin light of each committee member’s understanding ofthe issue as I was framing it.

On the occasion of the first submission of this courseduring the previous year, the committee had said, ineffect, that a natural science course on behavior wouldnot be entertained as such, and that if it were to be placedin the social science category where the committeethought that a proper version of it would belong, itwould have to teach a variety of approaches to the subjectmatter characteristic of an eclectic epistemological mix.That is, an exclusive natural science course for the studyof behavior–related phenomena could not be offered inthe liberal Studies Program.

The current committee chairperson, a representativefrom the Department of English, had never given any in-dication either of personally understanding the essence ofthe natural sciences nor of support for the position that Iwas taking. I remained concerned about the bias againstnatural science with which the previous year’s committeehad greeted this course proposal—a committee on whichthe current chairperson had served as chair–elect. Follow-

ing the current formal resubmission of my course, in-cluding the above addendum, I sent the following note offurther clarification to the committee chairperson:

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Courses in the Natural Sciences

In the past, this committee has appeared to bemisled about what sort of courses are appropriatefor Cluster c, which exists to group courseofferings in the natural sciences. Apparently theconfusion among committee members pertainedto the kind of integrity that lends identity to thenatural sciences. At issue is what holds Cluster ctogether. Some people seemed to think that thenatural sciences are defined by what is studied in-stead of how it is studied. That is not correct.

Last year, members of this committee alsomade clear that, as far as they were concerned, anatural science course can be offered as a LiberalStudies Program course only if it addresses cer-tain subject matters but not if it addresses others.According to that view, students taking courseswithin the Liberal Studies Program are permittedto study only committee–approved phenomenafrom an exclusively natural science perspective.

The committee would be overstepping its au-thority if it put itself in a position of intellectualcensorship by saying that it will allow students tostudy, via a natural science approach, only thoseclasses of events that the committee members ar-bitrarily approve. That kind of restriction on theintellectual development of students with respectto their natural science training at this public in-stitution, apart from being unconstitutional, wouldalso disrespect the principle of broad, open, andfar–ranging intellectual opportunities upon whichthe Liberal Studies Program is founded.

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Another influential member of the current committee,and chair–elect for the following year, was also a facultySenator—an outspoken associate professor of music who,during interactions with faculty colleagues, projectedhimself as a broadly informed academic who seemed toexhibit an above–average scholarly bent. As Senators,both he and I attended a Faculty Senate retreat held at a


nearby resort to hear and consider the views of a speakerwho had been invited by the central administrators of theuniversity to explain to the faculty leaders how, in thesetimes of stringent economic realities, the traditional aca-demic standards of the university must be tempered tokeep the university competitive in the student mar-ketplace.

On that occasion, this fellow Liberal Studies ProgramCommittee member and fellow Senator had challengedthat speaker by defending academic standards against thekind of subtle erosion implicit in the speaker’s remarks.That incident created an opportunity for me to furtherexpound my position to yet another influential memberof the Liberal Studies Program Committee. Followingthat retreat, I sent the following letter to him:

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Dear ––––––––––,I have been intrigued by your general defense

of academic standards within the university—es-pecially your participatory remarks during the re-cent Senate retreat. The featured speakerpresented an astute analysis of prevailing eco-nomic realities of the marketplace in which theuniversity must compete for tuition–paying stu-dents, but he was coy and evasive about how ex-actly to resolve the tension between economicrealities and academic standards in ways that pre-serve the capacity of the university to contributeto a competitive and effective culture. He hintedat resolutions that would leave the university as akind of institution to which I would not send myown children or grandchildren for an education.However, I inferred that his hints at those kindsof compromises in academic integrity were pre-cisely what he was invited here to deliver. I haverecently published a substantial paper on thistheme that may be of interest to you, and a copyis enclosed. I would welcome your reactions to it.

On another front, I wish that I could teasesome appropriate respect for the natural sciencesfrom the Liberal Studies Committee. Across thepast three centuries the natural sciences haveemerged with such intellectual power and effec-tiveness that the culture has been rendered totallyreliant upon those organized disciplines for itsprevailing quality of life and its survival in gen-eral. It has been observed of our culture that inGod we trust, but on science we rely.

Each of the natural sciences poses a similarquestion with vast implications: If we strip away

all explanatory reliance on mystical variables,even to the analytical level of our basic postulates,can we then develop effective and efficient tech-nologies to cope with our environment? Impor-tantly, no natural science discipline is defined assuch simply because of the subject matter that itaddress. Rather, the definitive characteristic of anatural science inheres in both the natural ontol-ogy and epistemology according to which its in-quiries are conducted and in the postulates thatinform that manner of inquiry. Especially impor-tant is the assumption that any detectable andmeasurable event is functionally determined byother detectable and measurable events that havepreceded it.

The Liberal Studies Committee’s denial ofthat long and well established definitive charac-teristic of natural science is a cornerstone uponwhich its majority can then justify its manipula-tion of the curriculum to prevent students fromcontacting certain subject matters exclusivelyfrom a recognized natural science perspective.Conversely, a multitude of current Liberal Stud-ies Program courses teach implicitly or explicitlyfrom a purely non–natural perspective, especiallyabout behavior–related subject matters. The re-sult is that students are routinely compelled toconfront certain arbitrarily selected subject mat-ters (mainly behavior–related) only from the fun-damentally mystical perspective that has come tocharacterize the so–called “social sciences.”

The Liberal Studies Committee exists to en-sure that students have an opportunity to contactboth a variety of subject matters and a variety ofdifferent ways that people can think about thosesubject matters. However, the Committee’s con-sistent action with respect both to (a) human be-havior as a subject matter and (b) naturalism asan ontology and epistemology seems inequitableinsofar as the Committee tolerates behavior–re-lated courses taught exclusively from the mysticalperspectives of religion and traditional psy-chology, which feature behavior originating witha mystical self–agent while, at the same time, per-mitting students to contact alternative conceptsthat are based on naturalism only as shallow cur-ricular fragments in other courses that featureeclectic paradigmatic mixes (i.e., the WhitmanSampler approach in which only a shallow ana-lytical level is possible).

For humans, arguably, the most importantdomain of phenomena that we study is behavior,especially human behavior. That importancetypically increases when the objective of the study


is to account for behavior. However, across thecenturies, behavior has, for the most part, beenregarded as too complex and too mysterious foranalytical treatment from a natural science per-spective. During the historical interval acrosswhich physics, chemistry, and biology wereemerging, even many natural scientists tended todefer to other kinds of inquiry when concernsturned to behavioral phenomena. In place of anatural science of behavior, the euphemisticallynamed “social sciences” evolved, but followers ofthe social sciences merely apply scientific meth-ods to pursuing the implications of the mysticalpostulates that have been carried forward, fromnonscientific cultural origins, to constrain thestudy of behavior—a kind of circumstance illus-trated by the old scenario in which the full arma-mentarium of the physics and chemistrylaboratories is to be focused on a specific straightpin in an effort to solve the riddle of how manyangels can dance simultaneously on its head.Something is wrong with doing that, and beingable to specify what is wrong, and to explain why,is, in my view, a necessary qualification for mem-bership on the Liberal Studies Committee.

Across the past century, a natural science ofbehavior, focused at its own level of analysis, hasfinally emerged, with organizational integrity andidentity, to take its place at the roundtable of thenatural sciences. Founded on a strictly natural sci-ence ontology and epistemology, it stands apartfrom the existing social sciences insofar as it es-chews explanatory reliance on assumed mysticalvariables: In this natural science discipline, thehuman species is construed to be a product ofnature; life and behavior function through naturalprocesses into which the possibility of mysticalintrusions is not entertained; and scientific inquiriesare conducted to explicate functional relationsamong real variables rather than merely to pursuethe physical implications of putatively mysticalevents. In its most uncompromised expression, thisdiscipline is known as behaviorology, and I am abehaviorologist. As is true of other natural sciencedisciplines, the organizational integrity of behav-iorology inheres in its professional organizationsand its body of literature, while its intellectual in-tegrity inheres in its postulates and principles.

Apparently, large numbers of people who donot want a natural science of human behavior notonly reject it personally but also stand ready topreclude opportunities for others to explore itsphilosophy and science. I am continually dis-mayed at how many such people are to be found

within the university community, which presum-ably exists to explore the implications of all waysto think about phenomena that are of importanceto our species—and at how many of that groupare willing to engage in political ploys to precludestudents having meaningful opportunities to plumbthe intricacies and implications of such a paradigmas part of their putatively liberal education. Pre-cluding student access to a natural science per-spective on anything really besmirches the essenceof the university, and I have found that thosewith the most pious rhetoric about the essence ofthe university as a cultural institution for the openexploration of knowledge can also be amongthose most willing to misuse the political ma-chinery of the institution to enforce their anti–science prejudices. Have you noticed that as well?

Indirect evidence suggests that you may dis-agree with the essence of what I have said here,and because I have found reasons to respect yourposition on another front, I invite you to shareyour views with me on this one, and I look for-ward to hearing from you.

Best regards,

Lawrence E. Fraley

Enclosure: Fraley, L.E. (). Adverse implica-tions for university teaching concealed in eco-nomically driven policies. The Behavior Analyst,21, –.

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At the next monthly meeting of the Liberal Studies Com-mittee, the person to whom I had sent the above lettermade a point of saying to me, in a cordial way, that hehad received my letter and that he was preparing to replyto it. I told him that I would look forward to hearingfrom him, but the fact that a response from him never ar-rived did not surprise me. However, he was now in-formed of the issues in a way, and to a degree, thatrendered my interpretation of his subsequent actionseasier and the conclusions more reliable.

In keeping with established committee operations, amember of the Liberal Studies Program Committee wassubsequently assigned to lead the committee’s formaldeliberations on my course application. It was a personwith whom I had not yet specifically interacted on thismatter. It was that person’s task to collect reactions fromother committee members prior to the meeting at which


my Liberal Studies Program course application was to bediscussed. Based on that person’s own views plus thoseprovided in advance by other members, that individualwas then to present an overview of the request and offer arecommendation about the course to which the commit-tee would then give further consideration prior to reachinga formal decision. In keeping with committee practice, Iwas required to absent myself from the committee duringits deliberations of my own course application.

In keeping with established procedures, members ofthe committee who were forwarding preliminary remarksabout the course to that coordinating person posted theirreactionary comments on the committee e–mail list–serve so that all members of the committee could seethem. From those remarks, it seemed obvious to me thatcommittee members were struggling with ways to ratio-nalize keeping this behavior–related course out of thenatural science category—a task that I was deliberatelymaking as difficult for them as possible.

Shortly before the meeting at which my course wouldbe considered, I sent the following message to the personwho was coordinating committee consideration of mycourse application:

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This is a straight–forward natural science coursewith lab work conducted in the form of appliedprojects. Such a natural science course can andmay focus on the study of any phenomena thatcan be identified and measured, and that cer-tainly includes something as common and asmuch a part of people’s lives as behavior.

Hopefully we are safe in assuming that allmembers of our committee agree that it is notthis committee’s business to define arbitrarily thesubject matters that members of the universitynatural science community may study and teachfrom their own natural science perspective. Nor isit the business of our committee to limit arbi-trarily the phenomena that students may contactfrom a natural science perspective within thisuniversity’s Liberal Studies Program. Breadth ofintellectual opportunity has always been thestated goal of our Liberal Studies Program Com-mittee, as well as both breadth and depth in theinterpretation of subject matter. Arbitrary limita-tions would be antithetical to the committeecharge and mission.

The application submitted for this coursemakes clear a couple of especially relevant points:

First, like other natural science courses, thiscourse teaches, as comprehensively as possible inan introductory course, the natural science ap-proach to its subject matter. Furthermore, inkeeping with the spirit of breadth, balance, andinterrelations that should characterize LiberalStudies courses, this course, while teaching whatis for most students a new natural science per-spective on behavior, also puts a heavy emphasison what makes it a natural science course. It doesthat, in part, by comparing and contrasting itsontological and epistemological approach withthose of other prevalent perspectives on its sub-ject matter—at least one of which is alreadysomewhat familiar to nearly every student. Theemphasis is not merely on the differing funda-mental assumptions that inform those differentapproaches, but also on the relative capacities ofthose approaches to support the practical endeav-ors of various practitioners. That is, how onethinks about what one is doing has importantpractical implications for the efficiency andeffectiveness that one can attain. That is an im-portant point, and it is addressed in this course.

In short, a student taking a natural sciencecourse, especially within the Liberal Studies Pro-gram, should not only learn some scientific prin-ciples and practices pertinent to the subjectmatter, but should also learn something of why itis generally deemed worthwhile to bother looking atphenomena in that way. The student should emergefrom the course with some notion of peoples’differing capacities to deal effectively with a sub-ject matter as a result of the differing philosophi-cal perspectives through which its events may beinterpreted. Students should also appreciate thesocio–cultural implications of those differences.This course addresses these kinds of objectivesand does so at the scholarly level of the under-graduate student. These are precisely the kinds ofobjectives long publicly endorsed by the LiberalStudies Program Committee.

I recommend committee approval of this courseon the grounds that it is constituted to do exactlywhat a Liberal Studies course is supposed to do.Furthermore, in accordance with the establishedcategories, which feature both the social sciencesand natural sciences, this course clearly fits intoboth categories as argued in the application.

cc: Liberal Studies Program Committee members

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Throughout the prolonged episode it seemed obviousthat this Liberal Studies Program Committee wouldnever actually approve this course for inclusion in thenatural science area. However, if I had requested only thenatural science area, where the course belonged, the com-mittee, in denying that request, would thus preclude thecourse being offered within the program. Because I didwant to emerge from this exercise with a course that Icould offer within the Liberal Studies Program, it wasnecessary to frame the request in terms of both the socialscience and natural science clusters.

A day or two before the meeting at which my coursewould be considered, I sent an e–mail message to thecommittee chairperson that was focused mainly on othercommittee business. However, I included a peripheralmention of the course application and added that “I amlooking forward to your interpretive review of thecommittee’s thinking on the issues pertinent to thecourse application.” That remark alluded to the some-what detailed letter explaining the decision of the com-mittee that the committee chairperson traditionally sentto a faculty member after that person’s course applicationhad been considered and acted upon by the Liberal Stud-ies Program Committee.

As I anticipated, the committee kept the course out ofthe natural science category while deviating from its actionof the previous year by approving the inclusion of this courseamong the Liberal Studies Program social science offer-ings. Although it was a well established practice to sharethe rationale behind committee decisions with the facultymembers who had submitted course applications, I receiveda perfunctory letter from the chairperson that announcedonly the decision without any explanatory address of thecommittee’s consideration of the relevant issues.

My general social relations with the other committeemembers had developed within the envelope of cordial-ity that characterizes typical working relations amongdifferently disposed academics—and they stayed thatway. However, I had deliberately forced the committeeinto a political decision and had done so in a way thatprevented the committee members from concealing thatfact behind a cloud of contrived quasi–rationale—a typi-cal approach in academic political circles that the chair-person, perhaps to her credit, had not even attemptedwhen conveying the decision to me.

Following the committee’s action on my course, asthe semester wound toward its conclusion, it seemed thatthe other committee members and I mutually under-stood that the committee’s treatment of my quodlibethad received the less scholarly and more political resolu-tion that academics dislike having to render in an uncon-cealed way. My probe had been a solo experiment; I hadhad no allies on the committee, nor, as far as I could tell,in the faculty senate as a whole—and none to whom I

could point in the faculty at large. At the end of thespring semester, with my probe concluded, I opted to dis-continue serving on that committee.

Discussion

The Convenient Implications of anIncorrect Definition

At first blush, misconstruing the essence of the natu-ral sciences may seem like a simple mistake resulting per-haps from insufficient schooling in the philosophy ofscience. After all, certain strands of commonalty amongthe subject matters of the traditional and familiar naturalscience fields afford a salient basis for a mistaken defini-tion of their class—especially among the majority of aca-demics who were trained and continue to work outside ofthe natural sciences. In that commonly held view, theterm natural is interpreted to refer simplistically to eventsin the “great outdoors.” Some people entertain a moregeneral version in which natural science pertains to thevaguely defined external environment apart from peopleand their behavior. However, as the not surprising resultsof my probe imply, mere enlightenment does not neces-sarily yield an immediate correction of that mistake.

The prevailing non–natural philosophy that informsmuch academic activity has broader and more importantimplications than peoples’ misconstruing the essence of thenatural sciences. The prevailing concept of a university,and convictions about how it should operate, are deter-mined largely by prevailing mystical philosophical perspec-tives on the nature of human beings and their behavior.

Within universities, an enduring curricular objectiveis to expose students to variation, which is typically ac-complished through general requirements that studentsselect courses from menus that represent the different fac-ets of the human experience. That enforced course sam-pling is intended to bring students into contact withdiversity in both subject matter and in ontological, epis-temological, and axiological treatments of subject matter.Natural scientists and scholars of behavior tend to sup-port that objective as well as the typical university ap-proach to its attainment. Support for that approach hasbecome an established criterion for good citizenshipwithin the academy.

The self–selection of courses by students helps inmatching the behavioral capacities of the students withopportunities for the expansion of those capacities, be-cause, in selecting courses that will provide new skills,students tend to avoid challenges that exceed the poten-tial of their preparation. At the same time, however, theenforced selection from established categories of coursesinsures some increase in the intellectual flexibility andadaptability of the students as they prepare to cope with


a complex environment. Allowances for the play of stu-dent idiosyncrasies through such course sampling by stu-dents is tolerated because, as yet, universities have littlecapacity to prescribe a specific worthwhile curriculumsuited to each student.

For the more superstitious and mentalistic facultymajority, student exposure to such curricular options is inkeeping with the notion that students, construed as au-tonomous agents, initiatively shop among the curricularofferings. Students are presumed to select contact withfacts that are of interest and also to select the best way tothink about them. According to that popular but invalidview, course requirements exist merely to influence astudent’s self–agent to engage in a wider range of shop-ping and to foster a more thorough acquaintance withthe training opportunities that are being made available.However, the choice is supposedly left to the autonomousor semi–autonomous self–agent.

Under that prevailing view of a person, a university isnot a center of prescripted behavior engineering but isinstead something like an intellectual smorgasbord. Bothsubject matters (defined behaviorally in terms of environ-mental variables) and the philosophical perspectivesthrough which they are studied are to be made availableon a curricular menu. Each student, as a somewhat au-tonomous self, makes his or her idiosyncratically deter-mined course selections from that menu. Within a givencourse, the teaching, rather than being construed as aconditioning procedure, is presumed to be mere present-ing—and learning implies selective internalization at thediscretion of a somewhat autonomous and intrinsicallymysterious self–agent. The presence of that agent mani-fests as proactive mental activity.

In reality, this results in course selections in accor-dance with somewhat unspecified idiosyncratic contin-gencies that, upon analysis, usually have studentsbehaving in ways that make probable their contacts withfamiliar reinforcers. Once a specialization is identified,and the student moves into a specialized training phase,a larger fraction of the training objectives are specified byspecialists in the field, and the behavior engineering oftenbecomes more clearly defined and more explicit. Instruc-tors in those specializations describe the skills that stu-dents are expected to exhibit. The students’ involvementin the kind of conditioning necessary for them to meetthe specified objectives is simply required.

The students’ curricular introduction to diversity canbe effected at different organizational levels within the in-stitution, but how it is done is determined by theorganizational level at which the requirement of diversityis enforced. A course is typically constructed around a setof related subject matters denoted collectively as a majortopic. To encounter a substantially different subject mat-ter one must usually take a different course.

Within the natural sciences, the courses tend to beontologically and epistemologically pure in their com-porting with naturalism regardless of their respective sub-ject matters. Therefore, with respect to epistemologicalapproaches (as opposed to subject matters), variance willbe encountered at the course level by a natural sciencestudent only if that student selects courses from univer-sity units that range beyond the natural sciences. For ex-ample, a student in a physics course in mechanics canencounter a different kind of subject matter merely bytaking another physics course—in electronics, for ex-ample. However, to increase the likelihood of contactwith a different ontology or epistemology, that studentwould have to enroll in a course that is offered by a uni-versity unit outside of the natural science cluster.Throughout the remainder of the university, the philoso-phy that informs practical activity pertinent to the sub-ject matter may vary.

Unlike the philosophical integrity that characterizes anatural science course, in the social sciences epistemologi-cal variance can be accomplished within courses, or so thetheory goes. For example, a typical social science coursemay feature several units of instruction that purportedlyintroduce various ways of coming to know about a givenincrement of subject matter. Those units of study mayhave titles such as “cognitive approaches to…,” “behav-ioral approaches to…,” “humanistic approaches to…,”and “religious approaches to…,” all of which pertain tothe same block of subject matter as defined in terms ofenvironmental variables.

Except at an elementary level that is below expecta-tions for university student comprehension, such coursescan actually do little to prepare students to compare andcontrast disparate ontological and epistemological foun-dations, because the teaching burden implicit in such agrand objective far exceeds the instructional capacity of atypical course. In general, such courses do little morethan survey samples of the products respectively pro-duced by adherents to the various philosophies to whichsuch units of instruction allude, with only superficial ref-erences to the respective underlying assumptions that in-formed the production of those products. Treatments ofthose differing philosophical foundations often appear aslittle more than a few sentences that begin with phrasessuch as “the ————ists believe that….”

Advocates of philosophical eclecticism may be madeuncomfortable by the degree of ontological and epistemo-logical purity that prevails within natural science com-munities. Furthermore, such a curricular concept mayseemingly transcend the constitutional prohibition againstthe imposition of thought that many people find implicitin the epistemological exclusivity that prevails in aca-demic natural science subcommunities. The defense ofphilosophical eclecticism in university courses can then


be carried to an ethical or even a moral level of argument.The belief is then fostered that courses featuring an onto-logical and epistemological smorgasbord should predomi-nate—perhaps even be legislated across the university.

However, the natural sciences, unlike the currentlyconceived social sciences, cannot respect that model ofphilosophical diversity and still maintain the naturalisticintellectual integrity that is crucial to their effectiveness.An appreciation of this truth can be realized by examin-ing any of the many detailed scientific accounts thatafford a solution to some great mystery—especially thekind of account that weaves the strands of several naturalsciences into a comprehensive analysis of a complex andchallenging problem to reach a satisfying conclusion. Itsoon becomes obvious that the important conclusioncould not convincingly have been forthcoming had thoseanalytical strands been contaminated with the supersti-tious and mystical assumptions that are prevalent in con-temporary culture. (A book by Ryan and Pitman []provides a particularly good example while rewarding thereader with a worthwhile and fascinating science story.)

In the social science community the prevailing assess-ment is that naturalism and its alternatives represent on-tological and epistemological options that may be ofpotentially equal merit. In contrast, in the natural sciencecommunity the prevailing assessment is that philosophi-cal repertoires range along a qualitative gradient that isdefined in terms of practicality. In relation to the phi-losophy of naturalism, the superstitious alternatives aredeemed to be less intellectually mature as well asefficaciously inferior ways to think about whatever sub-ject matter is under study. Within a natural science aca-demic community, the proffer to students of such inferiorintellectual merchandise constitutes an unethical breachof professorial responsibility.

Natural scientists do entertain one kind of intellec-tual diversity. It manifests at the theory level in connec-tion with work on what people describe as the scientificfrontiers of a given field where probes of some phenom-enon of interest have yielded incomplete evidence. A the-ory is a coherent set of verbal behaviors that describesobserved events in a way that comports with an incom-plete set of evidence. In a given case, any number of suchtheories may arise. Two possibilities can account for mul-tiple theories: (a) Existing but limited evidence can sup-port more then one kind of account. (b) Different subsetsof evidence are taken into account on different occasions.However, as the evidence being taken into account be-comes more complete and more available to all parties,the range of theories shrinks, and ultimately a survivingtheory may prevail. As that surviving account comes topredominate, having been called a theory in the formercompetitive phase, it then comes progressively to be de-scribed instead as a fact (e.g., early in newspapers

worldwide reported that the Pope was now informingRoman Catholics that biological evolution should be re-garded as more than just a theory).

The term fact refers to a controlling relation betweenan environmental event and some behavior, in which thebehavior proves reliably effective. For example, supposethat an environmental event (e.g., the moon) evokes be-havior that was previously conditioned in the presence ofrocks that were contacted in non–lunar contexts. Themoon is then evoking elements of one’s previously condi-tioned rock–relevant behavioral repertoire. If that moon–evoked and rock–related behavior continues reliably to bereinforced, eventually a tact of that expanded set ofcontrolling relations, along with the appropriate autoclit-ic enhancements, can result in the statement that “themoon consists of rock”—a statement that, with thecontinuing accumulation of such a behavior–controllinghistory, may be described first as a theory and eventuallyas a fact. That reclassification has its own implications: Adescription that is reclassified from theory to fact therebygains a special increment of immunity to contradictionby any further adduction of contrary evidence. (For anexcellent example from the annals of modern cosmology,see Arp [].)

However, despite such theory sifting in connectionwith probes conducted on the ontological frontiers oftheir subject matters, the natural science sub–communi-ties remain relatively consistent at the level of their com-mon fundamental philosophy. The distinction between(a) theories based on differing subsets of adduced evi-dence and (b) differing ontological and epistemologicalfoundations by which to interpret evidence in the firstplace—and the implications of that distinction—mayelude some people. They may then be led, mistakenly, toregard theoretical diversity within a natural science field asevidence of ontological and epistemological inconsis-tency. Those who are predisposed to dilute the philo-sophical integrity of the natural sciences may then assert,on the basis of that fallacy, that the touted philosophicalintegrity among the natural sciences is unreliable. Theymay argue that, in the face of such internal disagreement,no philosophical integrity exists to be protected.

Such fallacy–laden reasoning facilitates efforts to in-trude non–natural philosophies into academic naturalscience communities and to enforce the implications ofsuch impositions. Pressure to do that is exerted in variousways—for example, as efforts to compel respect for reli-gious creationism in courses in biology, geology, andastrophysics—or to compel respect in behaviorologycourses for what are believed to be autonomous body–di-recting self–agents. Behavior analysts working withinpsychology departments may be pressured to include intheir courses equal time for traditional psychology con-tent with its underlying baggage of fashionable paranor-


mal assumptions. During instruction about behavioralphenomena from the psychological perspective, the para-normal nature of autonomous self–agents often goesunidentified as such. The imaginary nature of the self–agent is accorded analytical immunity. The uncritical ac-ceptance of that construct is neglected in the rush toexplicate its implications, which are treated as the impor-tant aspects of the subject matter.

To lend verisimilitude to those misguided notions,various physiological mechanisms within nervous sys-tems are misrepresented as real–world effects of putativeif de–emphasized mystical forces such as the willpower ofthe self–agent. However, the subject matter is no lessmystical if it consists of phenomena, pertinent to humanbeings and their behaviors, that make sense only if hu-man beings are inferred to be operated by spiritual enti-ties that go unmentioned or undescribed as such. Merelyreferring to that ethereal proactive manager as a self,which most everyone uncritically accepts, does not en-hance the respectability of an intellectual perspective thatremains firmly rooted in popular superstition.

Since antiquity, the nature of both human beings andhuman behavior have been misinterpreted on the basis ofnon–natural postulates. We continue to live in a pre-dominantly superstitious culture, and universities are cul-turally created institutions that cannot readily transcendthe superstition–based practices and traditions of the cul-ture that has spawned them. The substantial majority offaculty members in those institutions reflect the predomi-nant predisposition to superstition that prevails in theambient culture. The superstitiously informed behaviorof university faculty members need only manifest withappropriate academic sophistication.

Natural science, supported by its foundation in natu-ral ontology and epistemology, represents a unique andfragile emergence—so potent in its efficacy that the cul-ture cannot now be sustained without its products, yetpolitically vulnerable in its somewhat alienated intellec-tual isolation in the vastness of the ambient mystical cul-ture (e.g., Ulman, ). Within the culture out of whichnatural science has evolved—a culture that now, in turn,relies upon natural science for its existence and mainte-nance—many people, ironically, seem to fear sciencesbased on the postulates of naturalism (Skinner, ,chap. –; , chap. ) as if those sciences were intellec-tual cancers. Many people remain preoccupied with thepolitical containment of the organizational manifesta-tions of those sciences.

One threatening implication of natural philosophy isthat the reinterpretations of phenomena that naturalphilosophy and science afford are potentially applicableto all of reality, not just to the traditional subject mattersof the natural sciences. That is, the entirety of thephenomena that define the environment, including

events on both sides of organic skin, are subject toreinterpretation from the natural science perspective.

Behavior, for example, is as susceptible to natural sci-ence treatments as any other class of events. Among thefirst casualties of the intrusion of naturalism into the do-main of behavior are the superstitious underpinningsupon which nearly the entire culture has based interpre-tations of human activity. Cultural institutions of variouskinds, some in place since antiquity, face substantial read-justments under the scrutiny of a natural science of be-havior. To comport with the realities that are recognizedthrough natural science interpretations, cultural agencieswould in many cases have to be reconceptualized andreconstructed—typically in ways devoid of comfortablyfamiliar attributes.

Law, religion, education, welfare, and many aspectsof government are subject to recrafting in light of the be-havior–related realities that are revealed from a naturalscience perspective (see Skinner, , section V; specificexamples include Fraley, c, d, e, and ).Even the traditional discipline of philosophy is subject toa major overhaul (Fraley, ) when natural ontologyand epistemology are brought to bear in analyzing thetraditional discipline that is organized around the studyof philosophical issues (i.e., the discipline of philosophyper se). Much is at stake in admitting a natural science ofbehavior to full–fledged status within the natural sciencecommunity. When that happens, the result may be amore intrinsic and fundamental kind of change to theculture than has occurred from the emergence of the cur-rently constituted natural science establishment.

Within universities, most academics resist the estab-lishment of independent departments, housed among theexisting natural science units, where concentrations of natu-ral scientist–scholars of behavioral phenomena wouldwork (Fraley, ). However, that resistance seldom ap-pears to result from penetrating and detailed analyses ofthe adverse effects of a natural behavior science on thevarious cultural foundations in which academics re-spectively have personal investments. As the results of mylimited probe seem to hint, just an inkling may suffice.

By misdefining the natural sciences (as a class) interms of currently studied subject matters instead of thecommon ontology and epistemology of naturalism,which is their true essence, the range of phenomena towhich the natural science kind of attention is directedcan be contained at its status quo. That containmentthen requires no more effort than simple rule followingbased on established categories of subject matter. Impor-tantly, behavior–environment relational phenomena re-main outside of the periphery imposed by that falsedefinition of natural science. That leaves the study of be-havior–environment functional relations to be relegatedto the social sciences. However, there it cannot be lodged


as a separate discipline, because, in what, theoretically, arethe philosophically eclectic social sciences, philosophicalexclusivity is not recognized as a legitimate basis for aseparate department nor even for a single course.

The predicament in which this leaves the natural sci-entists and scholars of behavior is to some extent an im-plication of constitutional law. The clustered naturalsciences within universities represent the only groupingof university faculty that is functionally if not formallyconstituted according to the fundamental ontology andepistemology entertained by its people. All other univer-sity units functionally and formally derive their identityand classification from the classes of subject matter, de-fined in terms of environmental variables, upon whichthe scholarly attentions of their members are focused.

That traditional kind of relation between universityunits and the subject matters upon which their facultymembers are focused predominates in part, because howany person thinks about a subject matter is construed to bedecreed by the national constitution to remain an independentvariable—an implication of the so–called freedom ofspeech guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Con-stitution of the United States of America. Neither a pub-lic university, nor one of its academic units, is treated asconstitutionally free to dictate explicitly the kind of on-tology and epistemology that is to be practiced by a fac-ulty member as a qualification for membership. Neitherfaculty members, nor the students whom they teach, maybe screened on the basis of personal respect for a par-ticular philosophical approach to the subject matter.

Epistemological approaches may themselves legiti-mately become a curricular subject matter, but a criticaldistinction inheres in differences between (a) require-ments to describe a particular epistemological approachand (b) requirements that its tenets share in controllingstill other classes of one’s behavior (that is, it’s one thingto teach about it and something else entirely to enforcepersonal displays of its functionality, especially in con-texts that range beyond training exercises).

The legal status of the natural–science clusters inpublic universities—that is, the right to exclusive depart-ments and clusters of departments—is formally sup-ported only by subject matter considerations that, underconstitutional prohibition, may not penetrate to the levelof the ontology and epistemology of the involved people.Within public universities, any philosophical coherence,exhibited by a department faculty that is organizedaround a particular field of study, is necessarily left to re-sult from prevailing natural contingencies. Any relevantrequirements that are enforced can have only indirectphilosophical implications lest they intrude on the FirstAmendment rights of individuals.

However, those natural contingencies and indirectconstraints that support adherence to naturalism have

been sufficiently effective to insure an expectation, andoften reluctant acceptance, of the predominant natural-ism of the natural science faculty across the university inspite of the prevailing formal constitutional prohibitionagainst enforced philosophical exclusivity. The prevailingnatural contingencies, and other means of indirect sup-port, compel respect for naturalism about as effectively asformal policy could compel respect for naturalism.

As a practical matter of cultural reality, to do effectivelywhat the culture relies upon the organized natural sci-ences to accomplish, they must be granted the level ofself–determination implicit in independent academic de-partments. Within those departments, the combinationof means that is necessary to insure such philosophicalnaturalism is now widely accepted as legitimate.

Those whose recourse to mysticism and superstitioncould interfere with their doing effective natural sciencetend to be preemptively screened and rejected during thehiring procedure—a phase in the employment processthat, by design, is characterized by relaxed accountability.An applicant for a faculty job is still not explicitly rejectedon the basis of the personal philosophical repertoire thatwould inform that person’s work, but on the basis of apreparation history and previous work products that por-tend an inferior quality of work relative to that of moreappropriately prepared applicants. The latent link is thefact that, insofar as one’s philosophical repertoire directlyand qualitatively informs one’s scientific work in a directfunctional manner, a person with superstitious assump-tions pertinent to the departmental subject matter can-not and does not do effective and worthwhile naturalscience pertinent to that subject matter.

Obviously, the same methods are applicable to therecruiting in units outside of the natural sciences. Thus,the faculties in many such units are thereby kept asmystical and superstitious as the natural science depart-ments are kept free of those characteristics.

Within natural science units, persons who stray fromthe natural perspective on the subject matter often en-counter increasing difficulty in remaining sufficientlycompetitive to be retained. The natural science perspec-tive renders people especially competent in scientific andtechnical contexts. Persons who do not think that waytend to be uncompetitive in natural science units, whereperformance standards are high to match the degree ofcontrol over the subject matter that natural science makespossible for its practitioners. Thus, the elimination ofthose whose ontology or epistemology is of a non–natu-ral stripe can be accomplished through the enforcementof traditional academic standards for faculty, whereas therelatively ineffective ontological or epistemological reper-toires of those people, which precipitated their diffi-culties, being privately verbal in nature, remain legallyimmune to formal intrusion. That is, while such people


can be expelled for the poor quality or insufficiency of theirproducts, they cannot be expelled solely on the basis ofprivate philosophical practices that may have been func-tionally responsible for that inferior record of production.

As has often been observed, superstition does not fos-ter the evolution of good science nor does it supportworthwhile scientific activity. If good scientific practice,conditioned in other contexts, is brought to bear on theimplications of a superstitious assumption, then method-ologically good scientific behavior may be expended on anonsensical quest. That is why, in the natural sciencecommunity, good scientific methodology is insufficient.The functional quality control of scientific practice byverbal behavior from a repertoire of philosophical natu-ralism is equally essential.

Nevertheless, some generally superstitious individualscan secure themselves within natural science communi-ties by narrowing the focus of their scientific inquires andpursuing those inquiries according to uncritically acceptedscientific procedural rules, the philosophical origins of whichthey largely ignore. That is, they confine their scientificactivity to phenomena possessed of no adverse or con-trary implications for the mystical postulates that mayheavily influence their activities outside of the limitedranges of their rule–governed scientific specializations.

According to conventional academic wisdom, philo-sophical heterogeneity is valued, because it insures a vari-ety of approaches to the subject matter. In that kind ofvariance, defenders see a greater likelihood that effectivesolutions to problems will emerge, so they support aphilosophical scattergun approach to curricular con-struction. Among the majority of academics residing out-side of the natural science clusters, ontological andepistemological perspectives that are built around natu-ralism command no special respect. In a community suchas a university, the majority of people are blatantly mys-tical and exhibit substantial amounts of superstitiousbehavior—for example, in their frequent explanatory ap-peals to the presumed interventional powers of both dei-ties and body–driving self–spirits.

Under those circumstances no consensus on thequalitative differentiation of philosophical foundationscan be anticipated even though the superiority of natural-ism is arguably one of the most salient aspects of modernhistory. The advantage of naturalism remains a somewhatunwelcome lesson any teaching of which has been con-ducted only by the tiny minority of the population thathas attained the intellectual capacity to move beyond su-perstition. Not surprisingly, that also seems to be thegroup that most appreciates the cultural importance ofhaving done so.

Within natural science communities the qualitativeadvantage of the natural ontology and epistemology isrecognized, respected, and—to the extent possible—pro-

tected. In natural science training programs valuable classtime is not sacrificed to provide equal billing for the su-perstitious alternatives to naturalism. The faculties ofnatural science departments preclude many problems re-lated to that issue through their hiring policies. Thus, ge-ology departments do not hire water dowsers just in casea dowser, during exercises in the field, may find groundwater that the geologists have missed—and biology de-partments do not engage religious creationists to insure atleast the possibility of a better accounting than the evo-lutionary biologists could provide should a new life formbe discovered. In natural science units such an eclecticphilosophical approach to maximizing effectiveness is re-garded as wasteful nonsense.

Within natural science units the advantages of diver-sity and variation are realized at the level of theory, not atthe level of basic postulates. Creative and diverse thinkingis encouraged, but within the framework of naturalism,which precludes recourse to superstition. Thus, theadvantages of intellectual diversity are realized, but withina constraining envelope. That restriction takes into ac-count the fundamental principle that some ways to thinkyield verbal products that share in evoking what tends tobe efficaciously inferior environment–affecting behavior.Not all ways to think about a problem prove to be worth-while, and that difference becomes important in propor-tion to the value of what is at risk. That is why, when aneffective solution to a problem is absolutely critical, callsfor mystics are seldom issued, and people turn instead tonatural scientists and engineers.

However, outside of the natural science subcommuni-ties, the remainder of the university community contin-ues to tout the value of ontological and epistemologicaldiversity. In a social science department, where philo-sophical eclecticism is regarded as appropriate and worth-while, the professional activity of a substantial number offaculty members should reflect a philosophy of natural-ism. However, in spite of endorsements of philosophicaldiversity, persons with a natural science perspective onhuman beings and their behaviors may be excluded fromvarious units or may be limited numerically to the pointof tokenism, especially among the faculties in social sci-ence fields. Applications of the widely professed principleof intellectual diversity may seem to occur only when do-ing so serves those invested in mysticism. Paeans to philo-sophical diversity, if forthcoming only on such occasions,can seem more like ploys to disguise political strategy,that keeps the university safe for mysticism, than like ex-hibits of allegiance to a pedagogical principle.

The situation is different in the natural science units.Divergence in philosophy that would carry to departuresfrom naturalism is not respected in the first place. The factthat ontological and epistemological foundations can begraded qualitatively is one of the grand implications of the


past years of cultural evolution. Some ways of think-ing lead to more effective outcomes than do others. Morespecifically, any set of real phenomena to which humanattention can be directed, when regarded as natural andstudied scientifically, is subject to a kind of explicationthat leads to a greater benefit for more individuals, theirgroup, and their culture than can be realized through re-course to any kind of superstitious philosophical alterna-tive. However, to the extent that people are invested insuperstition, they cannot afford to know that.

However, bigger changes than mere readjustments inthe internal workings of universities would have to occurthroughout the culture to fully realize whatever worthwhileimplications inhere in that revelation. When recourse tosuperstitious behavior is widely and intensively promotedthroughout a culture especially by its various culturalagencies—when indulgence in certain classes of supersti-tious activity is widely regarded as a worthwhile aspect ofpersonal development to which parents and teachersshould direct their charges—when a substantial fractionof culturally important people earn a livelihood promotingsuperstitious practices and enjoy exemplary status preciselybecause they do so—when the extent of personal indul-gence in superstition becomes a criterion for the qualita-tive measure of a person, then exhibitions of superstitiousbehavior become highly valued within the ambient cul-ture. Behaving in certain superstitious ways is deemedvirtuous, and it becomes ethical to support and respectsuch activity. Such a culture evolves to protect the sub-stantial investments of its people in the particular kindsof superstitious activity that characterize that culture.

Under those circumstances, a common self–decep-tion tends to occur. Superstitious behavior tends not tobe recognized as such (a kind of declassification of theactivity as superstitious). Speaking of such activity in otherterms precludes the kind of critical self–analysis that theterm superstition otherwise tends to evoke due to thepunishment that is commonly reserved for the otherkinds of superstitious activity exhibited among disre-spected classes of people—often outsiders. By labeling as“superstitious” certain practices of a remote and little un-derstood group, its members and their culture are therebyeasily ridiculed. This can easily be done by people whothemselves exhibit blatant and extensive superstitious be-havior that goes unnoticed by those belittlers in part sim-ply because they do not label their own versions of suchactivity as superstitious.

SummaryMany members of the social sciences, arts, humani-

ties, traditional philosophy, and religion entertain theview that, while the traditional natural sciences may benecessary for coping with the environment as they under-stand it, the followers and practitioners of the natural sci-

ences are prone to socio–cultural irresponsibility (Skin-ner, , chap. ). Those who entertain that view tend toargue that the actions of natural scientists must be tem-pered by certain kinds of counter–controls exerted fromwhat they see as the more humanistic sector.

The natural scientists and scholars of human behav-ioral phenomena counter with the proposition that nobehavior–related phenomena of any importance can beidentified for which superstitious regard portends betteroutcomes than its regard according to naturalism. Theyincredulously ask when, where, and with respect to whatare we presumably better served by recourse to super-stition than by recourse to naturalism. True, adherence tothe natural perspective implies a substantial overhaul ofthe culture. However, those whose activity is informed bynaturalism point to the gratuitous self–service, the dam-age to the common intellect, and the personal sufferingthat continues to result from reliance on superstition.They argue that a substantive beginning on such a cul-tural remake is long overdue—that a culture relativelyfree of superstition is not only possible, but could be farmore humane in its practices than a culture that is basedon grand scale self–deceptions by its people.

The emergence of a strictly natural social sciencemegafield would bring the efficiency and effectiveness ofthe natural sciences to bear by way of the very culturalfunction that the humanists, traditional philosophers,and religionists tend to see as their piece of the culturalbusiness. Furthermore, that kind of revolution wouldlargely displace the traditional prescribers of human con-duct and virtue, because that revolution would beeffected by a subset of the natural scientists themselves—namely, those who concentrate their studies on humanenvironment–behavior relations (primarily, a subset ofthe behaviorologists). The conversion of the social sci-ences into natural science fields would represent a funda-mental change in the system of cultural checks andbalances from which the traditional keepers of the valuesof humanity would, for the most part, see themselves ex-cluded. While the pressures of history are buildingagainst one side of that door, it is not surprising that thetraditional stewards of humanism brace it from the other.

Contrasting Strategies of Disciplinary EmergenceMost natural scientists and scholars of behavior–en-

vironment relations would like to see their discipline takea leading role in moving the study of behavior away fromsuperstition and mysticism. They regard behavior as anatural phenomenon and believe that it is most produc-tively studied from the more efficacious and intellectuallymature perspective of the natural sciences. In general,natural scientists and scholars who share common in-terests and goals tend to organize—informally at first,and then in more structured ways.


With respect to the behavioral scientific communityat large, professional organization has occurred in twoforms, each supporting a different approach. One ap-proach is practiced in the Association for Behavior Analy-sis (), which has focused the energies of its memberson converting the mystical majority to naturalismthrough strategies of infiltration and integration. Theother approach is practiced in a pair of organizations, theInternational Society for Behaviorology () and The In-ternational Behaviorology Institute (). These lattertwo organizations are focused instead on disciplinary in-dependence in ways that circumvent the existing mysticalmajorities in the culture at large. The two contrasting ap-proaches (i.e., change through infiltration and conversionof the traditional mystical establishment and changethrough independent organization apart from that tradi-tional establishment) are incompatible.

Apart from such professional organizations, a furtherkind of potential disciplinary organization can occurwithin universities where the followers of discriminabledisciplines and fields tend to be clustered accordingly.2

Governments also recognize organized disciplines andfields in various ways, but governmental recognitiontends to reflect the organization of disciplines and fieldswithin universities.

Behaviorists, especially within universities, work topromote recognition of a natural science of environ-ment–behavior relations and to secure organizationalarrangements that will foster the maturation of their dis-cipline. However, the two incompatible strategies of dis-ciplinary emergence have each gained proponents withinthe community of natural behavior science: () Infiltratedepartments, previously organized within universities, inwhich less effective thinking about the behavior–relatedsubject matter predominates, and change how their fac-ulty members think about human beings and their be-havior. () Organize independently within the university(Ledoux, b). From within those independent de-partments, exhibit the more efficacious ways of thinkingthat characterize the natural sciences, produce effectiveproducts, and eventually prevail across a protracted period ofinformal competition with units that are separately orga-nized around superstitious assumptions about the behav-ioral subject matter. These alternatives for promotion ofthe discipline have been debated vigorously (e.g., Azrin,; Epstein, , ; Fraley, , , a, b,f; Fraley & Ledoux, /; Fraley & Vargas,

; Grote, ; Harzem, ; Johnston, ; Lee,, ; Leigland, ; Malagodi & Branch, ;McDowell, ; Proctor & Weeks, ; Rakos, ;Skinner, ; Ulman, ; E. Vargas, , a, b,, ; J. Vargas, ; and Wulfert, ). Continu-ing debate can be anticipated on this contested issue.

The majority of behaviorists has adopted the strat-egy, and in doing so has set for itself the task of convert-ing superstitious people, most of whom have lifetimeinvestments in mystical perspectives on human beingsand their behaviors. Many followers of that infiltrationstrategy have justified that quest to themselves by hewingto what some others argue is a misconstrued concept ofthe task. Those pursuing that integrate–and–influence–strategy have often assumed that the misguided social sci-entists will change their intellectual direction in responseto evidence–based demonstrations of the greatereffectiveness of the natural science approach that behav-iorists usually stand ready to provide (for a more detailedanalysis of the perils in that strategy, see Fraley, ). Ingeneral, that strategy requires that the behaviorists gainthe cooperation and trust of those whom they strive tochange, because under that strategy the behaviorists mustshare an organizational infrastructure with them.

Some of those infiltrators actually hold little hope ofconverting their mystical faculty colleagues to naturalismand instead strive merely to establish an island of op-portunity within the host department in which somefragmented approximation of natural science training canbe conducted. Inherently, all such infiltration strategiesrequire affectations of deception, which, with prolongedmaintenance, begin to affect the infiltrators about asmuch as they affect members of the target group. That is,the behaviorists risk starting to believe the platitudes andeuphemisms of their own tactical subversive rhetoric.

On the other hand, a minority of behaviorists hasadopted the strategy, and in doing so has set for itselfthe task of establishing behaviorology as another au-tonomous member of a natural science federation that,alas, may not welcome it. In general, the current mem-bers of the various traditional natural sciences are so un-trained in the application of their own naturalism tobehavioral phenomena that many natural scientists doubtthe feasibility of applying the natural science approach tobehavior–related events. Furthermore, any attempt bynatural scientists of behavior to establish themselveswithin the natural science federation must occur under aconstitutional prohibition of the right to organize for-mally around the particular philosophical exclusivity thatgives the behaviorists a natural science identity. However,that difficulty was previously confronted and largely over-come by the faculties of physics, chemistry, biology, andgeology departments, so it is not prohibitive.

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2 The variables that define a field of study are found inthe environment and are constituent elements of the sub-ject matter of concern. The variables that define a disci-pline are among the analytical and interpretive verbalbehaviors of those who study a particular subject matter.


Both approaches to disciplinary development (i.e.,integration vs. independence) are difficult, but notequally so. The lessons of history seem clear on onepoint: Groups whose integrity is based on a well re-hearsed ontology and epistemology of a particular subjectmatter can be much more expeditiously and eco-nomically circumvented than converted. That the major-ity of behaviorists are nevertheless pursuing the strategyof infiltration and conversion merely attests to thestrength of the classes of extraneous contingencies thatsupport that particular strategy, even in the absence ofany realistic promise of success (Fraley , b).

Established academic communities are generally wellprepared to resist change from within, especially whensuch change is promoted by intruding intellectual carpet-baggers. On the other hand, such communities are muchless able to prevent inter–community competition on alevel paying field. We now tend to celebrate the eclipse ofwater dowsing by ground water geology. However, wouldwe yet have anything to celebrate had the early and out-numbered ground water geologists foregone their inde-pendent organizational activities and instead dispersedthemselves thinly among the multitudinous ranks of thewater–related mystics of the world? How absurd thatidea—the scattered and isolated individual geologistshere and there hoisting little flags of evidence in the galeof well organized hocus–pocus that, with each passingyear, would surely have become more sophisticated in itscontrived rationalizations and justifications.

The Next StepNatural scientists and scholars of behavior should ap-

proach the traditional natural science federation—thephysicists, chemists, biologists, geologists, and others—perhaps through points of contact in their respective pro-fessional organizations. The mission of thoseambassadors of behavior science would have three facets.

One objective should be to remind the people inthose communities of the definitive essence andcharacteristics of the natural sciences at both the scientificand philosophical levels of consideration—and to em-phasize that, under the umbrella of naturalism, any realphenomena can be studied from that perspective, includ-ing behavior–related events. With respect to ontologyand epistemology, behaviorologists are certainly on aqualitative par with the more established kinds of naturalscientists. On that issue we can, in general, interact withthe best of them from a posture of intellectual equality.

The second facet of the mission would be to educatemembers of the other natural sciences about the rudi-ments of the natural science of behavior–environmentrelations. Although the majority of the training receivedby traditional natural scientists was centered in their ma-jor fields, most of them got at least rudimentary training

in other natural sciences, except for the natural science ofbehavior–environment relations. Training in that particu-lar natural science was generally unavailable.

Consider, for example, the physiologists. The formaleducation of most physiologists left them more or lessskilled in a general way in physics, chemistry, and per-haps certain of the applied natural sciences. Nevertheless,many physiologists remain ignorant of the extensivenatural science of behavior–related phenomena thatreaches beyond the largely respondent class of behaviorthat is typically included in biological curricula to aid inthe interpretation of animal behavior. Many physiologistswhose work pertains to behavior rely naively on tradi-tional psychology for the behavior–related foundations towhich they can relate their behavior–related studies at thephysiological level. One result is the spectacle of leadingneural physiologists interpreting their studies of behav-ior–related brain activity in terms of popular su-perstition–based concepts about operant behavior such asthe putative will power of a body–driving self–agent, in-formation processing, and similar fallacies.

The third facet of the mission should involve educat-ing members of the traditional natural science communi-ties about the respective and contrasting implications ofscientific cooperation with (a) mystical social sciencecommunities and (b) the natural science sub–communitythat addresses behavior–environment relations. The tra-ditional natural scientists need to become more dis-criminating in that regard and more aware of theimplications of their being seduced into cooperativeintellectual departures from natural reality.

It is into that natural science federation that we be-haviorologists need to move, so we should begin to pavethe way for our acceptance. It is a long process during whichmembers of the traditional natural science communitywill have to become even more natural in their generalperspective. Because behaviorological science is both thescience of science and the science of philosophy, our dis-cipline will help make that kind of improvement possibleand feasible for the other kinds of natural scientists. Thatwill be one of the intellectual gifts that we bring to thecelebration of our union with them. With our sciencerepresented at their disciplinary roundtable, the tradi-tional natural scientists can become better of their ownkind, and it is time to plant the seed of that idea.�

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