Jim Holt

Jim Holt Remembers Teenage Telephone Conversations with B F Skinner

Back when I was an adolescent, the first big challenge to my faith came from reading the works of B F Skinner. Prompted by a cover story about the Harvard psychologist in Time magazine, I delved into his Walden Two and Beyond Freedom and Dignity. ‘By God’, I remember thinking, ‘there’s no such thing as free will!’ The entire edifice of Christianity seemed to totter and fall.

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