Misbehaviour
Sir: In a book review (15 August), Colin Welch writes: 'I fully share Inglis's and West's contempt for the behaviourist heresy. Of this one might say that it was produced by people who were themselves behaviourists (I can think of no worse insult) and who then recklessly extrapo- lated their own deformities to form general laws governing the whole human race.' One wonders what has persuaded Colin Welch to use such intemperate language, which might be more appropriate to Sta- linesque communism, or Hitlerite fascism. One can only imagine that he knows little about behaviourism, its development since the early days of Watson, or the theories associated with it now. The main tenet of behaviourism is that all we can actually observe scientifically, as far as psychology is concerned, is behaviour; would Welch dispute that? Theories to explain this be- haviour have changed markedly over the last 60 years, and different schools of behaviourism have a different hypothesis. If Colin Welch cannot think of a worse insult than to call someone a behaviourist, I can. It is to accuse in a vicious and absurd manner a large group of people of whose work and theories you have no expert knowledge, and which you are in no position to judge.
H.J. Eysenck
Institute of Psychiatry, De Crespigny Park, London SE5
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