A Review of The Millennium Man

For easy summer reading that introduces people to a behavioral approach check out Joseph Wyatt's "The Millennium Man." This book provides a retrospective examination of the developments in technology and ideas that have occurred during the 500 years between Leonardo da Vinci's death and his rebirth. Uncle Leo, as he is called in the novel, lives in a typical college professor's home and quickly learns (due to positive reinforcement) about all the remarkable changes that have occurred since his absence (e.g., indoor plumbing, Sesame Street, medical treatment to prevent polio). Toward the end of the novel, the advantages of a scientific approach to the understanding of behavior are presented with a review of Skinner's approach. I particularly enjoyed Wyatt's point about how a scientific undertaking of emotions (e.g., love) does not negate the beauty of the event, as well as the example of the power of shaping to develop new behaviors (e.g., to train birds to sit on someone's shoulder).

Marcie Desrochers teaches Introduction to Psychology, Applied Behavior Analysis, Research Methods, History & Systems of Psychology, and Developmental Disabilities at the College of Charleston. Dr. Desrochers's research interests include computer applications in psychology, functional assessment, and challenging behaviors. She is currently testing the instructional effectiveness of computer courseware that she developed and programmed entitled, "Simulations in Developmental Disabilities: SIDD." More may be found at Dr. Desrochers' website.
This review was written in June, 2002.

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