We have all heard of monkeys going into space, but who has heard of pigeons controlling missiles! Ever since our lecture on B.F. Skinner and conditioning i have not stopped thinking about his somewhat failed contribution to national defense, with pigeon guided missiles. If you missed this lecture let me give you brief description of "Project Orcon". During WW II Skinner used operant conditioning to train pigeons to help control missiles as to more accurately hit their target. The pigeon was positioned with a lens in front at which it could peck, if the pigeon were to peck the center the missile would continue strait, but when pecking away from the center it would cause the missile to change course as directed. A bomb in the hands, or more literally, the beak of pigeon! Before we discuss a bit a more, the following video gives us a great look and explanation of Skinners project:
As was said in the video, Skinner received funding from the government, $25,000 actually, but the idea was never really taken seriously. Also as they described in the video, the results that Skinner was able to produce and repeat, clearly showed that a pigeon could accurately guide a missile to its intended target. But why then was the project shut down on October 8th, 1944? Well according to the military they believed that "further prosecution of this project would seriously delay others which in the minds of the Division have more immediate promise of combat application." But Skinner had proven that this was a viable method of warfare, his methods of conditioning were clearly shown in multiple other projects as well, but he could not convince the National Defense Committee to implement Project Orcon. I have to admit that the idea of a pigeon controlling a bomb, being the deciding factor of who might live and die is a scary one. Trusting that much power to a pigeon seems a bit unreal and that is in the end what shut the project down. But this was just one more example of the power of conditioning that Skinner provided us, this fundamental psychological concept has a lot of power in it, enough power to a make a pigeon control a missile! What are your thoughts, would you trust a pigeon to control a missile? If you would trust them, think of the ethical implications of simply raising and training to pigeons to be nothing more than a kamikaze pilot. Also how would you feel knowing that your comrade was killed by a pigeon? Maybe the government was right to shut down the project, just for the wrong reasons. Commence commenting!
