Oh, I lurv trivia. With me, you can shovel it on.

Skinner, not unlike many other scientists, but in a lower percentage than among corporate executives, was a sociopath - though the sociopathy of scientists emerges from different behaviours.

IMHO being a sociopath does not exclude you from having interesting insights - it may even be an advantage to have a distorted view of the questions that are worth asking.

Genius (when not self-described) has one of two sources: a physiological abnormality or a perceived physiological abnormality. The nutter and the compensating nutter.

You can't be me, I'm taken

I loved my father dearly. He was fantastically devoted and affectionate. But perhaps the stories about me would never have started if he had done a better job with his public image. He believed that, although our genes determine who we are, it is mostly our environment that shapes our personality. A Time Magazine cover story ran the headline "BF Skinner says we can't afford freedom". All he had said was that controls are an everyday reality - traffic lights and a police force, for instance - and that we need to organise our social structures in ways that create more positive controls and fewer aversive ones. As is clear from his utopian novel, Walden Two, the furthest thing from his mind was a totalitarian or fascist state.

His careless descriptions of the aircrib might have contributed to the public's common misconception as well. He was too much the scientist and too little the self-publicist - especially hazardous when you are already a controversial figure. He used the word "apparatus" to describe the aircrib, the same word he used to refer to his experimental "Skinner" boxes for rats and pigeons.

The effect on me? Who knows? I was a remarkably healthy child, and after the first few months of life only cried when injured or inoculated. I didn't have a cold until I was six. I've enjoyed good health since then, too, though that may be my genes. Frankly, I'm surprised the contraption never took off. A few aircribs were built during the late 50s and 60s, and somebody also produced plans for DIY versions, but the traditional cot was always going to be a smaller and cheaper option. My sister used one for her two daughters, as did hundreds of other couples, mostly with some connection to psychology.