Social engineering:

Skinner is popularly known mainly for his controversial books Walden Two and Beyond Freedom and Dignity. Walden Two describes a visit to an imaginary utopian commune in the 1940s United States, where the productivity and happiness of the citizens is far in advance of that in the outside world due to their practice of scientific social planning and the use of operant conditioning in the raising of children. Walden Two, like Thoreau's Walden, champions a lifestyle that doesn't foster competition and social strife and doesn't support war. It favors and encourages a lifestyle of minimal consumption, rich social relationships, personal happiness, satisfying work and leisure.

Beyond Freedom and Dignity advanced the thesis that obsolete social concepts, like free will and human dignity (by which Skinner meant belief in individual autonomy) stood in the way of greater human happiness and productivity. Skinner was just as opposed to inhumane treatment and bad government as many, and perhaps more than some, but he argued that the champions of freedom went so far as to deny causality in human action so they could champion the "free person." So the champions of freedom were, in a sense, the enemies of a scientific way of knowing. There is a rough parallel here to the book "Higher Supersitition" in the opposition to scientific knowledge, except Skinner here is being much more general.

Dignity is the practice of giving individuals credit for their actions. To say "Skinner is brilliant" means that Skinner is an originating force. If Skinner is right, he is merely the locus of his environment. He is a not an originating force and he had no choice in saying the things he said or doing the things he did. Skinner's environment and genetics allowed and made him write his book. This is not to say that that means it is not true. The environment and genetics of the advocates of freedom and dignity make them fight the reality of their activity being grounded in determinism.

Rumors:

One often-repeated story claims that Skinner ventured into human experiments by raising his daughter Deborah in a Skinner box, which led to her life-long mental illness and a bitter resentment towards her father.

In fact, the Air-Crib, Skinner's term for his version of the baby crib, was heated, cooled, had filtered air, allowed plenty of space to walk around in, and was much like a miniature version of a modern home. It was designed to make the baby more confident, more comfortable, less sick, less prone to cry, and so on. Reportedly it had some success in these goals.

Psychologist and author Lauren Slater wrote a book, "Opening Skinner's Box", in 2004 which mentioned claims that Deborah unsuccessfully sued her father for abuse and later committed suicide. The book then immediately pointed out that the reality was rather different. However, at least one review misread the book and reported it as making the claims without correcting them. In response, Deborah Skinner herself came forward to publicly denounce the story as nothing more than hearsay and presumably to vouch for her own continued existence. She blasted Lauren Slater's book for repeating this urban legend, as being vicious and harmful; she was presumably relying on someone else's inaccurate depiction of the book's contents. See "I was not a lab rat" in the Guardian Unlimited Friday March 12, 2004 for the full text of Deborah's denunciation.

As much as anything, this episode showed how rumours come into being - even now, journalists still write articles as if the Slater book was in support of, rather than against, the original rumours about Skinner's treatment of his children. Read more about his "works" through books.