We have seen that in certain respects operant reinforcement resembles the natural selection of evolutionary theory. Just as genetic characteristics which arise as mutations are selected or discarded by their consequences, so novel forms of behavior are selected or discarded through reinforcement.
B. F. SKINNERIf you’re old, don’t try to change yourself, change your environment.
More B. F. Skinner Quotes
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Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.
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A permissive government is a government that leaves control to other sources.
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Was putting a man on the moon actually easier than improving education in our public schools?
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We have not yet seen what man can make of man.
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Problem-solving typically involves the construction of discriminative stimuli
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To say that behaviors have different ‘meanings’ is only another way of saying that they are controlled by different variables.
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The speaker does not feel the grammatical rules he is said to apply in composing sentences, and men spoke grammatically for thousands of years before anyone knew there were rules.
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Teachers must learn how to teach they need only to be taught more effective ways of teaching.
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A vast technology has been developed to prevent, reduce, or terminate exhausting labor and physical damage. It is now dedicated to the production of the most trivial conveniences and comfort.
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I did not direct my life. I didn’t design it. I never made decisions. Things always came up and made them for me. That’s what life is.
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The juvenile delinquent does not feel his disturbed personality. The intelligent man does not feel his intelligence or the introvert his introversion.
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A person who has been punished is not thereby simply less inclined to behave in a given way; at best, he learns how to avoid punishment.
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We are only just beginning to understand the power of love because we are just beginning to understand the weakness of force and aggression.
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It is not a question of starting. The start has been made. It’s a question of what’s to be done from now on.
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A disappointment is not generally an oversight. It might just be the best one can do the situation being what it is. The genuine error is to quit attempting.
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