A first principle not formally recognized by scientific methodologists: when you run into something interesting, drop everything else and study it.
B. F. SKINNERIt is a mistake to suppose that the whole issue is how to free man. The issue is to improve the way in which he is controlled.
More B. F. Skinner Quotes
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I’ve often said that my rats have taught me much more than I’ve taught them.
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At this very moment enormous numbers of intelligent men and women of goodwill are trying to build a better world. But problems are born faster than they can be solved.
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If the world is to save any part of its resources for the future, it must reduce not only consumption but the number of consumers.
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We have not yet seen what man can make of man.
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When we say that a man controls himself, we must specify who is controlling whom.
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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.
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Death does not trouble me. I have no fear of supernatural punishments, of course, nor could I enjoy an eternal life in which there would be nothing left for me to do, the task of living having been accomplished.
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Chaos breeds geniuses. It offers a man something to be a genius about.
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I don’t believe in God, so I’m not afraid of dying.
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Society attacks early, when the individual is helpless.
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Let men be happy, informed, skillful, well behaved, and productive.
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An important fact about verbal behavior is that speaker and listener may reside within the same skin.
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Somehow people get the idea I think we should be given gumdrops whenever we do anything of value.
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The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.
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Science, not religion, has taught me my most useful values, among them intellectual honesty. It is better to go without answers than to accept those that merely resolve puzzlement.
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