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The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.

B. F. Skinner

Society already possesses the psychological techniques needed to obtain universal observance of a code – a code which would guarantee the success of a community or state. The difficulty is that these techniques are in the hands of the wrong people-or, rather, there aren’t any right people.
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Community Difficult Hands Need People Right Success Wrong
To say that behaviors have different ‘meanings’ is only another way of saying that they are controlled by different variables.
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Control Deep Different Way
When we say that a man controls himself, we must specify who is controlling whom.
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Control Himself Men
A first principle not formally recognized by scientific methodologists: when you run into something interesting, drop everything else and study it.
B. F. SKINNER

Principle Recognition Run Study Yourself
Society attacks early, when the individual is helpless.
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Attack Help Society
Give me a child and I’ll shape him into anything.
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Children Education Himself Myself
Behavior is determined by its consequences.
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Attitude Determination
The major difference between rats and people is that rats learn from experience.
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Animal Difference Learning People
Indeed one of the ultimate advantages of an education is simply coming to the end of it.
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Education End Simplicity
The simulated approval and affection with which parents and teachers are often urged to solve behavior problems are counterfeit. So are flattery, backslap-ping, and many other ways of “winning friends.
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Affection Friendship Parents Problem Win
Problem-solving typically involves the construction of discriminative stimuli
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Construction Problem Problem Solving
A person’s genetic endowment, a product of the evolution of the species, is said to explain part of the workings of his mind and his personal history the rest.
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Explanation History Mindset Person Work
A piece of music is an experience to be taken by itself.
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Experience Music Pieces
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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Attitude Character Nature Novel Respect Seen Selection Theory
To say that behaviors have different ‘meanings’ is only another way of saying that they are controlled by different variables.
B. F. SKINNER

Control Deep Different Way
A fourth-grade reader may be a sixth-grade mathematician. The grade is an administrative device which does violence to the nature of the developmental process.
B. F. SKINNER

Development Mathematics Nature Process Reading Violence

The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.

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The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.

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