The real question is not whether machines think but whether men do. The mystery which surrounds a thinking machine already surrounds a thinking man.
B. F. SKINNERA 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.
More B. F. Skinner Quotes
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It has always been the task of formal education to set up behavior which would prove useful or enjoyable later in a student’s life.
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Science is a willingness to accept facts even when they are opposed to wishes.
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But restraint is the only one sort of control, and absence of restraint isn’t freedom. It’s not control that’s lacking when one feels ‘free’, but the objectionable control of force.
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It is a surprising fact that those who object most violently to the manipulation of behaviour nevertheless make the most vigorous effort to manipulate minds.
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I will be dead in a few months. But it hasn’t given me the slightest anxiety or worry. I always knew I was going to die.
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Let men be happy, informed, skillful, well behaved, and productive.
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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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Something doing every minute’ may be a gesture of despair-or the height of a battle against boredom.
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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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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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A failure is not always a mistake, it may simply be the best one can do under the circumstances. The real mistake is to stop trying.
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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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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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Was putting a man on the moon actually easier than improving education in our public schools?
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Men build society and society builds men.
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