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. 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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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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Do not intervene between a person and the consequences of their own behavior.
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Problem-solving typically involves the construction of discriminative stimuli
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We shouldn’t teach great books; we should teach a love of reading.
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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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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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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 permissive government is a government that leaves control to other sources.
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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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Except when physically restrained, a person is least free or dignified when he is under threat of punishment, and unfortunately most people often are.
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The only geniuses produced by the chaos of society are those who do something about it. Chaos breeds geniuses. It offers a man something to be a genius about.
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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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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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The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.
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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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