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. SKINNERThe real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.
More B. F. Skinner Quotes
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The one fact that I would cry form every housetop is this: the Good Life is waiting for us – here and now.
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Was putting a man on the moon actually easier than improving education in our public schools?
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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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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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The problem of far greater importance remains to be solved. Rather than build a world in which we shall all live well, we must stop building one in which it will be impossible to live at all.
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Going out of style isn’t a natural process, but a manipulated change which destroys the beauty of last year’s dress in order to make it worthless.
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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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To say that behaviors have different ‘meanings’ is only another way of saying that they are controlled by different variables.
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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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That’s all teaching is; arranging contingencies which bring changes in behavior.
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A permissive government is a government that leaves control to other sources.
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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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We admire people to the extent that we cannot explain what they do, and the word ‘admire’ then means ‘marvel at.’
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If you’re old, don’t try to change yourself, change your environment.
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