Except when physically restrained, a person is least free or dignified when he is under threat of punishment, and unfortunately most people often are.
B. F. SKINNERThe real question is not whether machines think but whether men do. The mystery which surrounds a thinking machine already surrounds a thinking man.
More B. F. Skinner Quotes
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Science is a willingness to accept facts even when they are opposed to wishes.
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Your liberals and radicals all want to govern. They want to try it their way- to show that people will be happier if the power is wielded in a different way or for different purposes. But how do they know? Have they ever tried it? No, it’s merely their guess.
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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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When we say that a man controls himself, we must specify who is controlling whom.
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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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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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We do not choose survival as a value, it chooses us.
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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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Somehow people get the idea I think we should be given gumdrops whenever we do anything of value.
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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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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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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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To require a citizen to sign a loyalty oath is to destroy some of the loyalty he could otherwise claim, since any subsequent loyal behavior may then be attributed to the oath.
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Somehow people get the idea I think we should be given gumdrops whenever we do anything of value.
B. F. SKINNER