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A first principle not formally recognized by scientific methodologists: when you run into something interesting, drop everything else and study it.

B. F. Skinner

A child who has been severely punished for sex play is not necessarily less inclined to continue; and a man who has been imprisoned for violent assault is not necessarily less inclined toward violence.
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Children Men Necessary Play Punishment Sex Violence
A vast technology has been developed to prevent, reduce, or terminate exhausting labor and physical damage. It is now dedicated to the production of the most trivial conveniences and comfort.
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Comfortable Dedication Development Production Science Technology
The mob rushes in where individuals fear to tread.
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Army Battle Fear People
I did not direct my life. I didn’t design it. I never made decisions. Things always came up and made them for me. That’s what life is.
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Decision Design Direction Education Life Myself Reality
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
Society attacks early, when the individual is helpless.
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Attack Help Society
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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Education Enjoyment Life
The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.
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Problem Reality Science Technology
The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.
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Problem Reality Science Technology
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
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
No one asks how to motivate a baby. A baby naturally explores everything it can get at, unless restraining forces have already been at work. And this tendency doesn’t die out, it’s wiped out.
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Baby Curiosity Death Education Force Motivational Work
That’s all teaching is; arranging contingencies which bring changes in behavior.
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Behavior Change Teaching Transformation
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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Acceptance Education Honesty Intellectual Value
If freedom is a requisite for human happiness, then all that’s necessary is to provide the illusion of freedom.
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Freedom Happiness Human Illusion Necessary
The real question is not whether machines think but whether men do. The mystery which surrounds a thinking machine already surrounds a thinking man.
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Men Question Reality Technology Thinking

A first principle not formally recognized by scientific methodologists: when you run into something interesting, drop everything else and study it.

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A first principle not formally recognized by scientific methodologists: when you run into something interesting, drop everything else and study it.

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Popular Authors

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