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.
B. F. SKINNERTo say that behaviors have different ‘meanings’ is only another way of saying that they are controlled by different variables.
More B. F. Skinner Quotes
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A piece of music is an experience to be taken by itself.
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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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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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We have not yet seen what man can make of man.
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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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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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Somehow people get the idea I think we should be given gumdrops whenever we do anything of value.
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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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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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Those who have had anything useful to say have said it far too often, and those who have had nothing to say have been no more reticent.
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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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The way positive reinforcement is carried out is more important than the amount.
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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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The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.
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