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. SKINNERDo not intervene between a person and the consequences of their own behavior.
More B. F. Skinner Quotes
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The speaker does not feel the grammatical rules he is said to apply in composing sentences, and men spoke grammatically for thousands of years before anyone knew there were rules.
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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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If you’re old, don’t try to change yourself, change your environment.
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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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The consequences of an act affect the probability of its occurring again.
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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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Twenty-five hundred years ago it might have been said that man understood himself as well as any other part of the world. Today he is the thing he understands least.
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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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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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Old age is rather like another country. You will enjoy it more if you have prepared yourself before you go.
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The simplest and most satisfactory view is that thought is simply behavior – verbal or nonverbal, covert or overt. It is not some mysterious process responsible for behavior but the very behavior itself in all the complexity of its controlling relations.
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We shouldn’t teach great books; we should teach a love of reading.
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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 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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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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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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What is love except another name for the use of positive reinforcement? Or vice versa.
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A permissive government is a government that leaves control to other sources.
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The major difference between rats and people is that rats learn from experience.
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Some of us learn control, more or less by accident. The rest of us go all our lives not even understanding how it is possible, and blaming our failure on being born the wrong way.
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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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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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We have not yet seen what man can make of man.
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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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The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.
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If the world is to save any part of its resources for the future, it must reduce not only consumption but the number of consumers.
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