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A scientist may not be sure of the answer, but he's often sure he can find one. And that's a condition which is clearly not enjoyed by philosophy.
B. F. Skinner
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B. F. Skinner
Age: 86 †
Born: 1904
Born: March 20
Died: 1990
Died: August 18
Autobiographer
Ethologist
Inventor
Philosopher
Psychologist
University Teacher
Writer
Susquehanna Depot
Pennsylvania
Burrhus Frederic Skinner
Skinner BF
moiksu moiii
Often
Enjoyed
May
Clearly
Find
Scientist
Answer
Conditions
Answers
Philosophy
Sure
Condition
More quotes by B. F. Skinner
Do not intervene between a person and the consequences of their own behavior.
B. F. Skinner
Teachers must learn how to teach ... they need only to be taught more effective ways of teaching.
B. F. Skinner
Fame is also won at the expense of others. Even the well-deserved honors of the scientist or man of learning are unfair to many persons of equal achievements who get none. When one man gets a place in the sun, the others are put in a denser shade. From the point of view of the whole group there's no gain whatsoever, and perhaps a loss.
B. F. Skinner
To say that... behaviors have different 'meanings' is only another way of saying that they are controlled by different variables.
B. F. Skinner
The extent to which human aggression exemplifies innate tendencies is not clear.
B. F. Skinner
If you're old, don't try to change yourself, change your environment.
B. F. Skinner
A permissive government is a government that leaves control to other sources.
B. F. Skinner
A self is a repertoire of behavior appropriate to a given set of contingencies.
B. F. Skinner
The severest trial of oppression is the constant outrage which one suffers at the thought of the oppressor. What Jesus discovered was how to avoid the inner devastations. His technique was to practice the opposite emotion... a man may not get his freedom or possessions back, but he's less miserable. It's a difficult lesson.
B. F. Skinner
The juvenile delinquent does not feel his disturbed personality. The intelligent man does not feel his intelligence or the introvert his introversion.
B. F. Skinner
The major difference between rats and people is that rats learn from experience.
B. F. Skinner
We do not choose survival as a value, it chooses us.
B. F. Skinner
The evolution of cultures appears to follow the pattern of the evolution of species. The many different forms of culture which arise correspond to the mutations of genetic theory. Some forms prove to be effective under prevailing circumstances and others not, and the perpetuation of the culture is determined accordingly.
B. F. Skinner
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. Skinner
Give me a child and I'll shape him into anything.
B. F. Skinner
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.
B. F. Skinner
Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.
B. F. Skinner
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.
B. F. Skinner
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.
B. F. Skinner
Unable to understand how or why the person we see behaves as he does, we attribute his behavior to a person we cannot see, whose behavior we cannot explain either but about whom we are not inclined to ask questions.
B. F. Skinner
