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" What is sought can never produce the seeking. "
B. F. Skinner
Never
Sought
Produce
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" I don't deny the importance of genetics. However, the fact that I might be altruistic isn't because I have a gene for altruism; the fact that I do something for my children at some cost to myself comes from a history that has operated on me. "
B. F. Skinner
Children
History
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" The environment will continue to deteriorate until pollution practices are abandoned. "
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Abandoned
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" Must we wait for selection to solve the problems of overpopulation, exhaustion of resources, pollution of the environment and a nuclear holocaust, or can we take explicit steps to make our future more secure? In the latter case, must we not transcend selection? "
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" Those few people who do respond to the dire conditions of the future - journalists, environmentalists, behavioral scientists - tend not to be powerful. "
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" I remember when I was a freshman in college, I was still somewhat bothered by... worried... about religion. I remember going to this professor of philosophy and telling him that I had lost my faith. "
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College
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" I have to tell people that they are not responsible for their behavior. They're not creating it; they're not initiating anything. It's all found somewhere else. That's an awful lot to relinquish. "
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Responsible
Creating
People
" If you insist that individual rights are the summum bonum, then the whole structure of society falls down. "
B. F. Skinner
Structure
Society
Rights
" I don't know whether I want to improve religion or not. I prefer to get rid of it. "
B. F. Skinner
Improve
Get
Religion
" The ideal of behaviorism is to eliminate coercion: to apply controls by changing the environment in such a way as to reinforce the kind of behavior that benefits everyone. "
B. F. Skinner
Way
Ideal
Environment
" I won't say that I'm an agnostic, since agnosticism maintains that one cannot know... but I'm not averse to the idea of some intelligence or some organizing force that set up the initial conditions of the universe in such a way that ultimately generated stars, planets and life. "
B. F. Skinner
Space
Stars
Intelligence
" 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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Up
Decisions
Design
" The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do. "
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Think
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" The consequences of an act affect the probability of its occurring again. "
B. F. Skinner
Affect
Probability
Consequences
" When you run into something interesting, drop everything else and study it. "
B. F. Skinner
Study
Interesting
Everything
" I am opposed to the military use of animals. I am also opposed to the military use of men. "
B. F. Skinner
I Am
Military
Use
" I think my novel, 'Walden Two,' has made people stop and look at the culture they have inherited and wonder if it is the last word or whether it can be changed. "
B. F. Skinner
Look
People
Think
" Reinforcement is being right. "
B. F. Skinner
Right
Reinforcement
Being
" A failure is not always a mistake, it may simply be the best one can do under the circumstances. The real mistake is to stop trying. "
B. F. Skinner
Trying
Mistake
Stop
" Give me a child and I'll shape him into anything. "
B. F. Skinner
Anything
Shape
Child
" I would be opposed to any kind of totalitarian control. "
B. F. Skinner
Totalitarian
Any
Control
" We shouldn't teach great books; we should teach a love of reading. "
B. F. Skinner
Teach
Books
Love
" A person who has been punished is not less inclined to behave in a given way; at best, he learns how to avoid punishment. "
B. F. Skinner
Avoid
Way
Punishment
" No theory changes what it is a theory about; man remains what he has always been. "
B. F. Skinner
Always
He
Man
" Great scientific contributions have been techniques. "
B. F. Skinner
Contributions
Been
Scientific
" I don't think my mother and father ever had any doubts about what I was to be punished for or not. My parents come from a very strictly defined culture. "
B. F. Skinner
Mother
Culture
Think
" Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten. "
B. F. Skinner
Been
Learned
Forgotten
" Behavior used to be reinforced by great deprivation; if people weren't hungry, they wouldn't work. Now we are committed to feeding people whether they work or not. Nor is money as great a reinforcer as it once was. People no longer work for punitive reasons, yet our culture offers no new satisfactions. "
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Culture
Now
Money
" The way positive reinforcement is carried out is more important than the amount. "
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More
Important
Out
" We have not yet seen what man can make of man. "
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Man
Make
Seen
" I never really expected to be controversial. "
B. F. Skinner
Expected
Controversial
Never