ONCE UPON A TIME

Long ago, in a small town in a faraway land, lived a princess who read marvelous stories about scientists who teach the weak and the young, like no one else before. ‘When we have enough pennies,’ the prince promised her,
‘you will fly over the ocean and meet these people. What wonders you will see!’

For that was her ambition.

She was thrilled by the stories she read and could hardly wait until they had saved enough pennies.  She had many dreams of her journey.

Finally, after years of saving, came the appointed day. She bid her friends and family goodbye and flew across the sea to America.
When she arrived, she was upset to find professors wouldn’t talk to her about punishment. This was one of the things she had wanted to discuss with them. They said she should focus on her courses.

She was sad.

Then, one day she noticed scientists didn’t like reporting that they teach children or grownups; they much preferred writing of what they do with behavior - only they weren’t quite sure what that is any more.  

She felt bad.

She knew professors measure behavior. And she’d been sure everyone knows what the meaning of ‘behaving’ and ‘not behaving’ is.

Then she found other things bothered the researchers.

For instance, they wondered why they shouldn't study the effects of food and electric shock within the same operant laboratory.

Apparently, The Stick was being kept apart from The Carrot.

She thought this was odd.

But after some puzzling, she knew the reason was the spatial effect in opposite directions: a shock repels and edibles attract.

This was when she began imagining herself as a scientist.

What if a rat works for grain at North and the supply closes, and opens in the East and the West and the South?’ Would the rat stop pressing at North right away and then go to try other levers? 
From what she had read, she guessed: "Probably, yes!"
So then, what do we need punishment for?

She was excited.

She made graphs for a rat with two, three, four levers, imagining where the animal might want to go and what the records would look like.

She was inspired.

She realized signals for food attract human and other animals:

Like Pavlov’s Bell! she exclaimed. "That's why the dogs salivate!"
" Their tail wags. They understand. They see, they hear, they anticipate!"
She was incredulous.

Of course: extinction - survival! 
‘Skinner’s rats stop at the lever because food is attractive from afar.’
‘They're drawn to the signs in other locations, and so: they go there.’
‘They're not dead, they live: straight lines show they're busy elsewhere!’
She knew this is great news.

But she couldn’t find words to persuade the professors.

So she returned home with a heavy heart, for she didn’t like leaving America with her graphs in her hands. She wanted the scientists to keep them and use them for proper experiments.

Over the years, she wrote letters and begged them to think of what they could gain by letting animals move to and fro in the lab.

But she couldn’t convince them.

Meanwhile, she told her colleagues what she had done overseas.

And they saw what she saw: feeling and people’s perception - and more - can be switched for the better, without frightening them. Clients listened when she explained habits can be made normal with less hardship. Well, some of them already knew that.
Still, it was nice talking with government ministers about how
to make citizens happier.  Everyone could intimidate, anyway.

The focus on help and encouragement was better:
coercion and suffering lessened to a degree no one had imagined.

So now the princess expects scientists will try her ideas after all.

Knowledge is missing and they still have the tools for discovery.

Conditioning is universal, at least in the entire animal kingdom!
The rules and the principles can be used not for war, but for peace.
No matter the party, laws apply to individuals in all the ecologies.
May they be friends ever after: safer, healthier, and more satisfied. 

July 18, 1998
June 26, 2012

On reification: What's behavior?

WHO’S BEHAVING? *

We see them here, we see them there, we see behaviors everywhere;

sometimes they're better and sometimes they're worse; and here's a curse:
How come we count and quantify Some Thing we know not what It is; and isn't?

But hark!

Just for a lark,

Let's suppose we look at a Person;

Or perhaps a Rat,

Whose little feet go pit-a-pat.

Now he's moving, now he's not!

What's he have?  What's he got?

He's got substance; he has matter. some times he's thin, sometimes he's fatter.

He can be large, and he can be smaller, sometimes he's short, and sometimes
he's taller.  Whatever the cult, Rats have Gestalt.

At times they're heavy; at others they're lighter,

And some rats are black. And others are whiter;

But the Rats are the Things.
And Rats are creatures with many features.

Rats move by day; rats move by night, at times to the left, at times to the right.

And sometimes they run; sometimes they rest.

Rats may be weary and full of zest:  they go to the East and they go to the West;

In fact, on inspection, in any direction .... without being pushed ... quite freely ...
and to perfection.

When not at their best,
They’re merely a pest.

And yet, Rats are the Things: not their behavior!

You see them here you see them there, organisms everywhere!

Whether the whole or whether the part,

Whether they halt or whether they start.

They can be mobile and that is their nature;
but here’s the sting: "behavior" per se isn't a Thing.

The use of abstract nouns may lead us out of bounds!

Some Nouns we could curb --- in favour of the Verb.

"Behaving" has a better ring,

And then we see:
An organism is the Thing.

We see them here, we see them there, adults, children everywhere.

When they're behaving, all's well, all's good.

It's only normal that they could,

It's only natural that they should.

But if behaving they are Not,

It's not so normal, not so hot.

It’s a Shame.

And they're to blame.

They're given a name and put in a frame,

Or simply pushed back to whence they came.

They have no claim - they lose the game.

/Behaving / and /Not behaving / is not the same.

As 'behaviors' we negate - the persons we disqualify.

How come we count and quantify behavior all alone?

Forgetting to identify the creatures on their own?  
Beware of Abstract Nouns!
They aren't Proper.  

Sometimes it makes a lot more sense
When with abstractions we dispense

To get a better view of Rat and Homo Sapiens --- in motion ---

 

I have a notion

Mortals can be well-behaved,

Even when they're not afraid.

If they run AND if they pause

It isn’t always just because

They fear the laws.
Something fair is also there!                            October, 1987

* In response to What is behavior? Can there be behavior without movement?

and: There is no essence of behavior; We reinforce behavior, not individuals;
We don't punish organisms, we punish behavior; et cetera (1984).
Behavior scientists taught me about such oversights.
And anyone is susceptible to lingual conditioning ... and also to reconditioning.
I experienced this when imagining graphic data
picturing mobility on cumulative records, language and perceptions change  
and revised interpretation of Pavlov's, Skinner's, Sidman's work comes narurally
... within a laboratory and in the world at large.

Were it not for reification - calling a process or an activity a thing - psychology might be a natural science.
Dr. Malott (1995) was thinking of 'id', 'ego' and 'superego' but what of 'behavior'?
This issue still begs for consensus with a slight shift in emphasis:
from the behavior of organisms > to the behavior of organisms.

As for the animals in expanded research, we may add another verse:
Treat them kindly, treat them well. Watch them listening to the Bell!
Show them signs, give them signals.  Don't be formal, be their guide.
Keep them fit, keep them lively!
Let them move, let them stay, let them look and let them listen, let them
act; let them see from far and near; they can hear from close and distant.
We could learn and we could teach,
Just how good the normal is.
And aim for this and hope to reach!

I realize scientists write better verses and could take insights further along.

Revised: August 5, 2011
                   June 26, 2012

WHY I AM A RADICAL BEHAVIORIST: page 11

Behavior Analysis and its application to human behavior:

“The science of behavioral control …... was born in the laboratory with the discovery of the ‘conditioned reflex’……Over the years behavioral scientists have worked on the premise that human behavior, like other natural phenomena is subject to natural laws. Through a careful experimental analysis laws of behavior have been derived which have increased man’s understanding far in excess of what was once thought possible… laboratory studies, first with animals …… slowly built up a store of knowledge which eventually allowed for the extension of both method and principles to settings beyond the confines of the laboratory … applications of the principles … are reaching out toward every corner of our culture… facts are with us…” 1966.

And in 1970:

“From the behaviorist reformulation of psychology, behavior emerged as a directly manipulable datum, and what the behaviorist learned about controlling behavior has recently reached the stage of widespread technological application …… the experimental analysis of behavior is … employed in mental hospitals, institutions for the retarded, day care centers, reading clinics, guidance centers, prisons, educational institutions and outpatient clinics …… if a technology allows effective remedial action, it should equally permit the devising of preventive measures. The time has come for us to begin suggesting new tactics for the prevention of behavioral problems.”

A substantial body of literature - journals, articles, textbooks - testify to the efficiency of TEAB and I know there are many who were inspired by Skinner’s vision and passionate appeal in 1972 :

“Another practical consequence of basic research remains to be emphasized. Our culture has made us all sensitive to the good of others, and we are generously reinforced when we act for their good, but the display of gratitude which reinforces the teacher or therapist who is in immediate contact with another person is often dangerous. Those who are especially sensitive to the good of others are often induced to go into teaching or therapy rather than basic research. Progress would be more rapid if the same kind of reinforcement could be brought to bear on the researcher, if he could be appropriately affected by the extraordinary extent to which he is also acting for the good of others. The basic researcher has, in fact, a tremendous advantage. Any slight advance in our understanding of human behavior which leads to improved practices in behavior modification will eventually work for the good of billions of people.” (Skinner’s emphasis.)

        As a practitioner in a helping profession, I am a witness: grateful clients have brightened my day. Despite the need for additional data, I proclaim ‘my psychology’ derives from experiments where animals and scientists ‘talk’: Doctor Dolittle is alive! I explain why conditioning is psychosomatic - and no one is startled. (41)

People seem to care less about being compared with ‘lower’ species.

I am astonished to hear Cesar Millan (42) assert he trains people and rehabilitates dogs. I remember being warned not to say train in connection with humans.

        Social and geographical climates appear to have changed: researchers from diverse disciplines are attempting to delay - or prevent - the extinction of animals and vegetation: they fight for survival, preserve environments, protect natural resources.

______________________________________

(41) Murray Sidman notes: “The pursuit of science is an intensely personal affair.” ‎And that doesn’t mean science is a solitary venture: “As a young graduate student …. I felt that my work had to be different, that it had to produce something that would startle the world. Along these lines I once wrote a paper, describing some of my work, in which I emphasized how different my experiments were from anything else that had ever been done. One of my teachers, W.N. Schoenfeld, agreed that the data were very interesting. But he went on to add that I had written the paper from a peculiar point of view. I had emphasized the differences between my work and everyone else’s. But science does not ordinarily advance that way. It is the job of science to find orderly relations among phenomena, not differences. It would have been more useful if I could have pointed out the similarities between my work and previous experiments.” (Sidman’s emphasis) ‎

(42) The ‘dog whisperer’, host of Dog Whisperer on the National Geographic Television channel  

---

WHY I AM A RADICAL BHAVIORIST: Page 8

 I submit, biology and social science will profit from extended free-operant chambers in which healthy subjects could be studied on several observational levels. The environment could then be seen as affecting individuals AND brain and muscle. (34)  

        Physicians are guided by centuries of anatomical and physiological research; they stand on the shoulders of those who worked out the function of cells, organs and systems, Today, physicians provide analyses with low and high values for normalcy.

        Behavior-analytic clinicians have circa 100 years of root data … that have led to rehabilitation techniques … mostly with retarded populations. (35) ‎ Psychiatrists may also refer to those data for more hopeful diagnosis, and prognosis.

        I cast my lot with radical behaviorists on perceiving how external stimuli guide humans, and other animals, onto normal and productive pathways. In Pavlov’s words: If the animal were not in exact correspondence with its environment it would, sooner or later, cease to exist. To give a biological example: if instead of being attracted to food, the animal were repelled by it, or if instead of running way from fire the animal threw itself into the fire, then it would quickly perish. (36) 

The Whole Organism

         Listening to a physicist recently, I had a breathless moment of excitement. (37)

He had found a new crystal and stated all matter is made of atoms, combined into molecules, which - together - build the materials we can see and may use.

        Physicists also classify matter into ‘organic’ and ‘inorganic’, so I know they see differences too: and the inanimate objects differ so much from the animate organisms, it is hard to decide what to say and where to begin.

Stars, robots, stones, mind nothing - don’t suffer or socialize, have no will to survive; no protoplasm or chlorophyll in their composition.

        Plants ‘breathe’, they too are alive: attract insects, possess seeds and multiply; roots creep towards moisture and flowers may turn slowly in the direction of sunlight.

In prey-hunter relationships, attraction spells life for one and death for the other. Still, mortal creatures also attract one another and their mobility appears to defy gravity: some climb uphill, humans wander downhill enjoying the scenery; on a flat surface, animals may stop and start on their own, don’t collide, move aside, let others pass; fish swim about as they wish, birds fly around, dip and rise, migrate in millions,

        I was elated: perhaps behavior scientists will discuss conditioning with physicists and conservationists, to further collaboration on projects for ecological balance.(38)

---

(34) ‘… almost no progress has been made toward describing neurological mechanisms responsible for the positive properties of verbal behavior.’[23][p.424] Habitats can affect the nerves and social behaviors, positively.

(35) Not surprising since research is limited to stationary subjects who don’t move in any direction on their initiative for their own welfare. Behavior analysts sorely need additional information on healthy, and humane, mobilization.

(36) No argument with Pavlov, and herewith an educational … albeit anthropomorphic … paradigm for
comparison: ‘You see,’ said (Mr. M,) proudly ... ‘Tight seals. Good piston rings. Everything in its
proper place.’ (The girl) clapped her hands. ‘That van is happier now,’ she said. (Mr. M.) smiled. ‘Yes,’ he agreed.

Only those who really understood machinery could conceive of happiness in an engine; it was an insight which the non-mechanically minded, simply lacked. … the younger apprentice…. would kick an engine, rather than talk to it, and he had often seen him forcing metal……  No machinery could be treated that way.

 ‘This girl…. understood the feelings if engines, and would be a great mechanic one day….’ 

(37) Prof. Dan Shechtman: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZRTzOMHQ4s

(38) Scientists might ask: How many stimuli suffice for subjects to find their way to reinforcement? From data on normalcy one can infer the abnormal: had Pavlov discussed his ‘unfeeling’ dogs with Skinner, Sidman and Dr A. Escudero, the power of words and ‘differential reinforcement.’ might be better understood. Though his description is vague, Dr Escudero’s results are clear: what Pavlov obtained with dogs, he obtains with his patients: they talk, imagine pleasant events, maintain a flow of saliva during bone surgery - feeling no pain. I have the May 1991, BBC ‘Your Life In Their Hands’ documentary of that and other operations. Murray Sidman thought the discussion and the phenomena should interest many research scientists.

WHY I AM A RADICAL BEHAVIORIST: page 9

Human nature can stay as it is - cynicism may have to be aired in moderation.

In this day and age I think it is totally fair to insist, children are born ‘not guilty’:
they come into an unfamiliar world – nothing to forget or recall - don't comprehend
a word said to them - no prior teaching to show them the laws they must keep.

        Newborns possess RNA / DNA … chromosomes … but Criminal Tendencies?
Fixed Intelligence Quotient? ABA and TEAB consistently demonstrate those
depend on experience with stimulation and consequence for worse or better. 

The status of behavior analysis 

        Murray Sidman is another outstanding scientist who taught me to take
humanism seriously and has kept my radical behaviorism very much alive.

“… until we adopt other than coercive ways to control each other’s conduct, no method
of physically improving our species will keep our survival timer from running out.
A developing science of behavior may again give people of good will cause for optimism
about our chances for survival.” 

“ Our interactions with other basic sciences, however, have slipped. As a result, our
students are losing contact with the basic behavioral science in which their
applications are rooted and from which future applications are to be derived…
… Many things about today are better than they ever were in the old days.
We cannot, however, just maintain the status quo. …  I think, though, that we might
be even better off now if we continued to value some of the ways things used to be
and to follow up some of the early advances that were left uncompleted ...

An examination of history can reveal not just mistakes that should now be avoided
---- but can also remind us of forgotten, but productive pathways …” ‎

In this manuscript, I stand by those sentiments more than I can express. (39)

        My horizon expanded when mapping a path for a rat in a setting where
stimuli and reinforcers are spread at North, East, South and West. ‎Gradually
I realized, sound waves and light radiation affect individuals through and through.

I now understand this is indeed As Old As The Hills, although it presents a distinct
switch in emphasis: from the behavior of organisms à to the behavior of organisms.

And thus to remote control - and stimuli that can be sensed from a distance.

        I imagined subjects moving at their discretion - not under investigators'
instructions. I never worked in an animal lab; my graphs are unknown in classrooms;
all the same, their implications are verifiable, so something important must have occurred. 
Concentrating on one mobile rat through Skinner’s lens, I found myself contending
with age-old historical arguments over causes for what people and animals do:
‘Nature - Nurture’ / ‘Inside or Outside’/ Heredity versus Environment.

With due humility, I insist: my records help to resolve such controversy.

Though hypothetical they contribute to science with Skinner’s behavioral measurement,
I am ‘radical’, insofar as this science shows habitats are primary.(40) On planet Earth,
illumination and temperature changed - and only then flora and fauna began to evolve.

__________________________________________
(39) A nurse in my previous life, I was amazed when first I laid eyes on a Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis:
like on a hospital chart, graphic measurements before and after treatment!
How does one move from a rat to the child? I wanted to know. B.F. Skinner, Murray Sidman,
Charles Ferster and of course, Vance Hall,  were the scientists who enlightened me at the start.  

(40) Happily, science and tradition concur in the Bible,
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” Genesis, 1-1 Habitats come first.
Science and religion are not incompatible: scientists may put faith in one God or many, and vice versa;
religious persons can be superb scientists. After all believers and non-believers can be moral and kindly;
GOING WITH NATURE could very well be a plausible commitment for human organizations.

---

WHY I AM A RADICAL BEHAVIORIST: page 12

The message in the following excerpt is far from optimistic:
“We have a psychology whose metaphysical framework or foundation is outdated,
based on a philosophy of science discarded decades ago by physics (long the model
for psychology). Not only is this foundation obsolete, but the conception of its subject
matter, man, is no longer appropriate if indeed it ever was. We have findings that are
irrelevant and meaningless to man, based upon experiments that study
non-representative, atypical samples of subjects who don’t believe what we tell them….
Our data are often analyzed and interpreted incorrectly, and conclusions drawn
without legitimate substantiation.
Psychology lacks relevance and scientific and philosophical sophistication, conducts
trivial and technically incorrect experiments….”  
  “The portrait is not excessively overdrawn, depressing though it may be, for each
of the charges has a firm basis in reality as each of the authors has stated here.
When one looks at the quantity and quality of such criticisms, and the stature of those
who propose them, one is apt to be overwhelmed by a feeling of futility.”

Written in The Science of Psychology: Critical Reflections (1970) by Schultz, D.P. (p.393)
        Such serious charges are not applicable to behaviorism, the philosophy of science
associated with conditioning research. Behavior-analytic psychology connects with biology,
sociology and the humanities; indeed, with any science and human endeavor. Linkages exist
through the people who study the animal kingdom - in and beyond the laboratory - and
can look at themselves reflected as in a mirror. (43)

        ‘Radical behaviorism’ captures the spirit of Galileo, though the label may yet be
outdated: the ‘radical’ in Galileo’s time is mundane in this century. In 1974, I defended myself
by citing professional literature. Though my ‘N’ equaled ‘one’ (44), my thesis (the first of its kind
in Israel, I believe) was eventually judged worthy. I am grateful to the professors who, despite
initial objections, allowed me to submit my work.

        As well, I thank the operant conditioners and applied behavior analysts whose words
I presented at length then, and echo again, herein. I see many good reasons for the research
and the conceptual shift - outlined here - to be taken further.

For a brief interim summary, I offer the following statements on science:

“As late as 1963 --- there was no consensus ‘as to what the genes are – whether they
are real or purely fictitious. It may seem surprising that scientists could struggle
to accept the physical reality of something so fundamental to cellular activity, but …
we are in much the same position today in respect of mental processes such as thought
and memory. We know  that we have them of course, but we don’t know what, if any,
physical form they take. So it was for a very long time with genes. The idea that you
could pluck one from your body and take it away for study was as absurd … as the
idea that scientists today might capture a stray thought and examine it under
a microscope.” (45)

Interested readers and members of the scientific community could confirm:

No need for a microscope to capture a thought or a memory!
We can write our thoughts and look at each other as we say what we think  and what
we stand for. The history and the philosophical background of science can definitely be narrated
with more human interest.

“The only narrative which can hope to lay a strong hold on the attention of readers is a
narrative which interests them about men and women - for the perfectly obvious reason that they are men and women themselves.” (46)
Herewith some fleeting thoughts: millions are riveted by whodunit novels,
crime and madness, and the ‘trace evidence’ derived from forensic science.
Should scientists draw people to the elements sufficient for sanity and goodness,
behavior science … the tactics … the technology … and the world outlook …
might consistently spread together.

(42) ‘--- we do want to know when populations are in decline.’  ‘There is grandeur in this [Darwin’s] view of life and it is up to us to ensure or to decide whether there will continue to be grandeur in the life that we leave for future generations.’ Peter Crane, ‘Darwin and Modern Science’, Cambridge University, (9th. July, 2009)

(43) Some consider ‘single-subject’ experiments ‘pseudo-science’, although the variables maintaining individuals in social balance include attraction … more than a matter for statistical analysis of variance from a group average.

(44) Bill Bryson (2003) A Short History of Nearly Everything (p 486) Black Swan Edition. This book tells the history of the physical sciences.  Psychology - not seen as a real science - is excluded from Bryson’s history.

(45) Wilkie Collins (1861) The Woman in White, Preface (p.20) Heron Books, London. .

---

Mark Twain, 1835-1910

I dedicate this to Mark Twain, the humorist who has delighted millions with words.
Title themes I have added as I see fit.  

'Shaping': Habit is habit and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but

coaxed downstairs a step at a time.

Credit: It takes a thousand men to invent a telegraph, or a steam engine, or a phonograph,or a photograph, or a telephone or any other important thing – and the last man gets the credit and we forget the others. He added his little mite – that is all he did. These object lessons should teach  that ninety-nine parts of all things that proceed from the intellect are plagiarisms, pure and simple; and the lesson ought to make us modest. But nothing can do that.

Letter (17 March, 1903) to Helen Keller, after she had been accused of plagiarism for one of her

early stories,

Modesty: I was sorry to have my name mentioned as one of the great authors, because

they have a sad habit of dying off. Chaucer is dead, Spencer is dead, so is Milton, so is Shakespeare, and I'm not feeling so well myself.

Innocence: We haven’t all had the good fortune to be ladies; we haven’t all been generals,

or poets, or statesmen; but when the toast works down to the babies, we stand on common ground.

Normalcy: Adam and Eve had many advantages, but the principle one was that they
escaped teething.

Sanity: The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane.

Evolution: The only reason why God created man was because he was disappointed with
the monkey.

Ethics: When in doubt, tell the truth.

Infinity: Humor must not professedly teach and it must not professedly preach, but it must do both if it would live forever. By forever, I mean thirty years.

Definition: A circle is a round straight line with a hole in the middle.

Citing a schoolchild from “English as She Is Taught.” 

Evidence: Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are more pliable.

Empathy: By trying we can easily learn to endure adversity -- another man's I mean.

Trust: A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining, but wants it back the minute it begins to rain. 

THIS IS YOUR LIFE - GRANDMA'S BIRTHDAY PARTY

Music: “This Is Your Life”

Ivan The Drooler comes centre stage; on his chest a sign “Ivan The Drooler”

Ivan:            Hello everyone. I’m Ivan The Drooler!

Leah:           Ivan The Drooler? I don’t know any such dog.

Ivan:            I’m Pavlov’s dog!

Leah:           So where’s the bell? And why isn’t he drooling?

Amos E .     Tell us about it.

Leah sings:  Pavlov, Pavlov, my good friend ...            

All sing:
Pavlov, Pavlov, my good friend.

When will they truly listen to me?

My soul is afire with yearning …

So much I said, so much I long for.
And yet, myself, I didn't explain .,,

Where will they really read me?

My soul is dying slowly …

So much I wrote - so much I mailed
And yet - myself - I never explained

Pavlov, Pavlov! My good friend …

Why aren’t there more like you?

Pavlov, Pavlov! My good friend …

The day will come, we shall pay our debt

'Tis just a matter, a matter of language

'Tis a power ... the strength of a word.
 I know there should be consensus  

 About the meanings of movement …

Pavlov, Pavlov! My good friend …

Why aren’t there more like you?

Pavlov, Pavlov! My good friend …

The day will come, we shall pay our debt

Miri & Clara

Miri:    Why do they need a bell for eating?

Clara:  You don’t understand. The bell is needed for drooling.

Miri:    But the dog drools for eating!

Clara:  You don’t understand. He drools ‘cause he wants to hear the bell!!

Amos E.  Confused? So are we!
----------
Amos E:   And now to our last guest this evening.
Rat:          Squeaking 
Leah:        I don't recognise this.
Rat:          Knocks
Leah:        What's he knocking for?
Rat:          Where's the lever?
Leah:        Maybe it's something to do with a lab?
Amos E:   Very good. I invite our next guest to come in.

Music: "This Is Your Life"
The rat enters with the sign "Mickie Skinner Mouse"

Rat:          Hallo! I'm Mickie Skinner Mouse, the rat from the lab.
Amos E:   Tell us about your laboratory experience.
Rat:          It all happened in the thirties or forties, I don't remember any more.
Amos E:   What happened then?
Rat:          A professor came to us.  We were poor.  He suggested, we go into
                 the box, press levers, and get food. That's what we did.  We stood
                 there and pushed levers. We drew graphs for him and we put on
                 weight with pleasure. Only, lately it's become boring.
Amos E:   What do you mean?
Rat:          We're all used up, we're exhausted.
                 All the time, the same levers.
                 Only the researchers change. Enough is enough already!
Amos E:   What do you suggest?
Rat:          Expand! Expand!  It's too crowded here. We're all fat, no room,
                 We want to move. We want more levers... We want movement
                 We want LOCOMOTION ... We don't understand why they don't do
                 this.  Mrs. Yulevich has been suggesting it for more than 20 years!
Amos E:   Nu Leah: how do you explain it?
Leah:        I only just found the right words.
                 Even Miri and Clara can testify to that!

Miri & Clara 4
Miri:    I never knew JABA is a fattening substance.
Clara:  You don't understand. All the time he simply kept pressing the lever!
Miri:    So that's why the bell rang!
Clara:  You don't understand  When the dog sees the rat, he rings the bell.
            The rat drools, eats JABA, presses the lever and runs to bring food
            for the dog! 
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Amos E:   Mrs. Yulevich, Happy Birthday!
                 I wish you - and all of us - that scientists will find the strength to
                 expand the lab ... and understand the organism better ...
                 We shall meet you in another ten years from now
                 Everyone here hopes the ideas will soon spread ...

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Those are excerpts from a play written and performed by my family.
I am blessed with sons and daughters-in-law and grandchildren who make me laugh.
Which is healthy for my soul.
As everyone knows, laughing with others keeps body and soul together.
Like Mark Twain said There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesome
returns of conjectures out of such trifling investment of fact.