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Science in brief

If it squirms, it's biology;
if it stinks, it's chemistry;
if it splits, it's physics;
if it unites, it's behavior analysis.

More next time!

Getting it right: thoughts and feelings

July 15, 2013

Getting it right: thoughts and feelings

Behaviorists have not seen or imagined mobility as a function of attraction. We need cumulative curves with mobile healthy animals, so scientists could collaborate and describe external causes for locomotion and  spread this knowledge. Human history shows diverse groups can be conceptually unified.

The future of behaviorism depends on consensus over feeling and thoughts, shown or voiced daily and written in newspapers and professional journals. Many people stress a rich inner life yet rarely ask how hidden emotions or opinions contribute to socialization, particularly in education. In reality, social reinforcements strengthen partnerships: parent and toddler, student and teacher. Like other mortals, behaviorists show how they feel and explain what they think; this comes with the territory.

When hopes are shared, brainwash has nothing in common with educational practice. Behavior analysis differs from physics in that researchers and subject matters interact. Pavlov taught dogs to anticipate tidbits, and surprisingly, his data can be presented in cumulative form. Skinner taught animals to manipulate keys under reinforcement schedules. Sidman warns against coercive solutions, Extensive research with multiple baselines revives free operant conditioning, with meaningful questions for teachers: When and where do subjects stay well and attentive? What attracts them from a distance?

  

  

NOT QUITE AS I THOUGHT 

Yesterday, I spoke with someone about about Pavlov's work and activating salivary glands
but we didn't get to talk about adrenaline.

Instead, we discussed input & output in connection with the sense of smell and hearing.
He thought sound waves enter the ear. And that when smelling, molecules in the air also come in and out of the nose.

I should have replied, the air that enters - and thus activates cells - is not the same air that comes out; carbon dioxide exits and oxygen comes in.
Water, and nutrients too, enter the body and exit in different form.
Whereas sound waves don't go into the body or pass through the head.
Sounds vibrate the ear drums ( the 'tympanic membranes') and are emitted from the larynx or voice box in the form of 'echos' , imitation or reverberation; 'mands' or questions; and 'tacts', or statements.   ________________________________________________________________
Skinner bowled me over with the truth of the matter, speech, language, verbal behavior:
dialogue implicates at least two individuals, not necessarily members of one species.
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The above applies as well to light and sight:

2 people can observe things and events independently (on their own) and agree over what they saw.

And when face-to-face, persons can see and hear each other ... may look and listen to one another,
at the same time ... which is why we need further analysis and why it was necessary in the first place.

In summary:  an experimental analysis was necessary in circa 1900 when Pavlov measured
the psychic secretion, in healthy and conscious animals, one gland and one animal at a time.

And in 1938, when Skinner accumulated repetitive movements of visible body parts in whole and single - and fully aware - individual organisms who are perceivable with the naked eye; they are not a microscopic subject matter.

And in 1956, when his CASE HISTORY IN SCIENTIFIC METHOD was published ....
a history that caught my interest in circa 1970.

And to this day, those methods are called for and could be extended.

We need scientists to study the contingencies for teaching by modelling and learning to emulate
- or replicate - conduct that members of animal groups appear to exhibit with more mutual trust
and collective benefits than those displayed in some common human relationships. 

Conclusion: describing what humans do to help each other can inspire general comprehension.
  

Well, well!

 

Pavlov's experiments and implications therefrom...

Pavlov really did lay the foundation for an innovative, complementary, medicine;

psychosomatic psychiatry.  He showed it possible to activate a gland from afar.

On condition the animals are conscious and healthy and expect something good;

or know something tasty is coming and remember what happened at other times.

Otherwise, they'd never have looked at the place where meat powder is about to

appear, while licking their lips vigorously!
_______________________________

Maybe people will say, "We know that already; like adrenaline: fight and flight." .

"Right!" I shall reply:

"And hence, we don't need more science for fleeing or fighting.  We know how to

warn others of what will happen if they don't obey orders or don't stop hurting us, 

About warfare, we know more than enough."

What we need is co-operative science on how to keep wise and healthy in a changing

environment. Comimg around to the same point - time and again - can be wonderful!

As Winston Churchill recommended:
"If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time, a tremendous whack."

Pavlov's data make a pivotal point: glands are affected from outside the head. The implications
of external control over brain function - during social relationships - call for global recognition.

The Idea Never Entered My Head

COMING TO TERMS

June 16: For S-R psychologists, response stands for output and stimulus for input, and when the one cannot be accounted for in terms of the other, mediating activities are again invented.

BF Skinner: The Behavior of Organisms, Preface p. X1

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June 10: I think I did have an inkling of where I was going with my graphs, but it was merely a fleeting thought … flimsy… fragile … transient.

Reversing the original link between cause-and-effect is like placing the carrots above the soil and putting all the green leaves deep into the earth.

_______

June 12: I shall practice what I preach; instead of ‘ tit for tat’ I shall repeat my wants, hopes, purposes, et cetera… make quite sure I write the truth, again and again… and that it is kind.

And when I started this, the term ‘absolutely true’ came to mind; and then I wrote:

In life, ‘everything is relative’ becomes ‘most of what we know is absolutely true’. For example: every person has a name, everyone is born a baby, human beings have 10 toes and 10 fingers, books are printed, paper is manufactured from trees, plants provide us with oxygen and we provide them with CO2…

“The whole truth?" Too much!

The ugly truth we don’t want or need so urgently as the good truth all around.

Henc: ‘moderation in all things’ may be questioned.

At times ‘extreme’ , ‘radical’,’ absolute’ are better!

     Existing words must mean something and the longer their history, the more interesting, curious and exciting, their meaning: one comprehends what people are looking at and when they were absolutely wrong and the opponents absolutely right.

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June 16: Well, I never! I found: Tit for tat Synonyms, Tit for tat, Antonyms|Thesaurus.com

And amongst the verbs, there was: equal, alternate, reciprocate and it was only then that the idea occurred to me: ‘reciprocal’ may also denote bad for both sides. I wasn’t thinking properly or perhaps I simply forgot 

Perhaps only human beings do so? No.

Two animals of one species may fight each other to the death; and that’s not the worst that can happen. There are life-styles ‘worse than death’: both could remain lonely, crippled and suffering; dependent on others for warmth, feeding, hygiene, company - bad, mad, sad, miserable, depressed - And then suddenly realized: Good heavens! Even for those of us in such a state, ABAs have made living visibly easier and worthwhile.

And other professionals as well; and not only they: many others too, some volunteer knowingly, others help on the spur of a moment … just doing what comes naturally … and yet, only the bad is of interest and the good is simply taken for granted.

The truth is the best and the funniest: ideas never enter the head - not literally - even when we feel that’s where they are; sound waves reverberate and personal voices emerge from the larynx.

We think ideas exit and enter the head, yet they are outside;. and even beyond us preserved in written form!     

There are more thinkers with a helpful influence than we human mortals ever dreamed.

ANIMAL RIGHTS

If  it  were  not  for  human  beings -- there'd  be  no  books  and  no  sciences.
No electricity, no walking on the moon - no Exploration of Planets in Space.
No veterinary surgery to relieve pain and suffering, ease the life of animals.
And so much more - so very much more - it is hard to imagine planet Earth
without human kindness, compassion, feeling for others. 
That is the sunny side of humanity.

The dark side however, also exists.
Man's inhumanity to man is no secret and neither is cruelty to anumals within
laboratory experiments. Animals are still being abused in the name of science.
In her Introduction to the book, NEXT OF KIN, by Roger Fouts (1997)
Jane Goodall recounts:

' For more than a decade I have been begging Roger Fouts to get this
book written. It is the story of a scientific experiment that has helped
us to better understand our own place in relation to the rest of the
animal kingdom and, at the same time, reveals a dark and ugly aspect
of the scientific method.' 

Self interest, arrogance, notions of racial superiority, are part of that history
and they come from inorance, misguided faith in coercion, misplaced stress
on competition among individuals.
Scientists don't need information on how to make animals sick, in order to
to find cures for human diseases and harmful habits.

Scientists need reliable knowledge about normalcy.
Functional behavior analysis with healthy, fully aware, and mobile, animals.
Psychosomatic medicine where physiological effects are taken seriously as
caused by what persons see and hear, around them. Words are intangible,
yet they most certainly affect humans for the better.
In point of fact other creatures are also controlled by conditioned sounds.
Today is the time for environmentalists to unite for a more humane world!

A SUMMARY OF 70 POSTINGS

Knock, knock! Who’s there?

Hugh.

Hugh who?

Human thinkers coming together for civil rights.

Knock, knock!

Who’s there?

Annie.

Annie who?

Animals, we want more space and free choices.

Knock, knock!

Who’s there?

Anna.

Anna who?

Analysis, open up boxes and switch on the lights.

Words are miraculous! 

Words give us wings to fly over hills and green valleys,

above continents ... silently ... over the trees ... 

whispering over the rainbow and the masses of clouds

just happy memories and wonderful dreams ...

Good heavens!

All that without moving an inch away from my chair.