Solo Performance?

I became a behaviorist from page one in Skinner's book VERBAL BEHAVIOR about language.
His decription of water in a glass, sailing through the air towards the speaker, made me see
something natural and normal as wonderful sound effects!
Since that first vision, I realise It Takes Two To Tango ... and generally many many more.
There aren't really so many things one can do alone, considering social conditioning. 

Skinner saw verbal behavior as characteristically impotent against the physical world: 

Rarely do we shout down the walls of a Jericho or successfully command the sun to stop or the waves to be still.
Names do not break bones. 

Well, we don't command the sun or the waves. Name-calling however, can lead to broken bones;
and orders such as Fire!  or Shoot! or Bomb! or Burn them! can be fatal for persons and animals.
Then again, soldiers and statesman have ordered men to tear down a wall and with humane aims
in mind ... depending on why the wall was erected.in the first place ... and on the outcomes.

For the observation and the application of verbal behavior... speaking and listening... minding and reminding... socialising or communicating... more than one - AT LEAST TWO INDIVIDUALS -
should be taken into account; which goes for basic animal conditioning lab environments, as well.
When it comes to the science of behavior, an experimenter and a subject interact from a distance.
Communication may include many parties... more than the solo gig or the monologue in a play...
and a word isn't really anyone's private property.
I wish operant conditioners AND applied behavior analysts would echo this so BOTH scientific endeavours could be accepted for what they are and what they have done; as well as respected
for what they are attempting to do, this very day.

In the special 1984 JOURNAL OF THE EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS OF BEHAVIOR
Kennon A. Lattal and Peter Harzem published Present Trends and Directions for the Future
- their introduction to this edition: "The science of behavior is important not only for its own
sake but for the sake of its implications for social survivasl."
May I suggest behavior analysts - basic and applied - and practitioners like me, in Asia, Africa,
Europe, America ... in any land on our planet ... discusss the following statement with laymen
and scientists and professionals from different backgrounds:
WARS ARE STRAINING THE WORLD'S NATURAL RESOURCES, MORE AND MORE.

And at the risk of sounding repetitive, I propose expanding animal labs, show what moves animals WITHOUT intimidation, emphasize commmunication in all experiments among scientist and subject.
Maybe behaviorists should stress behavior science differs from the physical sciences in this regard
though identical from the viewpoint of revealing functional relations.
In any event every scientist needs answers to "What moves people?"

The future of behavior analysis is not in immediate danger, so long as radical behaviorists spread
the consistent finding: all living things on Earth depend on their environment 100 % of the time.

June 27, 2012