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)

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(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.