UNIVERSAL

No wonder physics and chemistry are - literally - universally relevant!  The stars in the sky,
the moon and the sun, changes in winds, climate and temperature, apply to just about
everything on our planet.
Through telescope and microscope, invisible atoms and molecules or huge heavenly bodies, all
things move according to the gravitational laws in our physical world.
Then again: we are able to scrutinise the movements of whole individuals with our naked eyes.

And indeed, everyone sees inanimate objects don't move like persons and animals.
Live people climb up hills and stop, motionless, at the top; perambulate freely in many directions;
repelled by shock, they run away; they go here and there, attracted by what they need for their
routine welfare. And, you and I know, the way we respond depends on our social relationships.

Animal experiments show intelligence, not as a precursor but, as the outcome of exposure to
stimulation and schedules of reinforcement, specified for every subject's behavior. Hence,
traditional practitioners need not interpret response frequencies as controlled by fictitious internal causes. Which brings us all the way back to BF Skinner and introspection:

    The important objection to the vernacular in the description of behavior is that many of its terms imply
conceptual schemes. I do not mean that a science of behavior is to dispense with a conceptual scheme but
that it must not take over without careful consideration the schemes which underlie popular speech .....
    This does not mean that we must entirely abandon ordinary speech in a science of behavior.  The sole
criterion for the rejection of a popular term is the implication of a system or of a formulation extending
beyond immediate observations .....
    With this criterion it is possible to save a considerable part of the vernacular for use in describing the
movements of organisms. (1938)

Today, I see the most pervasive conceptual scheme in any vernacular is the implicit notion
that to explain or understand causal links for human behavior, one has to begin with looking into
the head or the body; anything else is flatly rejected as unprofessional: silly, simple or superficial.
I confess, only now do I realise the extent of Skinner's radical behaviorism.

They say: Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction.  In relation to 'heredity' versus 'environment', the term 'superficial' denotes looking outside ourselves and listening to the sounds, the tones and the voices
all around.  Oddly enough, behaviorism is the one profound philosophy on the market!

To illustrate, let us sample evaluations in connection with cause-and-effects.
For instance, I find this extremely confusing:
In common usage, causality is also the relationship between a set of factors (causes) and a phenomenon
(the effect). ---- A direct factor is a factor that effects an effect directly, that is, without any intervening
factors. Intervening factors are sometimes called "intermediate  factors".) The connection between a
cause(s) and an effect in this way can also be referred to as a causal nexus. .......
Causality is a basic assumption of science.  Within the scientific method, scientists set up experiments to
determine causality in the physical world. .......
Physicists conclude that certain elemental forces ---- cause all other events in the universe. The notion of
causality that appears in many different physical theories is hard to interpret in ordinary language.   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causality

Compared with the clarity in this recommendation:
The conception of experimental methodology that I advance here is neither revolutionary nor new.
But I must caution the student not to expect a set of rules of experimental procedure, to be memorized
in classic textbook fashion. --- Experimenters cannot always tell us how or why they do what they do,
and the fact that that their conclusions are sound so much of the time remains a puzzle ....... 
At some time or other, everybody asks --- "Why? What? How?" --- The scientist might be defined as
a person whose indulgence of his curiosity is also the means by which he makes his living. .......
Curiosity may, of course, be guided by hypothesis and by theory, but the history of science reveals many
discoveries that resulted from the inquiry, " I wonder what will happen if. . .?" ......
Murray Sidman: Tactics of Scientific Research (1960) 

And regarding statistical causal inference:
Statistics textbooks provide interesting examples of causal questions: Did halothane do more to cause
surgical deaths than ether? Was the lower admission rate of women to graduate programs at the
University of California caused by discrimination against women? Does smoking cause cancer? .......
"Causal inference is one of the most important, most subtle, and most neglected of all the problems
of Statistics." P. Dawid, 1978 Cited by the following authors:
P. Spirtes, C. Glymour, R. Scheines: Causation, Prediction, and Search (1993)

Sidman's questions stress individual data:
Another type of problem often encountered is that of reversibility of a behavioral process. --- After observing
a behavioral change as a function of some experimental manipulation, is it possible to recover the original
baseline behavior? .......
A behavioral analysis is not some idealized state of behavior inferred from the performance of a group of
individuals by means of a statistical averaging process. It is the continuous, and continuing  performance
of a single individual. .......

And herewith, two book reviews:
This one alludes to risky practice: 
1. Causation, Prediction, and Search, 2nd. Edition (2001)
What assumptions and methods allow us to turn observational into causal knowledge, and how can even
incomplete causal knowledge be used in planning and prediction to influence and control our environment?

This one appears more attractive:
2. Tactics of Scientific Research: Evaluating Experimental Data in Psychology (1960)
.... Every student should be aware of the attitude toward research that Sidman's work exemplifies. He may
well find it clean, refreshing, and powerful.

Last but not least, with respect to motivation:
1. In the statistical control analysis, p.3; "Introduction and Advertisement"
 Pedagogy reflects accepted statistical theory, and with some important exceptions, statistical theory tiptoes
 around issues of causal inference. Even so, many research issues in statistics are fundamentally motivated
 by problems about reliable causal inference, although the motivation is sometimes hidden by the details.

2. Compared with experimental analysis, p. 408; "Appendix: A Terminological Note" 
Because a conditioned reinforcement derives its function from association with a stimulus that is already
reinforcing, it is possible for a conditioned reinforcer to become much more powerful than any primary
reinforcer. For  a  conditioned  reinforcer  can  be associated  with  a  wide  variety of primary as well as 
secondary reinforcements. We can extend our example of chaining so that the subject, when hungry, will
receive food in the red light; when thirsty, it will receive water;  ----- when a tone is sounding along with
the red light, a threatened shock can be avoided. The list can be stretched indefinitely. The red light will
then be associated with -- reinforcements, and it will function in a wide variety of situations. It will have
become a generalized reinforcer. Money is a conspicuous example of generalized reinforcement. 

Due to scientists' lack of interest in designing laboratories, such that rats would go wherever they choose, I find audiences elsewhere and can report eye-opening experience, for myself and my
listeners. Telling evidence of mutual contributions is: "I never thought about that!"

If - as the book review suggests - statisticians believe mankind can control global environments with insufficient knowledge as to abating coercion, or uniting humanity for peace and for sanity -
I'm afraid to finish the sentence; a documentary on supervolcanic eruptions made me panic today.
(Thursday, May 17, 2012)

That was yesterday.
This morning, I say mankind cannot control Nature's gigantic disasters, the environment is primary. In fact, at times people pose more of a threat than a chemical element. Yet, I am sure humans have the ability for positive talk - and thinking out loud - as well as for matching tactful vocabularies.
To make a plausible case for 'free will', more details are needed as to how humans drive and spur, force and inspire, learn from and teach one another, with words - phrases and sentences -
anywhere. Let us be certain we know why we agree and unite behavior science with psychology.

July 1, 2012