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Replies to Was Skinner a Nativist?

  • Didn't know about Salzinger's dissertation on dogs barking. Ironic. Harlan Lane smoked a tobacco called Barking Dog. Never heard BF comment. But BF included chirping so Harlan's dissertation at Harvard was a demonstration of operant control of chick chirping. Dick, your example of the salmon analysis raises the mootness of the point: Operant control of swimming upstream? clearly nurture/environmental control, right? But another Malottian observation leaps off my fingertips--the propensity to be reinforced by specific stimulus changes. Wonder why the salmon get reinforced by that stuff when dogs and cats and kids don't. Must be nature, inherited. Intelligence inherited? or the equipment that makes intelligence possible? must be that the equipment is inherited. We observe people with lesser equipment doing smart things and people with awesome equipment doing stupid things. Brings me back to my position: the nature position is stupid; the nurture position is stupid. Behavior (B) is a function of characteristics of the organism (O) and environmental events (E). Do we have behavior without a behaver? And are behavers not born? inheriting some characteristics. and can one behave without and environment? no and can one behave without interacting with an environment? no and are one's behaviors free of environmental influence? no ergo the nature position is stupid--and I have never heard anyone argue that any behavior is ALL determined by nature; the nurture position is stupid--and I have never heard anyone argue that any behavior is ALL determined by the environment. As nearly as I can figure out, the position of operant types is that all behavior is determined by interactions between behavior and environment. The nature influence is "carried into" the interaction by the behavior. . . . (B y the way, I love the image of a big old Holstein stalking a bird in the bushes! This former farmer could train a Holstein to stalk her level best but I do not believe our bird capture percentage would be very high.)--Dale Brethower
  • While I agree that there is a biological basis underlying everything we do, I think that tends to cloud the fact that there may not be a biological basis for the DIFFERENCE between what you do and what I do. You press the right lever and I press the left lever, strictly because of the difference in our history of reinforcement with regard to the left and right bar, not because of any initial biological differences between us. IMHO --- Dick
  • Professor Malott, I applaud your interesting and informed response product. Please give us more. Here's a question for you. If Skinner were alive today, would he be a Skinnerian? Your life-long student, Professor Guy Bruce
  • RE Mallot's email, and regarding the issue of behavior being operant, respondent, or something else, it might be profitable to re-read Skinners 'Phylogeny and Ontongeny of Behavior.' In that Science paper, Skinner offers a shaping explanation for migration patterns - among other observations...--Robert Allan
  • Dick: Skinner even suggested that "modesty" might have phylogenic provenance. I would have liked to see him address the "Coolidge Effect". Joe Morrow
  • "Though I occasionally dis Skinner, I do so because I occasionally dis everyone and everything."
    Seems logical to me. Follow no man blindly…I’m sure Skinner would agree.--Tawnya Frazier
  • That barking dog jazz wasn't Kurt's dissertation, it was:
    Salzinger, K., & Waller, M. (1962). The operant control of vocalization in the dog. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 5, 383-389.
    Kurt got his doctorate in 1954...--Daniel J. Moran

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