Re: Design: Behaviorism Has Its Place

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Re: Design: Behaviorism Has Its Place
"stimulus response" is really a very poor description of behaviourism. A more appropriate description is adaptation of organism with environment. I didn't think anyone with an interest in behaviourism was that concerned with basic SR. SR is part of the mechanisms by which adaptation occurs. Its not the only mechanism. The point about behavioural science isn't whether its "true" - thats for religions, not science - but that it has genuinely useful predictive power within a certain scope, just like any other paradigms in psychology, or any other discipline. oh, and a better example than Vegas is the pokies in the hotel down the road. We know variable reinforcement schedules do work - it just isn't the whole story (or life would be very boring). But then, this is science generally - we still use Newton's laws, even though we know they only tell part of the story (relativity adds a bit more accuracy, quantum mechanics a bit more, and then the rest is chaos). I think you'd be hard pressed to find any psychologist who would deny the value of behavioural science or the accuracy of its experimental results. No more than you'd find a physicist who is a "Newton-denier". More...