Re: VIP & BAO.ORG

In a message dated 04/19/2002 12:38:03 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
[email protected] writes:

<< Bill Verplank asks two critical questions about BAO (1) Are we making
 Behavior analysis a cult? (2) Are we only talking to ourselves? >>

My short answer to both is 'no'.

Unless I'm missing something, I fail to see how or where BA is a
cult.  The word "cult" is bandied around rather haphazardly these
days (all across the society), and basically it means whatever the
speaker wants it to mean. It is a pejorative, typically.  That also
means it's used to slam some group that the speaker either does
not like or is frustrated with -- meaning its utterance may be an
effect of aversive control or perhaps an extinction burst.

As to whom we're talking to, it is important that as a scientific
verbal community we do talk amongst ourselves, but also that
we make some effort to talk to other verbal communities and to
the general public.  Do we do that?

One could argue either way.  Here's one datum that may indicate
just how, even without trying, we may be talking to a larger
audience than we realize.  On the B.F. Skinner Foundation
website* home page there's a site counter that increments each
time someone visits the site.  It's been up for a couple of years,
and already the counter has surged past the quarter of a million
hits mark.  Last I looked a couple of days ago it'd passed
266,000 hits.

Now, I doubt these are all behavior analysts or repeats by
the same visitors. Interest in Skinner, and by implication to
some extent to the science he represented, may be, as
this datum may indicate, be more widespread than
we thought.  The datum at least provides a theoretical
high end about the level of interest. Moreover, it indicates a
level of talking TO the general public and verbal communities
other than our own that ALREADY exists.  And, this is without
making an effort to reach out, since people have to come to
the site. I wonder what the hits frequency would be if a
concerted, planned effort were launched TO reach out?

The ace up the sleeve for our science resides in its pragmatism.
Whatever else one may want to say about applied behavior
analysis, it's very pragmatic.  We look for what works.  Did
the behavior change? Yes? Then we use that technique, procedure,
method.  No? Then we try something else.  Our very paradigm
prevents rampant cheating and it prevents deception. People can
tell if behavior changed or whether it didn't.

Well, people in the general society want solutions to problems.
They want solutions that work. Whether or not people agree with
us philosophically is less important, I think, than what we can
do for them in solving practical problems.

 -- JE

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* B.F. Skinner Foundation webpage:

http://www.bfskinner.org/