Comment by travjones

10 years ago

Strict behaviorism? I'm advocating for the experimental analysis of behavior (sometimes referred to as radical behaviorism). When applied to practical human problems, it is referred to as applied behavior analysis.

The study I cited provides support for the authors conclusion. However, his description is flawed because it doesn't provide means for prediction and control of behavior.

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travjones

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gress  10 years ago

It's a blog post - an opinion piece - not a scientific paper.

Do you go around criticizing all opinions that refer to people's thought processes as 'flawed because it doesn't provide means for prediction and control of behavior'?

  • travjones  10 years ago

    I understand that this is just a blog post. This post provided me an opportunity to spread the word about behavior analysis. If the author is advocating for behavior change (i.e., "doing things faster"), then we should speak in terms that have grounding in a science of behavior. That doesn't mean you have to conduct an experiment, but base your argument in science. If I were to make claims about how a particular piece of software worked or some law of physics that were untestable, I think people would have something critical to say (especially in HN comments). Why should we treat human behavior differently?