[From Bruce Abbott (960126.1500 EST)]
Rick Marken (960126.1000) --
Me:
Sorry to burst your bubble.
Hardly. This explanation of why decreased behavior can be expected from
increased incentives was a crack up. It confirms my faith in the creativity
of S- R theorists, who seem to have an inexhaustable supply of delightfully
preposterous ad hoc causal explanations of purposeful behavior.
I't almost as good as the following explanation:
Killeen's theory is wrong because it cannot explain the effects of free
incentives. But if it does explain the effects of free incentives, then
it's wrong because the explanation is a "crack up" (whatever that is).
That's not really convincing, is it? Maybe it would help if you called it
"ad hoc" and "preposterous." Oh, sorry, I see that you did.
Regards,
Bruce