[From Rick Marken (971231.1710)]
Me:
Conventional behavioral scientists don't cite WTP because they
want PCT to disappear or turn into something else (like an
alternative theory of reinforcement;-)).
Bruce Abbott (971231.1305 EST) --
Oh, piffle. Far from being threatened by it
I love it; this from the guy who thinks that PCT is an alternative
theory of reinforcement. If you are not threatened by it, Bruce,
then why do you fight it so hard?
most have never even _heard_ of PCT, and fewer still have
taken the trouble to actually understand it.
This may be true. But quite a few psychologists _have_ heard
of PCT (in the late 1970s nearly every psychologist I asked
at the U. of Minnesota _had_ heard of and/or read B:CP) and
several had made an effort to understand it. My impression
(based on the sample of psychologists I've known who were
familiar with B:CP) is that we should find far more citations
of WTP than we do.
My claim that "conventional behavioral scientists...want PCT to
disappear or turn into something else" is based on over 20
years experience with conventional behavioral scientists
(reviewers, colleagues, aquaintances, psychologists --like you --
who discover CSGNet, etc) who have been willing to learn enough
about PCT to realize (usually unconsciously, as in your case)
that they want nothing to do with it.
My estimate is that I have run into nearly 100 conventional
behavioral scientists -- mainly experimental psychologists
like you -- who learned enough about PCT to know that they
didn't like it -- not one bit. Very few (if any) of these
people would ever come out and say "I am threatened by PCT;
I don't like it". You can tell that they are threatened by
PCT only because they argue so vehemently against certain
aspects of PCT, like the importance of testing for controlled
variables, the importance of re-evaluating all existing
behavioral research that was done without an understanding
of controlled variables or the behavioral illusion, the
non-existance of reinforcement, stimulus control, etc. That's
how I can tell that you are threatened by PCT; you protest
too much;-)
You are an interesting case, though, because, unlike most of
the previous PCT rejectors I've met, you won't go away and do
your own version of PCT (the kind where you can still do
conventional IV-DV research and not worry about testing for
controlled variables) or just go away. I think you must hope
either to convince us that your conventional approach to
behavioral research is perfectly compatable with PCT or,
failing that, at least keep others on CSGNet from being misled
by our anti-conventional psychology message. But, who knows.
I do want to wish you a Happy New Year. And in the spirit of
making you New Year bright, here are my PCT predictions for
1998, just for you:
1. Bruce Abbott will do a conventional IV-DV experiment that
proves that psychologists have been right all along; one can
study living control systems just fine without knowing what
controlled variables are or how to test for their existence.
2. Rick Marken, convinced by Bruce's demonstration, will stop
harping on this "Test for the Controlled Variable" stuff, admit
that psychologists have made many important discoveries over
the last 100 years and start developing Java demos of the effect
of reinforcers on behavior.
3. Bill Powers will complete his bug model and find that it
is exactly the same as Hans Blom's model based control model.
4. Martin Taylor will prove, mathematically, that experimental
tests of PCT are unnecessary.
5. Isaac Kurtzer will change his name to Yitzak so that he
can capitalize it without making a philosophical mistake.
6. The "War on Drugs" will end in a draw.
7. The Social Security system will become solvent.
Happy New Year
Rick
···
--
Richard S. Marken Phone or Fax: 310 474-0313
Life Learning Associates e-mail: rmarken@earthlink.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~rmarken/