[From Bill Powers (950731.1510 MDT)]
Rick Marken (950731.1310) --
So after tons of work we have managed to discover that the
organisms in these experiments are not even controlling
reinforcement. This seems to me to be the ultimate proof of exactly
what Tom and I have been arguing: conventional operant research is
of absolutely no use to PCT.
That's an overgeneralization. In this particular case, we've discovered
that the research is actually of no use to anyone, in or out of PCT. But
there are examples of research in EAB that are of use to us -- obesity
experiments, for example, which are done under conditions where the
error can be kept small by the animal and clear control phenomena can be
seen. In this research they even used disturbances.
To demand that people in another line of work use our language and
concepts is unreasonable. In the obesity studies, the experiments
actually did test for a controlled variable and proved that one existed,
but the people who did the work would never have thought of putting it
that way. If we reject the work of others just because they don't talk
of controlling inputs and testing for control by applying disturbances
and all that jazz, we will perpetrate just as manuy injustices as we
have suffered ourselves.
The work that Bruce and I have been doing, with its very important and
unexpected result, could go a long way toward establishing PCTers as
serious players in one corner of science. I think that continued close
inspection of EAB research is going to do more in this direction. I have
enough confidence in PCT to expect that we will either find a correct
PCT model for whatever phenomenon is being discussed, or as in this case
find a basic flaw in the experimental approach that eliminates a whole
class of research -- and explanations -- from the agenda.
When you said "we have managed to discover," you were stretching a
point. Bruce made the principal discovery. I sweated for many additional
hours to solidify it, fighting like hell to make it come out a different
way but in the end failing. Your main contribution has been to try to
pick fights with Bruce, to make grossly unfair accusations based on what
you imagine him to be thinking, and to urge us all to get onto some
other subject. Your deep suspicions tell us more about you than about
Bruce.
Sorry, pal. You stuck your neck out.
If there is no evidence of control, then these data do go into the
garbage can. But I think we could have saved a lot of time and
effort (and embarrassment) if we had thrown this data into the
garbage can right off the bat.
I have absolutely no sympathy with this point of view. When you throw
data into the garbage can without looking at it, you stop being a
scientist at that instant. Hasn't that been done to you often enough to
tell you what's wrong with it? What if you can find evidence of control
in the data? Is somebody else who is unacquainted with control theory
supposed to tell you that? If you throw it away without looking at it,
you will never know.
We embarassed ourselves by trying to show that PCT could handle
conventional data that "seems" to involve control -- when, in fact,
it doesn't. Why can't we remember -- phenomena first!
Speak for yourself. I wasn't particularly embarrassed about having tried
to apply the control model, but then perhaps you haven't been wrong as
many times as I have. At least I was the one to find out why the model
was spurious. You might have been the one, if you'd been looking. The
only thing I find embarrassing about the whole episode was accusing
Bruce of making mathematical errors, when in fact he was right and I was
the one in deep denial.
This was genius on Bruce's part and I hope we learn a lesson from
it. The lesson is: when people come to us with data and ask how PCT
explains it, the proper reply is to ask how the researchers
determined which variable is under control.
That's not the main lesson I learned. What I learned was that the data
come first, not the assumption that everything that looks like control
is actually control. Asking researchers how they determined which
variable is under control is just a brushoff -- nobody could reasonably
expect researchers from a different discipline to have been thinking
about discovering controlled variables. This doesn't mean that they
haven't discovered any. It could mean that they haven't looked at the
data from that point of view. You'll never know what they did unless you
look.
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Best,
Bill P.
PS -- have I eliminated the page breaks from my posts?