🚀 go-pugleaf

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In article <3040@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk>, gilbert@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Gilbert Cockton) writes:
> In article <2008@ucsfcca.ucsf.edu> brianc@daedalus.UUCP (Brian Colfer) writes:
>>When I was an undergraduate many years ago my Prof. Kirk Gable told me that
>>my concerns about free will were fundamentally a waste of time.  One of
>>his reasons were that if behaviorism works as an acurate model for how we
>>live our lives and proves useful for helping people in education, mental 
>>health and other similar endevours then who cares about free will.
> 
> Gable was largely wrong on Education 

> I know of no behavioural modification programs where
> the patient is not briefed on the therapy and does not have to be
> 'motivated' by means other than the narrow reinforcement repetoire of
> behaviourism.  I would be interested in the names of practicing
> behavioural therapists who do not require the active involvement of the
> patient's 'will' in order to get somewhere.

Here's the name of a practicing behaviorist:  Glen Dunlap, currently with the
University of South Florida.  Glen supervised training of autistic clients at
the Autism Training Center here at Marshall, and he did not require the active
involvement of the patient's 'will' in order to achieve improved social
function.  Check out some of his publications in various journals; no work with
rodents anywhere.

Glen is as ardent a behaviorist as you'll find--I don't go as far as he does
philosophically, but I have to agree with his results.  Perhaps some disclaimer
can be made to defend the non-behaviorists by saying that Glen's work is with
profoundly mentally handicapped people, and that those of us with average
intellectual capacity function at some higher plane. Maybe, maybe not. Anyway, 
think about behaviorism, the next time you stop for a traffic light, and 
consider its role in your life.
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