The quotation: “ Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I'll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select – doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief and, yes, even beggar-man and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors. I am going beyond my facts and I admit it, but so have the advocates of the contrary and they have been doing it for many thousands of years. [Behaviorism (1930), p. 82] ”
Note the second clause of the first sentence; I suspect that Lovaas would have agreed (to answer Jim's question as well). Same logic as Archimedes' 'Give me a long enough lever and a place to rest my fulcrum and I could move the Earth.' Stating the conditions under which you could accomplish something doesn't mean that it's likely that you would actually HAVE those conditions available to you. Paul Brandon Emeritus Professor of Psychology Minnesota State University, Mankato paul.bran...@mnsu.edu On Aug 27, 2010, at 3:01 PM, Marc Carter wrote: > > I think Watson might have believed he could... >> >> Hi >> >> Reminds me of the movie "The Boys from Brazil," in which >> Hitler was cloned and then extreme efforts taken to reproduce >> his early environment. I wonder if Lovaas would also have >> argued that he could take any boy at 4 or 5 and turn out a Hitler? >> >> Take care >> Jim >>>>> >> Beth-- >> >> A bit of hyperbole maybe, but do you think that Hitler's >> personality was totally genetically determined? >> What makes the statement so astounding? >> Hitler (and Stalin, and Mao, et.al.) were human beings, not demons. >> There were many reasons why they were what they were; the >> fact that they were in positions to do terrible harm doesn't >> mean that many other people in the same circumstances would >> not have been just as bad. >> Behavior can be changed. >> In many ways, I'd prefer Lovaas's (over)optimism to a >> fatalism that simply demonizes people. >> >> Paul Brandon >> Emeritus Professor of Psychology >> Minnesota State University, Mankato >> paul.bran...@mnsu.edu >> >> On Aug 27, 2010, at 2:06 PM, Beth Benoit wrote: >> >>> >>> I just finished reading another obituary for O. Ivar Lovaas, which >> ended with this astounding statement: >>> >>> To the end of his career, Dr. Lovaas was adamant that applied >> behavior analysis was supremely useful in childhood >> interventions of all kinds. >>> >>> *If I had gotten Hitler here at U.C.L.A. at the age of 4 or 5,* >> he told Los Angeles magazine in 2004, *I could have raised >> him to be a nice person.* >>> >>> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/23/health/23lovaas.html --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@jab.org. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=4452 or send a blank email to leave-4452-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
