Category Archives: Science, Behavior and Training

These articles lean toward explaining the proper place of science in training. You will note that I hold a factual and historical bias – dog training is 15,000 years old. Dog trainers are the most knowledgeable, experienced and effective behavior specialists in the history of mankind. By contrast, behavior analysis is less than 100 years old and only works well on heavily confined, browsing, grazing animals. I don’t happen to train animals in lock-down – not many people do. i.e. Shamu has nothing on a Seeing Eye Dog of one of George Hickox’s English Pointers.

As Easy as Falling off a Bike: What punishment teaches us.

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Part of the litany of modern behaviorists and trainers is that punishment doesn’t teach an animal what to do and the implication is that the results of punishment are baaaaad. Terrible. Horrible. Traumatic. Confusing. Evil.

“But just punishing the animal for doing something else does not teach it to sit. At most, punishment only teaches it what not to do.” Murray Sidman Coercion and Its Fallout (1989)

“ It does not teach the dog WHAT to do.” Pat Miller, Pitfalls of Positive Punishment

“Punishment teaches an animal what you don’t want it to do but fails to teach it what you expect of it.” Valerie Tynes – veterinary behaviorist

In all cases, these people limit the discussion to incorrect applications of punishment by untrained people. As there is no course, text, instructor, practical training, internship or certification in the use of aversive control, they are all blowing smoke. Continue reading →

Keller Breland and “Instinctive Drift”

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(Note: I am very new to WordPress. My footnotes are at the bottom of the page)

Not many people know the name of Keller Breland outside marine mammal and dog training. Keller Breland was B.F. Skinner’s first graduate student at University of Minnesota – before Skinner became the icon of behavioral psychology, AKA behavior analysis. Keller was brilliant and highly motivated. Once, in 1940, Skinner showed Keller a toy clicker. Skinner had noticed that the click-click of the mechanical feeder magazines used for rat experimentation somehow caused the rats to learn the experimental process faster. A few months later, according to one of Skinner’s autobiographies, he entered the General Mills labs where his psychology department was conducting research for the war effort. Breland had taught a pigeon to push a marble down the alley of a toy bowling game to hit the pins. Skinner recalled that this was his epiphany. For someone who knows this topic intimately, this sets off red flags. Skinner had shown Keller a toy clicker in 1940 – three years before. He told Keller that you could use it to increase the rate at which animals learn. It is obvious that he was speculating and not speaking from experience. Continue reading →

All Positive Trainers: Illogical, to say the least.

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Lewis Carrol wrote Alice in Wonderland. He was also a mathematics professor and lecturer. One of his least known but incredibly interesting books is about logic, specifically syllogisms. Here’s an example of how Dr. Dodgson (his real name) used fantasy to teach a little used mental tool – logic.

  • Babies are illogical;
  • Nobody is despised who can manage a crocodile;
  • Illogical persons are despised.

    Logical conclusion: Babies cannot manage a crocodile.

  • Continue reading →

DRO, DRA – silly concepts and dead dogs.

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Behavior analysts have a language of their own. This makes sense as their language is designed to describe what happens in a tiny little box where rats press levers and pigeons peck keys. Most of it doesn’t make sense. All of it demonstrates a bias that ignores reality. Perhaps the weakest concept to come from behavior analysis is the idea that positive reinforcement can remove inappropriate or unacceptable behavior. According to them, all you have to do is create a situation where you apply “differential reinforcement.” The differential part is that one behavior is reinforced and other behaviors are not. Supposedly this will cause the unreinforced behavior to go away. For instance, many modern dog trainers and behaviorists suggest that you can stop a dog from rushing the front door by teaching it to lie down for treats. The two jargon terms for this process are differential reinforcement of other behavior (DRO) or differential reinforcement of alternate behavior. (DRA) At best, these two terms reveal an unscientific bias that permeates behavior analysis. The bias is in favor of “positive” methods and opposed to “negative” methods. Continue reading →

Toward a Less Coercive World Via Skinnerian Ideology

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In Science and Human Behavior, B.F. Skinner laid out an impressive plan for the creation of a science of behavior. His logic was that after two major wars in the first half of the 20th century, human behavior is the next logical area of serious scientific study. To paraphrase his points, science has created awesome tools of destruction and science can also impart wisdom that will prevent such weapons from being used. In Skinner’s mind, the world can achieve utopia through careful behavioral control. Ironically, the very thing that Skinner cited as the root cause of our problems – instinctive behavior – is something Skinner never studied and studiously avoided during his whole career. Additionally, the idea that watching the behavior of rats and pigeons in micro-boxes that allow only a single behavior can be extrapolated to vast human populations is on its face, ludicrous. Yet that’s exactly what he did throughout his entire career. Just six months before his death he spoke in Japan on the creation of the “coercion free society.” As if he had some actual knowledge of how to control the population of planet Earth. To quote the motto of the American Skeptics Society, extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. Skinner does not offer proof directly, but the results of his work, do. This is what “coercion free” environments look like. Continue reading →