Selection is a special kind of causality, much less conspicuous than the push-pull causality of nineteenth-century physics, and Darwin’s discovery may have appeared so late in the history of human…
The key term in Darwin’s title is Origin. Novelty could be explained without appeal to prior design if random changes in structure were selected by their consequences. It was the…
A biologist has no difficulty in describing the role of the mother. She is a place, a locus in which a very important biological process takes place . . .…
Something does seem to be taken away from the poet when his behavior is traced to his genetic and personal histories. Only a person who truly initiates his behavior can…
Does the poet create, originate, initiate the thing called a poem, or is his behavior merely the product of his genetic and environmental histories? (p. 479)
Verbal Behavior was criticized in a different way by an old friend, I. A. Richards, whose interest in the field goes back, of course to the Meaning of Meaning .…
... I agreed to participate [in a BBC television discussion with Chomsky] only if the moderator could guarantee equal time. I suggested that we use chess clocks. My clock would…
Eventually the question was asked, why had I not answered Chomsky? ... No doubt I was shirking a responsibility in not replying to Chomsky, and I am glad an answer…
. . . Chomsky’s review began to be widely cited and reprinted and became, in fact, much better known than my book. (p. 474)
Let me tell you about Chomsky. I published Verbal Behavior in 1957. In 1958 I received a 55-page typewritten review by someone I had never heard of named Noam Chomsky.…