Science
An organized approach for collecting knowledge to inform our understanding of the natural world.
Task List Reference: A-1
Identify the goals of behavior analysis as a science (i.e., description, prediction, control).
Prediction (in scientific understanding)
The second level of scientific understanding. When repeat observations show a consistent relationship between two events, the identified relationship can be used to predict the probability of one event occurring
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Description
The first level of scientific understanding which involves deriving quantifiable and classifiable facts (data) from systematically observed events.
Dana Do’s: The Scientific Goals of Behavior Analysis
PTB co-founder Dana Meller takes on the first portion of the Task List with a quick lesson about section A-1. The secret sauce for understanding the goal of behavior analysis? It all comes down to description, prediction, and control.
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Control
The third and highest level of scientific understanding. Established through experimentation confirming that manipulating one event (the independent variable) results in a reliable change in another event (the dependent variable),