Abstract
Science is an enterprise whose chief goal is the effective dealing with events rather than, as implied by much current research in psychology, primarily an endeavor to “understand” or “explain,” i.e., to arrive at acceptable verbalizations about events. The most effective dealing with events is termed “synthesis”: the reliable production of orderly consequences. Verbalizations by the investigator can contribute to synthesis in two ways: by acting themselves as synthesizing events and by describing the events to be manipulated in order to achieve synthesis. Confusion arises and the goals of science are subverted both when this distinction is not maintained and when the scientist’s words themselves are taken to constitute the subject matter to be investigated.
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The views expressed herein are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect those of the U. S. Air Force or the Department of Defense. The author wishes to thank D. N. Farrer and A. G. Koestler, who made helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper.
The term synthesis occasionally has a different usage; e.g., Alfred North Whitehead called Galileo’s theoretical contributions “The first physical synthesis” (Madden, 1960), and R. B. Lockard (1971) has referred to the current synthesis in biology. This paper will suggest that analysis (in such cases comprehensive or extended) is a more appropriate term for this aspect of the scientist’s behavior.
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Wynne, L. Behavior Analysis and Behavior Synthesis. Psychol Rec 21, 171–179 (1971). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03394006
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03394006