 Sorry about the whole matching one. Anyway, phylogeny and ontogeny... Oh, that was, uh, that was, that was difficult. Phylogeny and ontogeny today, folks. Alright, 1966, another one of those old ones that's still hyper relevant today. Now, granted, some of it's changed and, uh, but I would say most of this is pretty much spot on. I don't know what else to say about this great article. Read it. I do believe I'm supposed to talk about it. Um, I don't know. There's a ton to talk about with this article. I can just see this becoming its own. We're gonna have our own series of phylogeny and ontogeny and the applications of it. I don't know. We're not gonna do that, but I really kind of want to. And there's a reason why I want to. It's because this is probably, in my opinion, one of the most important papers ever written in our view. That can't be. There's so many good ones, you know, like Stokes and Bayard, Wolf and Risley and Brigham, 1980 and Segal, 1975 and all these amazing ones. And yes, I left off some really important ones, but I just don't care. So there's tons of really awesome papers out there, folks, but I genuinely believe this, for me, not to be that way for you, but for me, this is the most important behavior written in our field. Like, it has had a huge impact on my world as a behavior analyst and how I think about behavior. And I think that's what's what's so awesome about it, is that if you read it and you get it, this thing will change you. Like, one paper will change the, like, bam. Anyway, so let's get into a little bit of it here. I am not going to go through the whole article. There's, like, I can't, like, I just can't. Like, there's too much. So I'm going to hit some highlights, and then we might come back and do another video on it later with some more detail. But I just kind of want, I'm kind of flipping through here. I mean, we're like, references to Carl Popper and Brilliant. They're just so much in here. Kettler, everybody is referenced in this. It's like, it's just crazy. So sorry, I like this. All right. So here we go. Phylogenia non-touching. Let's just get it straight. Phylogenia is behavior that as Brad once said, came about through there. So no, phylogenia is the behavior that you're born with, right? So those things that are heritable or inherited, however you want to look at that. And that becomes an interesting point, too, is how do you measure heritability, like, inherent, inheritability? Sorry. How do you measure that? What models do we have of that? We don't. What we do now. But at the time, we didn't really have good ones. It's getting a little better. But still, it's a great question. It's something to study, right? So anyway, phylogenia is the stuff that's passed down through genetics, right? And an ontogen is the stuff you learn during your lifetime. They're different levels, right? So they're different levels of selection, if you will. So, but what Skinner's really doing is he's putting them on par with each other. He's not saying they're at the same level. He's saying that they're similar in what they are. And I think that's what's amazing about this. So, you know, Wilson called it conciliants. When two branches of science come together and they match up in their concepts, they interlock and they become, I mean, they basically find the same thing in a different way or by looking at something different, they see that's the same result, that's kind of what's happened here. And that's why I think it's so damn important. So Skinner's really kind of breaking all that down about what it is that happened and what the similarities are between the phylogenic selection and ontogenic selection. And that's at its core what's going on here. So let's back up a little bit and talk about a little bit of some important points. Right off the bat, he starts off hitting Watson with Thor's hammer, right? Watson went beyond his data, right? That's not exactly what he said, but he did. Watson was not... Where was it? Anyway, Watson was way beyond his data when he was doing that behaviors manifest stuff, talking about basically saying that you can do anything with anybody if you give them their environmental constraints. He was being a bit over the top with that statement. I don't believe that Watson, and neither does Skinner, by the way, ever didn't believe that Watson actually thought that genetics didn't play a role in behavior and genetic limitations and things like that. There's just certain things I'm never going to be able to do because of my genetic limitations. I'm never going to be able to do the limbo very well. I don't have a body that's that bendable. It's not because I'm old. It's because it just doesn't work. It's not for me. So those sorts of things. I'm not going to be able to fly. I'm never going to flap my arms hard enough to take off. It's just not going to happen. I have genetic limitations. So there's phylogeny and ontogeny. There's limits. So the phylogeny gives you the limitation of what you can do ontogenically. So Skinner walks you through all this stuff. So let's go Watson with Down's Data. I have a note. I make notes. This is how I do my articles. And that's one thing in here I put in here that's important to science. It's about patience. In terms of gross anatomy, we shall no doubt eventually describe the behavior of its finer structures in much the same way. But until then, we analyze behavior without referring to fine structures and are constrained to do so even when we wish to make inferences about them. Skinner's like that's really subtle saying that science isn't here yet and that's okay. This is right in 66. So things have changed. But understand that the big point there is that just because we want to explain something in some way and go beyond our data a bit doesn't mean we should be patient. Work with the tools and the levels that you have. So let's get back a little bit to what we're talking about in here and why I think it's darn important. Selection by consequences. There's genetic selection, right? Natural selection. And that's pretty clearly a situation of consequences. If you're whatever traits you have, if they have led you to become more suited for your environment and give you an increased opportunity of procreation, then those particular traits will be passed on. However, of course, there's, you know, ontogenically, you can mess with that. People that have learned how to modify their world to increase the probability of them mating can pass on their genes without the environment being the one doing this. They may not be the most fit, but they add the most money essentially. You know, that's, there's things like that that can mess around. So it's really kind of fun how these things have an interplay here. So which Skinner starts to describe in the provenance of behavior. So, but in terms of selection of ontogeny, it's selection by consequences of the organism's experiences. So you engage in the experience, engage in behavior, and you have that experience in that environment changes the probability of your responding in the future, in that context. So that's almost identical to what we're looking at with natural selection, the probability of certain traits showing up in the next generation and so on and so forth. It's literally the same sort of thing, the unit. The unit of analysis is what becomes important in what you're looking at and that probability thing becomes really, really important. That's, that's a similarity between the two. So it talks about the identifiable unit. Another thing that I want you to understand and I want you to remember is that variability is absolutely the key here. No organism comes to the table without engaging in behavior first. You have to engage in the behavior first before the environment can tell you that that was an adaptable response, that it was an okay one to keep and not one we're going to punish or extinguish. The same thing happens with genetic traits. Genetic traits have to be there first in order for them to be selected for. Of course, there's mutation and all that stuff and there's, you get selection where you kind of stack traits on top of each other slowly over time. But this variability component is wickedly, wickedly important. Without that variability, there's nothing to happen. So this kill goes back to the first page of the article where we talk about tabula rasa and there is no person that studies behavior on a serious level that believes that tabula rasa is a thing. The organism does not come to the table with a blank slate. You come to the table with firmware. You are born to behave if you want to think of it that way. Behavior comes out, right? Into the environment nips and trims and shapes and strengthens and weakens and does all this stuff and you become the person that you are and engaging in the behaviors that you do. But you have to start off with the behavior first for it to happen. So this variability, that's exactly the same stuff that happens in genetic selection or natural selection as well. You have to have the variability in order to have the different species and the different traits and the different probabilities of selection and all that fun stuff. So anyway, there's a couple of pieces that are wickedly important to this right off the bat.