My Puppy, My Self

so why don't I have a better job than people who have animals that misbehave?

You have to figure that if a kid is misbehaving all the time it is the parents' fault,and my cats do not misbehave.

Dogs and cats are very different. Dogs need human contact almost as much as they need oxygen. Cats operate more on instinct and mental thought processes. Dogs go by feel, and they need to have someone, anyone, to bounce their feelings off of.

Does that answer your question?

Anyway, you seem to have some very nice cats.

LCK

So do you have to keep feeding your dog like this in order to continue the great new behaviors?

Just found your blog and I love it! Will reference it on my blog if that's ok with you!
Thanks, Opal & Rascal

I find it utterly confusing that you criticize behavioral learning theory for its "lack of science" while you then postulate a theory that borrows almost *all* of its processes and terminology from another science, thus showing a *complete* absence of its own science.
No sense in even arguing why its goofy - if you truly believe it has a scientific basis -- write it up, submit it to a peer-reviewed journal. Post your manuscript and let some scientists read exactly how it worked.

Why should the psychology of animal behavior be separate from physics and chemistry? In 1919, in Psychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist, John B. Watson wrote, "The key which will unlock the door of any other scientific structure will unlock the door of psychology." In 1952, quantum physicist Wolfgang Pauli was more specific: "It would be most satisfactory of all if physis and psyche could be seen as complementary aspects of the same reality."

That's all that Kevin Behan has done with his energy theory of behavior.

Kevin and I aren't scientists. We're dog trainers. At some point, some brilliant young scientist, preferably one who has an interdisciplinary view, may take on the project of proving or disproving Kevin's theories. Meanwhile, if you're interested in disproving them yourself, try "The Pushing Exercise." The worst that can happen is you'll end up with a dog who's happier and better behaved than before you started.

LCK

Well, if we were to follow the logic from your previous post -- we'd end up at a place saying, 'Why should we have biology, chemistry, physics, or anything else -- lets just all call it science' -- each science (true ones, at least) delineate the boundaries of their subject matter. Note, in chemistry, they don't talk about how they reduce the drag coefficient of chemical bonds when they are synthesizing new substances...a true science has its own fundamental assumptions and maintains them -- it does not borrow across boundaries when it can't explain things in its own realm. Skinner (the leading figure in a natural science approach to behavior, imho) was very clear about this. He had no use for trying to fill gaps in his analysis with borrowed processes from physiology, physics, or biology. Interdisciplinary does not mean one science borrows from another, it means that each science contributes equally to discover emergent things...one last thing about science -- the burden of proof is on the person(s) who is postulating new theories to provide evidence, not on the mainstream to disprove all crackpot ideas.

Physics, chemistry, and biology, et al, are interrelated fields, sometimes called the "hard" sciences. These sciences deal with natural laws, such as gravity and the laws of electromagnetism.

Chomsky writes, "There is a noticeable general difference between the sciences and mathematics on the one hand, and the humanities and social sciences on the other. It’s a first approximation, but one that is real. In the former, the factors of integrity tend to dominate more over the factors of ideology. It’s not that [real] scientists are more honest people. It’s just that nature is a harsh taskmaster. You can lie or distort the story of the French Revolution as long as you like, and nothing will happen. Propose a false theory in chemistry, and it’ll be refuted tomorrow."

All I'm saying is that Watson's and Pauli's ideal of a science of behavior that was interrelated to the laws of physics and chemistry has not been realized in behaviorism. There are only two ways behavioral science can explain learning; it's either a mechanical, unconscious process or it's based on conscious thought. (Most proponents of clicker training, eg., say they prefer this method because it "makes the dog think.")

The analogy I gave in the comments section of the first article in this series still holds: does the moon revolve around the earth because through the law of consequences (which requires the moon to think logically), i.e, because it's being positively reinforced for doing so, or is it due to the law of gravity?

Skinner's goal was to create a similar form of hard science for psychology, which would remove the necessity for intangibles, such as thoughts, ego, and even consciousness, in describing behavior. To succeed at this goal he had to "cook the data." The following is from "A Critical Review of B.F. Skinner's Philosophy," (1999 Edward G. Rozycki) http://www.newfoundations.com/EGR/Walden.html

Despite his labeling his assumptions "observed facts" it is clear that Skinner has an a priori theory of the world, a kind of materialistic atomism. But in "The Generic Nature of the Concepts of Stimulus and Response," he argues for a kind of "experimenter choice" that clearly places him outside the Empiricist tradition. "Data" for Skinner are not merely what present themselves to the experimenter, but that subset of the presented that fits into the experimenter's preconceived theory: for Skinner, a "smooth" functional curve. It is this option to choose what counts as data which reappears in his later works, importantly in Walden Two, to allow him to know better about people's motives (7) than they, themselves; and that will enable Skinnerian behavioral managers in any kind of institution to ignore data when data inconveniences their search for order.

He writes, "Our control over the response is almost exclusively of this sort -- specification. We have the refusal of all responses not falling within the class we have set up."(8) Responses are not identified as belonging to a response-class merely on the basis of pre-specified criteria, but rather on the basis of whether their acceptance or rejection produces "smooth curves" in the attempt to specify a functional relation between stimulus and response. Indeed, experimentally, if we try to restrict responses through differential reinforcement procedures so that non-defining properties are culled out, the smooth curves are damaged.(9) In any enterprise but what Skinner calls his "Science," the practice of "Selection of Facts"(10) would be called "cooking the data." (Cf. "A Case History Of Scientific Method" p.35)

As for the burden of proof being on the shoulders of the person presenting a new theory, I agree. However, your last comment reveals, perhaps, your ignorance of or amnesia concerning scientific history. Many areas of science that are now a part of the mainstream where considered "crackpot" ideas when initially presented.

LCK

hmm...seems like my last post didn't post - here is a repost of the same idea:
I'm not clear where you're going with the boundary between physics and behavior science being "thought" - it seems like a nonsensical statement. Anyways -- we do agree about one thing - you are not a scientist. To make an allegation such that Skinner "cooked his data" is not only intellectually irresponsible, it is dishonest. Rozycki's "critique" is of Skinner's fictional novel -- not of his technical works, so Rozycki's criticizing an easy target -- he is also critical of the fact that Skinner's positions and descriptions of his science and subject matter evolved. In science, this evolution and refinement is a *good* thing!
Furthermore, Rozycki quoted Skinner's thoughts on wishful thinking vs science, and then went on to misinterpret said quote to fit Rozycki's wishful thinking. Either he is suffering from hypocrisy or unclear writing. Either way, he in no way offers a substansive critique of Skinnerian position...as to my history of science and "amnesia" - I never said that strange and revolutionary theories don't occur or progress science - I said it is not mainstream science's role to disprove all crackpot theories. If you really think you've discovered (with 0 experiments, btw) a new process by which animals learn, then super - prove it! Until you can, it remains the bewildering theory that is neither natural (which is what most 'hard sciences' call themselves)nor parsimonious - you've created hypothetical constructs (borrowed from other sciences, nonetheless) which are neither observable, or even logical. To even begin supporting your theory, you must provide a method to measure these emotional energies that are said to explain the dog's behavior as well as how pushing on the dog's physical body would "reduce the drag coefficient" of them...you see -- the natural science of behavior has something you haven't - hard data and peer-reviewed experiments. It only investigates things and events which occur in this spatio-temporal world (the natural world) and eschews hypothetical constructs and supernatural explanations.

Ok - here we have it, let me explain the behavioral viewpoint -- especially with animals. You indicate that we have a "mechanical, unconscious process" or "conscious thought" - those really are the only two options -- your 'theory of energy' seems to rest in the 'thought' camp...a point in which you keep shifting your position.

In learning theory, we do not use thought as a mediator for learning. In other words - an animal learns because of its history of interactions with the environment. This experience teaches, not because the dog 'thinks' about its experience. This thinking that you are supporting and refuting would be what I would describe you or I narrating our experience. So as we are behaving, we may also be subvocally describing what we are experiencing. Ie - as I read your discussion maligning behaviorism without really understanding it, I narrate to myself how frustrating it is that the science is misunderstood.

The oddest thing I'm finding is that you have a problem with ascribing 'thought' to dogs but in this last blog post, you list what the dog might be thinking, if you don't believe that is occurring, why discuss it?...very confusing to this scientist.

I'll check my snotty attitude if you'll delineate exactly what you're saying: your 'ideas' and 'points' are shifting so rapidly, it is difficult to follow, or even attempt to point out other ways to view things. Care to explicitly and carefully delineate your stance about these things on which you're opining?

Note, I indicated that Rozycki's article is a critique of Walden II, not that every quote he used was from Walden II. Furthermore, Rozycki is taking quotations out of context -- his whole discussion of Skinner 'choosing his own data' is taken from a paragraph in which Skinner is discussing that there is a danger in an experimenter choosing which part of the stimulus-response relationship to attend, but that eventually, after enough experimentation, wrong choices will be discovered and can be corrected.

I'm glad you're reading Kaku and while I was not acutely aware of Lord Kelvin's belief (in airplanes or x-rays) -- I don't see how that supports any point you are making. My argument should not be seen as mixed - it is quite clear - just because there are cases of theories being seen as outlandish becoming revolutions in science does not make any outlandish theory revolutionary.

Skinner and current behaviorists do not ascribe conscious thought to animals...we talk about environment/behavior relationships. Most specifically, we don't invent mediating constructs (such as your emotional energy) -- we talk about things that are observable - with dogs, that is behavior and the current context combined with the history of environmental interactions. It is a common misconception that we don't deal with the full range of human behavior (such as cognitions, emotions, dreams, etc. etc.) we do -- but, we don't ascribe them to nonverbal organisms, and we don't require some sort of nonmaterial construct. The idea that pushing on a dog (a physical act) somehow reduces the "drag coefficient" is problematic on several levels (from a scientific standpoint):
a) you have no evidence that there is such a thing as a drag coefficient of emotional energy
b) even if we were to assume there was this energy, its description is nonmaterialistic (again, I ask, how do you measure it?)
c) the only way that you could at this point indicate that there *is* a drag coefficient reduction is by the chane in the dog's behavior, yes? If so -- then you're explaining the change in dog behavior by something that exists only because you can see the change in behavior - you'll go full circle.
d) you're trying to use physical processes (friction) to describe nonphysical things (emotional energy)

You ask why Behan's theory is not parsimonious - it inserts an 'emotional energy' as a mediator -- but you must ask -- how does one change this emotional energy? The answer you're providing is pushing on the dog's chest...assuming that *does* work -- a Skinnerian interpretation would not need the mediator, they would describe the change in behavior by the environment/behavior relationship (ie, the chest-pushing changes the aggressive behavior, rather than the chest pushing changes the emotional energy which then changes aggressive behavior)

Skinner definitely appreciates Darwin's use of selection in his theory of evolution...but he is not borrowing the idea of genotypes/phenotypes (which is important in evolution) -- he is instead discussing a selection by consequences which fits well within overarching scientific paradigm, without borrowing *across* scientific boundaries.

Finally, you indicate that the way you measure the subject of your theory (emotional energy) is observation and experimentation...I'm asking you specifically, what would you be measuring? For instance, in my science, I measure behavior by counting how often it occurs, how long it occurs, the time between responses, etc. etc. -- for emotional energy, how would you quantify and measure it?

finally -- you ask how I could be a dog lover and not test the pushing exercise. My answer: the same way that I am a person lover, but don't test the aluminum hat will keep the aliens from reading my mind theory of some other people. It would be pretty easy to construct and wear the aluminum hat, but I don't see any evidence that I should put my time into testing it...furthermore, as that may be harmless, the idea of pushing against a dog whilst it is eating seems to me a dangerous gambit for someone that a) isn't familiar with the dog that may react aggressively...you have a nice disclaimer to protect you legally...but I can foresee a poor chap who didn't realize that they had a dog with strong aggressive tendencies around food; or perhaps he thought he did have a lot of experience relating to such dogs...he posts a blog about how he pushed too hard and lost the use of his left hand due to severe dog bite...that is the reason I wouldn't advocate some untested intervention to satisfy a theory that has no support. Why don't you test it and write up the results?

I have done all that you asked; made a step-by-step argument outlining why there is less parsimony, what problems I see specifically with your descriptions, and even asked you very explicit questions. I suppose by doing that, I've created goalposts that don't move - which you've chosen to ignore.
I'll stand corrected that the handler doesn't "push" - but creates a barrier such that the dog must "push" (this correction in my wording doesn't change any arguments I've made).
While this theory may seem commonsensical to you (btw, behavior does *require* energy, as does any change, it doesn't mean it *is* energy) - it seems just as outlandish to me as the idea that aluminum will foil an alien from reading ones' mind.
I have thought about why I find your posts so upsetting/distasteful, and it isn't because you don't have any academic credentials, but it is because you seem to have such a large misunderstanding of the science that you're purporting to report on. Just as you seem upset that I mentioned that the handler pushes the dog (although, I see this as a minor mistake that doesn't impact the larger assumptions underlying your theory), I am upset that you keep saying that operant conditioning
a) doesn't work (you keep saying this, even in the face of overwhelming amounts of evidence to the contrary); there are skads of very successful trainers (some of the most highly sought after, imho) that use behavioral principles, and from what I can see, it is the most prevalent form of accepted dog training practice currently.
b) doesn't make sense because dogs can't reason and think (again, this argument is nonsensical in relation to operant conditioning, because it is not part of the equation provided by operant conditioning theorists.)
c) is not scientific (there are many, many peer reviewed articles in at least 10 different journals (many of which have been in existence since the late 50's & 60's) that provide proof of science.

thus - I am upset, not because your argument 'rocks my ideological core', but because you are making an ill-informed argument that perpetuates many incorrect assumptions about the science of behavior.

I am always willing to listen to, and consider other ideas, viewpoints, and theories -- as a scientist, I must remain open-minded. However, I also have to make sure it is not so open that my brain falls out.

@ConfusedScientist you write "In learning theory, we do not use thought as a mediator for learning. In other words - an animal learns because of its history of interactions with the environment. This experience teaches, not because the dog 'thinks' about its experience".

How does experience teach? How does the animal learn lessons from past experiences?

This thing with "energy" seems to enjoy a long history with all sorts of ideas... .particular "new age" philosophers and religionists.
Energy has got to be one of the most abused concepts of all time. Next in line? conscious/counsciousness

Good question :)
First, lets look at a certain set of stimuli, stimulus Y (environment, context, etc.) as having certain functions...one of which may be to evoke behavior X. So -- when stimulus Y occurs, it is related to several behaviors (because of the experience).
An example with food-deprivation as motivation - dog hasn't eaten, so food is very motivating.
Dog begins to behave (walk about the house, sniffing the floor, orienting to various moving things (humans), barking, walking about, sniffing the floor, etc. etc.) at one point, food will occur - this may be unrelated, but lets assume that as the dog was walking by the owner, said owner then gets dog food out and feeds dog. Now -- walking by the owner had a 'neutral function' relative to getting food (make sense?) -- then, because of its temporal relationship (it occurred and then food appeared) it acquires a food-related function. Now - when food is motivating (ie - dog hasn't eaten in X hours) - that behavior is likely to occur again, because of its relationship to food-deprivation. Note there is no thinking, understanding, or deciding occurring. Another thing of which to be aware is the fact that I took behavior (which is a fluid evanescent process) and sliced and diced it -- giving what appears to be a linear one stimulus-one behavior causal chain. In reality, there are a whole host of stimuli function interacting at once, and often they are related to several behaviors, thus you get hesitation, behavior blends, etc. etc...
I think this is one of the reasons that behaviorism is misunderstood -- for a scientist to investigate, we must take one slice at a time; but we don't think that the world works that way. The technology developed puts all the slices together and provides the tools for proper teaching. Hope this helps.

Confused: You keep saying that operant conditioning a) doesn't work...

I've never said it doesn't work. I've said that it's not very effective at solving severe behavioral problems in dogs. The Coppingers say the same thing. Even Nicholoas Dodman has said this, albeit unintentionally.

I've also said that there are numerous examples of learning that can't be explained through learning theory. So far no one has been able to refute that. The tenor of that argument is that while yes, operant conditioning does work (at least some of the time), it probably doesn't work for the reasons behavioral scientists say it does.

You, for example, seem to think it always works. Why does it work? What is it about the conditioning process, exactly, that causes dogs to learn new behaviors or shed old ones?

Confused: b) [that it] doesn't make sense because dogs can't reason and think 

What I said here was that there's no way to explain its effects without bringing some form of conscious thought into the mix. In other places I've said that the only ways that learning theory has of explaining how it works is a) through some kind of thought process, b) as if dogs were automatons, or c) in the form of a tautology.

One definition of operant conditioning is that an animal learns new behaviors as a way of "operating" on its environment. This presupposes one of two things: that the animal is aware of itself as being separate from its environment, or that what the animal is or isn't aware of is unimportant, all that matters is whether the behavior is temporally connected to a reinforcer and that said behavior repeats itself enough times to satisfy the researcher. The first requires higher cognitive abilities than most animals have. The second is either tautological or subject to heavy confirmation bias.

Another is that animals learn through consequences, which brings up the problem of how those consequences are registered in the animal mind. (Or don't animals have any form of awareness?) If an animal can't be said to have an awareness of the consequences that take place in a "temporal relationship" (Skinner's words) to their behaviors, then how how can consequences rightly be said to have any effect on learning?

Meanwhile, the time-dependent part of Skinner's definition needs to be questioned. If dogs have no sense of linear time, how can the temporal relationship between a behavior and its subsequent antecedents be registered? That can't be explained satisfactorily through the laws of conditioning, but it can be explained through the laws of energy.

Confused: and c) is not scientific

Now I know why you're confused. You're not reading what I've written!

I never said it's not scientific. I said that it's not as scientific as its adherents would have us believe. And I'm not the only person in the world saying this, by the way; the same thing, or varying versions of it, are being said by many scientists in many disciplines, including your own! (Or do you not consider John Staddon to be a behavioral scientist?)

Meanwhile no one has yet provided a satisfactory answer to the two examples given in my 1st article of a) behaviors being extinguished by praising the dog for doing the very thing you don't want him to do, and b) how throwing pots and pans at search-and-rescue dogs while they're going up or down a ladder (clearly an aversive stimulus), increases the reliability and strength of that behavior. You couldn't do that kind of thing to cats or helper monkeys and expect them to continue producing the behavior that's being punished. But with dogs, you can. (It's not just counterconditioning.)

The fact remains, dogs and small children don't always respond to operant conditioning the way the rules say they should. Sometimes you get opposite effects, even if you have a firm academic background in behavioral science. This is not an accident. Dogs and kids are telling us something's off.

LCK

Lee, your argument is highly dependent on words like "conscious", "aware", and the like.

Would you say that the selected physical traits of a surviving organism are "aware" or "conscious of" the environmental variables that have selected them?
In other words, is a Giraffe's neck "aware" of the tall tree?

Behavior and its *capacity to be changed by the environment* is a selected trait no different than the Giraffe's neck.

I believe it is *you* who is not reading what you wrote - this is a quote from your blog:
"Behavioral science techniques are known to be ineffective at resolving behavioral problems in dogs"

Definition of ineffective: "not effective; not producing results; ineffectual"

You are, in effect, saying it does not work.

Regarding the examples that can't be explained via learning theory. I have two things to say to that:
a) a science is never complete -- so there will always be things that we don't quite understand, and that we are currently refining and evolving in our understandings
b) I don't know if you're talking about *your* examples -- but I'd bet given all the parameters, I could quite readily explain them in behavioral terms.
Operant conditioning should not be defined as requiring awareness, or the mind of the animal (that is just inaccurate) – if you have, in fact, read much of Skinner, you should be familiar with his reasoning about why that dualistic notion is an impediment to scientific development – and subsequently understand it has no place in the behavioral explanation. The fact that you keep referring to it indicates that you really don’t have a valid argument, so must cling tightly to this invalid one, or you don’t understand behaviorism.

Depending on what you mean by ‘sense of time’ – animals do respond to time – there is much work that shows that given a time-based schedule of reinforcement, animal behavior changes in line with the time requirements. Does that mean that the animal ‘thinks’ and says to themselves things like “oh, its been 5 minutes since last time” – no!

BTW – Staddon does critique radical behaviorism for some of what he views as narrow ideas…he also disdains mentalisms and hypothetical constructs (such as your imposition of thought on animals, and the construct of ‘drag coefficient of emotional energy’) – his flavor of behaviorism (theoretical behaviorism) only accepts measurable, observable phenomena as its subject matter.

As far as being able to explain every single bit of behavior – even physics doesn’t do that – it gives you probability curves of what happens, that when the wind blows, a leaf will fall. It doesn’t predict the exact path a leaf will take to land and exactly where on the earth it will land. This proves nothing in the way of how scientific operant conditioning is…also, there really isn’t a continuum of science – either something is science or not (and the ‘not’ can be on a continuum from metaphysical to scientistic)

Your discussion of pots and pans is a confusion of co-occurring events and 'causes' of behavior -- I would say that trainers of rescue dogs would say that the dogs learn in spite of the distraction/fear of the pots and pans, not because of them.

I can give you an equally misguided example -- each morning, Tom rises at about 5AM, and begins his sun-rising prayer. And each morning, the sun rises just as Tom bid it to. This flies in the face of the idea of the earth and sun movements - and Tom will say, if it truly is the earth and sun moving, then how come in this instance, my prayer brings the sun up? While my analogy seems absurd, it is the same logic and reasoning you're using.

I have read your posts, and I stand by the fact that you're either implicitly or explicitly making the arguments I'm saying you are.

I find it interesting that the example you’re using (dogs and small children) as proof against the strength of the science. Those are not the organisms that behaviorism is having most difficulty – they’re readily understood, and their behavior most easily predicted – it is the adult humans with language that pose the most challenge. Even this challenge doesn’t disprove the science of behavior, it is just the next chapter in topics and phenomena that the science is tackling.

From my last post:

Confused: You keep saying that operant conditioning a) doesn't work...

Kelley: I've never said it doesn't work. I've said that it's not very effective at solving severe behavioral problems in dogs. The Coppingers say the same thing. Even Nicholoas Dodman has said this, albeit unintentionally.

From Confused's latest post: I believe it is *you* who is not reading what you wrote - this is a quote from your blog: "Behavioral science techniques are known to be ineffective at resolving behavioral problems in dogs" Definition of ineffective: "not effective; not producing results; ineffectual" You are, in effect, saying it does not work.

My Current Reply: You're either not reading my posts carefully, or you don't understand the difference between applying a criticism to one specific aspect of behaviorism (i.e., severe behavioral problems in dogs) and applying it globally.

From my last post:

Confused: b) [that it] doesn't make sense because dogs can't reason and think 

Kelley: What I said here was that there's no way to explain its effects without bringing some form of conscious thought into the mix. In other places I've said that the only ways that learning theory has of explaining how it works is a) through some kind of thought process, b) as if dogs were automatons, or c) in the form of a tautology.

One definition of operant conditioning is that an animal learns new behaviors as a way of "operating" on its environment. This presupposes one of two things: that the animal is aware of itself as being separate from its environment, or that what the animal is or isn't aware of is unimportant, all that matters is whether the behavior is temporally connected to a reinforcer and that said behavior repeats itself enough times to satisfy the researcher. The first requires higher cognitive abilities than most animals have. The second is either tautological or subject to heavy confirmation bias.

From Confused's latest post: Operant conditioning should not be defined as requiring awareness, or the mind of the animal (that is just inaccurate) – if you have, in fact, read much of Skinner, you should be familiar with his reasoning about why that dualistic notion is an impediment to scientific development – and subsequently understand it has no place in the behavioral explanation. The fact that you keep referring to it indicates that you really don’t have a valid argument, so must cling tightly to this invalid one, or you don’t understand behaviorism.

My Current Reply: I'm very keenly aware of Skinner's position on thought (and many other topics). There's no question that you understand the subject better than I do, but I would dare to say that I have a firmer grasp on it than most dog trainers who use operant conditioning techniques. I haven't just read Don't Shoot the Dog, The Power of Positive Dog Training, etc., I've actually read 4 or 5 books by Skinner himself, read the Breland's paper on "Instinctive Drift," and several of Skinner's early papers. (I've also read Chomsky's review of Verbal Behavior and several general critiques by Dan Dennett, Staddon, and others.) I will grant you that my mind wanders when I come across the equations in Skinner's work, but I'm well aware of his positions on this topic. And yet, despite his efforts to remove thought (or the black box) and emotion from behavioral science, there is no way to remove them entirely. Put in simplest terms, while behavioral science can describe the learning process without bringing intangibles into the mix, it can't explain it without falling back on them in some way. I'm sure you're always very careful not to do so, but then you've never really explained how and why conditioning works.

Just so you get the point of that: behaviorism can describe how the learning process works without bringing thought or emotion (I think you call them moderating influences) into the mix, but it can't be explained without doing so.

Meanwhile, using an energy theory, based not just on the principles of physics, but emergence theory, chaos theory, systems dynamics, and more, the learning process can be both described and explained through simple laws of nature.

For example, Alexandra Semyonova, in her paper, "The Social Behavior of the Domesticated Dog," writes, “In a complex self-maintaining system, at points of instability and at points far from equilibrium, new forms of order are generated, which lead to higher levels of organization and increased diversity (Capra, 1996).  The system moves away from chaos and towards one (or more) attractor(s).  The processes which lead complex systems to and from various stable states … can be purely mechanical, chemical or physical, involving the movement of matter, energy or information, or can, in the case of living organisms include mental processes such as self-generated thoughts, perception, learning and cognition.” (www.NonLinearDogs.com) She's describing dogs as a self-organizing system. Note that such systems are described in terms very similar to the way we describe canine behavior using Behan's energy theory.

However, I sincerely doubt that you will ever accept his theory is more scientific, and simpler, ie. more parsimonious, than the ever-increasing complexity of behavioral science. Which brings up this, from your last comment:

Confused: Also, there really isn’t a continuum of science – either something is science or not

I already posted Noam Chomsky's thoughts -- that there's a substantial difference between physical sciences and social sciences, in that the latter is more subject to ideologies -- on that subject.

I'd rather not keep going around in circles, if you don't mind.

LCK

@ConfusedScientist you write "An example with food-deprivation as motivation - dog hasn't eaten, so food is very motivating.
Dog begins to behave (walk about the house, sniffing the floor, orienting to various moving things (humans), barking, walking about, sniffing the floor, etc. etc.) at one point, food will occur - this may be unrelated, but lets assume that as the dog was walking by the owner, said owner then gets dog food out and feeds dog. Now -- walking by the owner had a 'neutral function' relative to getting food (make sense?) -- then, because of its temporal relationship (it occurred and then food appeared) it acquires a food-related function. Now - when food is motivating (ie - dog hasn't eaten in X hours) - that behavior is likely to occur again, because of its relationship to food-deprivation. Note there is no thinking, understanding, or deciding occurring."

The scenario you describe does require an understanding of cause and effect. Is this correct?

To C.S. Thanks for your response and it is confusing to keep track of the posts when the points/counterpoints become lengthy.
To clarify, my point is that an energy theory is the only one that doesn’t use thoughts to account for complex behavior; rather my argument is that complex behavior is self-organizing according to principles of energy, and that this is the only logical interpretation of behavior and is more consistent with a theory of evolution and emergence theory. Meanwhile, I’m saying that other systems of interpretation must resort to thoughts since they aren’t putting behavior into the context of energy; i.e. "the capacity of a system to do work." Behavior doesn't happen in a vacuum and this conundrum can't be avoided. For the way things now stand in behavioral science either a dog is thinking or it is mindless.
Furthermore, I don’t believe anything has to be quantified to qualify as scientific, although I think an energy theory ultimately can be, but it will take an interdisciplinary approach far beyond my means. All I can do for now is present an argument and I do believe that biophysicists will indeed be able to quantify it once they know what to look for. For example, Darwin argued in “Origins” that evolution by way of natural selection is the best model for all the evidence. He couldn’t measure or quantify the process of evolution because of course genes hadn’t yet been discovered. Even the linkage with Mendel's work didn't happen until the early 20th century. Yet his argument launched a scientific revolution because he provided the best interpretation of the circumstantial evidence, i.e. fossils and comparative anatomy and behavior of living animals, the folklore and experiences of breeders of domesticated animals. So even if I didn’t quantify the data but were able to encompass the behavior of animals in a more coherent model; then that would qualify as scientific by any standard I'm aware of.
You’ve said: “The other option to your description of perception is to describe behavior as a relationship between a whole, living organism and its environment. We do not use thought as one of the mediating variables in explaining behavior in dogs.” Therefore you must be uncomfortable with a term such as territoriality, or dominance or submission, or anticipation, or “threat displays” since these are human, rational concepts that one finds sprinkled throughout any scientific journal or informed discussion on behavior. Also does this mean that you would have no argument with someone saying that dogs are machines, since we're just going to consider the dog in terms of its relationship with its environment? Would you attempt to discredit such an assertion and if so how? And I must also assume that you are in opposition to those in the scientific community who are saying that dogs do indeed think and that they problem solve by weighing alternatives since this is by definition inserting a definitive mental attribution inside the dog’s mind?
Finally, does seeing the dog completely as a being in relationship to its surroundings, truly bypass and escape unexamined assumptions. For example, is the learning process happening completely within the dog as a self-contained entity of intelligence in relationship with its surroundings? And if so is it's perceptions and learning process happening completely within its brain? And if you bring the dog's genes into the formula, is the canine genome likewise a self-contained set of information?