"Behavior is the result of some condition that has caused it to happen" (Malott, 2012, p. 168)

"Science is, of course, more than a set of attitudes. It is a search for order, for uniformities, for lawful relations among the events in nature" (Skinner, 1953, p.13).

"Human behavior is the joint product of (i) the contingencies of survival responsible for the natural selection of the specific and (ii) the contingencies of reinforcement responsible for the repertoires acquired by its members, including (iii) the special contingencies maintained by the social environment" (Skinner, 1958, p. 502).

Maladaptive, unhealthy, and harmful behavior can persist because it serves a function for the individual (e.g., substance abuse, non-suicidal self-harm, etc.).

"...assumption that 'the universe is a lawful and orderly place in which all phenomena occur as the result of other events'" (Cooper, Heron, & Heward, 2007, p.5).

"...if the behavior of organisms was not orderly or lawful, scientists would be unable to identify why a behavior was occurring and therefore modify it" (Fisher, Piazza, & Roane, 2011, p. 9).

"The practice of objective observation of the phenomena of interest" (Cooper et al., 2007, p. 5).

Scientists should believe what they observe the world to be, and not what they have been taught that it should be (Fisher, 2011).

"simple, logical explanations must be ruled out, experimentally or conceptually, before more complex, or abstract experimentations are considered" (Cooper, Heron, & Heward, p. 22).

"A reasonable and logical way of doing things or of thinking about problems that is based on dealing with specific situations instead of on ideas and theories" (Merriam-Webster.com, 2015).