Comment by ForHackernews
8 years ago
Primates have relatively few instinctive behaviours. Almost everything we do is learned to one degree or another.
8 years ago
Primates have relatively few instinctive behaviours. Almost everything we do is learned to one degree or another.
You don't recoil when you see a snake/spider? You don't get tired when it gets dark out? You aren't born with the knowledge of how to extract milk from your mother? You don't cry when you're hurt? You don't have an innate desire to please, and fear of pain... which ultimately allows your parents to teach you? We are loaded with survival instincts that set us up for successful learning.
This is dead wrong. We have instincts for extremely complex behavior (like acquiring language, navigating reciprocal relationships, acquiring mates, etc.).
Just because we have evolved the neurological substrates that can be applied to those behaviours doesn't mean those behaviours themselves are instinctive. If navigating reciprocal relationships and acquiring mates are instinctive behaviours, why are so many humans so terrible at those things?
In contrast, something like breastfeeding really is an instinctive behaviour that infants can do automatically without being taught.
Rather than engage on the behaviors that require more writing, I'll just go for the easy kill:
Are you really arguing that we don't have an instinct for acquiring language?
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