Hi Harry, Just to choose one thread from the recent exchange:
At 10:36 13/02/02 -0800, you wrote: (HP) <<<< But are they instincts or genetic predispositions? I mentioned Ashley Montagu's denial that Man had any instincts. But what about a suckling baby? Is that a genetic predisposition - a series of events that are ordained, or does the baby suck "instinctively"? >>>> I'm not sure where the dividing line is between instincts and genetic predispositions -- but it's pretty blurry, at least in my mind. I think I'm right in saying that most those who study these matters now believe that we are more instinctive than was believed in Ashley Montagu's time, 30 years ago. (I don't have any of his books to hand but I seem to recall that Montagu was most concerned with showing that man doesn't have an aggressive instinct -- a belief which was then quite fashionable. In fact, Montagu was a influential voice that helped to discount instincts at that time. But since then the pendulum has swung back again -- particularly since the great expansion of research into young children.) (HP) <<<< Well, we have an advantage. When conditions change, the animal may be stuck with a less than perfect response. We may use reason to change our response to a more appropriate one. >>>> Yes, indeed. Some research reported in the current "Nature" bears out your comment strongly. Gyorgy Gergely and his team at the Hungarian Academy of Science in Hungary have shown that even children as young as 14 months are capable of substituting simulations of adult behaviour (quite a strong instinct in a young child) by what they think is more rational behaviour in problematical situations. Keith __________________________________________________________ �Writers used to write because they had something to say; now they write in order to discover if they have something to say.� John D. Barrow _________________________________________________ Keith Hudson, Bath, England; e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] _________________________________________________
