Of course we do have a few inborn basic drives but the way we
actually satisfy these drives is learned through cultural
experience. Most people, learn to fulfill their
drives in the way their culture tells them to. We are not
programmed to satisfy them in any particular way.
If we were, we would all fulfill our drives
in a rigid, identical manner.
We don't. In fact, as stated earlier, unlike other species, we
can even override our drives completely.

Hi ALTRAV,

Not so sure about breast feeding being instinctive.
Especially for the mother. Many women don't succeed
at it. And in the United States formula-fed babies
are popular. Don't get me wrong I'm all for breast
feeding. And I do think it's best for baby. However,
in today's society it's another choice that women make.
To some it does not come naturally - no matter how hard
they may try. I was lucky. It worked for me.

We've just had another example of why the forum
is popular. We may start out with one subject and
before we know it it's gone off on a different
tangent alltogether.

But no complaints. That's how we learn, and grow,
doing research on subjects we may otherwise not
have looked into. Plus the challenges we throw out and
are thrown to us by various people all add to making
this a more enjoyable experience .

mhaze put it so well when he posted - words to the effect:

"I come onto this forum to bounce my ideas
off the critical minds of whoever accepts
the challenge, reciprocationg with a similar
service whenever I have something to offer in return."

Instinctive does not mean universal. For a species to survive there must be a certain number who feel an urge to mate with a member of the species of the opposite sex. However, the species can survive without every member of it having the instinctive drive.

Foxy,

You don't seem to have read my post properly. I'm not saying that people can't override what I call in "instinctive" behaviour. Indeed, I freely admitted that mothers can override breast-feeding. But what I'm saying is that there are complex behaviours that humans know how to do without being taught.

Now, it may be that we differing on what an instinctive behaviour is. I'm using the word to mean complex behaviour that most people (sometimes of just the same sex) can do/know how to do if not explicitly shown/taught. Whereas you seem to require that the behaviour is more-or-less inevitable once certain precursors are triggered (which is what some scientists mean).

But regardless of our difference on what we mean by instinctive behavious, what is complete rubbish is your claim that ALL complex human behaviour is learnt.

Here's just some behaviours, off-the-top-of-my-head that are very common to humans that don't need to be taught-

For babies (and sometimes continuing on):
suckling,
the grab response (ie, babies often reach out to grab things held in front of them),
thumb sucking,
interacting with other humans with facial expressions and noises (especially their mother or other babies)

For children and onwards:
Masturbating,
Playing/Fighting,
The snake detection response (this may also apply for babies, I don't know). This is very complex and inbuilt since it requires the person to identify something as a snake even if they haven't seen a snake before- it is a common response across all primates.

Now some of those listed for babies may be considered more as reflexes, but the point is is that they are complex sequence of actions and not just a simple knee-jerk like reflex (ie. all of these require processing by the brain to coordinate the actions involved).

david f,

I think the clue lies in the fact that we humans have very large brain capacities vis-a-vis the rest of the animal kingdom which enabled us to replace instinct with culture as a survival mechanism.

From simple stone tool kits to agriculture to machines and space exploration we have been able to displace other species that are governed by instinct.