Xref: utzoo sci.misc:2846 sci.psychology:1162 comp.ai:2726 comp.ai.neural-nets:345
Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!pacbell!ames!mailrus!cornell!rochester!pt.cs.cmu.edu!cadre!geb
From: geb@cadre.dsl.PITTSBURGH.EDU (Gordon E. Banks)
Newsgroups: sci.misc,sci.psychology,comp.ai,comp.ai.neural-nets
Subject: Re: Learned Behavior vs. Hard-Wired Behavior
Message-ID: <1824@cadre.dsl.PITTSBURGH.EDU>
Date: 29 Nov 88 13:56:28 GMT
References: <3978@charon.unm.edu> <1753@sun.soe.clarkson.edu> <5959@hoptoad.uucp> <17868@glacier.STANFORD.EDU>
Reply-To: geb@cadre.dsl.pittsburgh.edu (Gordon E. Banks)
Organization: Decision Systems Lab., Univ. of Pittsburgh, PA.
Lines: 19

In article <17868@glacier.STANFORD.EDU> jbn@glacier.UUCP (John B. Nagle) writes:
>
>     The ability to stand, walk, run, avoid obstacles, and run with a
>herd without getting trampled appears in horses in the wild within hours
>of birth.  Even domesticated horses typically stand within an hour of birth.
>
This does not say that gait characteristics of other species, such
as man, are not innate.  The horse nervous system is just much
more developed at birth.  Infants do not really "learn" to walk.
They start walking (unless prevent) when maturation of the nervous
system reaches the proper stage.  The programs for walking are
largely in the spinal cord anyhow with some contributions from
the basal ganglia and cerebellum.  A good guide to what is innate
in humans is to look for behavior that exists in all cultures,
even as remote as that of Australian aborigines.  Laughing, smiling,
speech, fighting and sexual behaviors, all are found in all
genetic stocks.  Much more may be innate that is different in
different genetic stocks, but that is more difficult to separate
from cultural influences.