Are learned and innate the only types of behaviors?

Nice selective quoting. Did you miss the part about "chi" never having been proven to exist, or the fact that it's been shown to have no effect whatsoever compared to placebo on a whole host of ailments acupuncture has claimed to relieve or cure?Scientists eventually did some studies, and found that there was a slight effect from acupuncture, and that this effect was similar to that of massage. They did not determine that all of the "common knowledge" surrounding acupuncture was accurate in any way. In fact, they showed that most of the claims of acupuncture are completely bullshit! Traditional practitioners believed (and still claim) that acupuncture cures a whole host of ailments - but it's not true.When you see something unexpected out of the corner of your eye, sinequanon, what's the first thing you do? Do you turn to the person next to you and ask, "did you see that?" That's one of the basics of the scientific method - proving that your perception of events is accurate by having it verified independently.People have believed in all manner of foolishness and fantasy that they think they "saw with their own eyes," and have "seen patterns" in events that simply don't exist. The human brain is notorious for recognizing (or even projecting) patterns where none exist - for instance, cloud shapes, or any number of superstitions surrounding winning the lottery.This is why scientific independent verification is so important.And yes, that's why you should notalways trust your own perceptions over "what scientists tell you." After all, your eyes tell you the world is flat. Do you believe your eyes over science?

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Every time a fundy breaks the laws of thermodynamics, Schroedinger probably kills his cat.

Your reply was this:

quote:

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There is also general agreement that acupuncture is safe when administered by well-trained practitioners, and that further research is warranted.[10][11][12] Though charged as pseudoscience, Dr. William F. Williams, author of Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience, notes that acupuncture --"once rejected as 'oriental fakery' -- is now (if grudgingly) recognized as engaged in something quite real."[13]

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The compelte facts, as pointed out to you later, are that while acupuncture does have an effect similar to that of massage, it does not have anything approaching the effect claimed by the traditional practitioners - in other words, the claims scientists refuted as pseudoscience were still false.Besides that, the entire point is that science engages in independant investigation and verification. Despite the fct that scientists originally assumed acupuncture was completely flim-flam, a study was still done, and scientific opinion changed to match the facts (note that the lunatic claims of disease cures from acupuncture are still no more real than Benny Hinn).When an individual scientist offers his opinion that something sounds ridiculous, that's his professional opinion.When a scientific journal gives a conclusion based on examination of evidence and independent verification after being run through the peer review process...that's something much different, and with a lot more credibility. Of course they do. Can you somehow see the curvature of the Earth? That would be a neat trick. Or do you live in low Earth orbit?Humanity believed the Earth to be flat for thousands of years before it was finally proven to be a rough sphere - because they beleived what their eyes told them, and they lacked critical information.When something bad happens to you after stepping on a crack, you may think that stepping on a crack is "bad luck." Later, something else bad may happen, and you may recall that you stepped on a crack again earlier that day. Does this mean that stepping on cracks causes misfortune?If you see a light flying through the sky that does not appear to be related to "normal" aircraft...is it really an alien spaceship? I mean, you saw what you saw, right?When you see a cloud that really looks like a horse, what does that mean?When people use their birthdays and other such significant numbers when buying lottery tickets, does this really affect their chances of winning?People see patterns where none exist, make the mistake of assuming correlation means cause and effect, and draw conclusions from limited evidence all the time. Hell, we even misremember things later in such a way that they better match our earlier conclusions!Independent verification and study are the best way to determine facts - even if the later conclusions don't necessarily match what you specifically experienced.

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Every time a fundy breaks the laws of thermodynamics, Schroedinger probably kills his cat.

Science does not deal with attempting to prove negatives. You won't find a journal that says "Behavior that is neither learned nor instinctual does not exist." You'll simply find journals regarding learned behavior and instinctual behavior. You'll note an absence of other behavior, however, because there is no real evidence it exists, and no way to study it.You may, of course, find a parapsychology paper that experimented with the possibility of "intuition," or other non-learned, non-instinctual behaviors - but the results of such studies have always been inconclusive, their results being so similar to random chance as to show nothing of value.

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Every time a fundy breaks the laws of thermodynamics, Schroedinger probably kills his cat.

Your quote does not, however, support believing your own perspective when it is refuted by science. You're picking and choosing here, sinequanon, and not following through with your own topic. The result of the acupuncture studies have not proven science wrong regarding "chi" or the fantastical claims of tradition. They've shown that laying down and allowing a traditional therapist to perform a relaxation treatment on your body is (gasp!) relaxing, and has similar benefits to massage.That doesn't mean acupuncture is a cure for anything, or that there is some strange energy field that can be manipulated within the human body with properly placed needles.Not interested in damage control? You're not interested in responding to refutations. ...but not that the Earth is roughly spherical. Come on, sinequanon, you know exactly what I meant. The perspective on an individual residing nearly anywhere on Earth will not reflect the curvature of the Earth, and the reasonable conclusion from that data alone is that the Earth is flat (not that it doesn't have mountains or hills or houses, but that the shape of the world as a whole is that of a plane with certain raised features). Would that be a dismissal? Let's leave forum moderation to the actual moderators, shall we?

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Every time a fundy breaks the laws of thermodynamics, Schroedinger probably kills his cat.