The trouble is that the evidence strongly suggests it's not true. While humans (and other higher animals) undoubtably do have much greater abilities to learn and adapt to their environments, these abilities are guided by instinct - the way in which we learn is, itself, instinctual and underneath the learning layers we are still strongly instinct driven.
Here's a comment from one Dr. William Goode: "There are no instincts. There are reflexes, like eye-blinking and drives, like sex."