Instinct - evolved or better answer?

I think the dog and the bird are two different mechanisms. As far as I can remeber from my comparative psychology (all those years ago!).I recall birds would use Fixed Action Patterns for some of their behaviour. When you kick an egg of the Greylag Goose out of its' nest the bird will dutifull use its' beak to roll the the egg back into the nest. Now, if you are an even bigger meany and pick the egg up, the goose will keep rolling a non existant egg as if the egg were still in its' field of view.The behaviour is a fixed action pattern that does not change, a bit like our startle reflex. Once it's 'fired' it will go on to completion. No learning there.Based on this flimsy memory over 10 years old I would say that the birds nest IS hard wired. I don't see why the nest building behaviour cannot modify by experience, but the 'build nest here' imperitive is probly hard wired.Dogs on the other hand have 'looser' wiring and can social learn too. I have read about cunning little black bears scampering up snow difts to 'mark' their trees too.This brings me to my final flimsy memory: Preparedness. This (as I recall) is a species' predisposition towards learning 'things'. Humans' is language and facial recognition (among others), cats is stalking, song birds singing etc. the bear bones of the behaviour is there, but learning via the gift of experience fine tunes it to react to the environment.So there you have my ultimate cop out answer: a species has some level of hard wired behaviour such as jumping in fright or shock, to an experience modifide behaviour such as modifying the startle reflex into 'combat reflexes' of a trained soldier.

I've got no time now, but check this link out. It's pretty interesting and has some good info. I will get back to you on this one.Please note it's from a university (Plymouth UK) web site so it's not in too much depth, and it's a teaching aid for undergrads.http://salmon.psy.plym.ac.uk/year1/ETHEXPT.HTM#overview http://www.psy.plym.ac.uk/year3/psy364criticisms...Edit: added second link and message clarity.This message has been edited by Larni, 11-30-2005 10:23 AM fixed diplay of url to change page width - The QueenThis message has been edited by AdminAsgara, 12-05-2005 09:46 PM

I got back to look at this pretty damn interesting thread today, eager to relive my evolutionary psychology days, struggling with the idea of behavioural evolution.And what do I find? Some creo troll banging on about creation in a science forum.Back OT:"What if some degree of variation/experimentation is included in the "wiring"? I've met people with a wide range of "lateral thinking" ability, from those that can only follow a standard linear process to those that are always devising alternate processes to the standard, sometimes better, often not. I've often wondered if there was a genetic basis for these differences in lateral thinking, or if it was more a matter of nurture differences..." - Pink SasquatchI used to work with young adults with Asperger's Syndrome. They displayed the exact opposite of lateral thinking: one guy I worked with learnt to cach a bus to school. We were well pleased. Then the bus company changed and so did the colour of the buses. This foxed him because he had learnt to cach a green bus not a yellow one.This makes me think that learning does indead set down neural connections that can be altered in time (look at how repetition helps memory and praxia) but that some organisms have a greater ability to modify these (on the fly). Two different examples of this are the tereotypical "egg catch" of the Greylag Goose and tool use in some corvids. One is functionally inflexible and one looks like it's very flexible.Of course this could be two examples of the same thing, but we see tool use as more "like us" and so less "stereotypical."My head hurts now.This message has been edited by Larni, 12-09-2005 04:55 AM