> babies are very poorly wired if at all. As a father myself, I don't agree. I find it impossible to believe that babies are wired poorly, or randomly, or jus

> babies are very poorly wired if at all. As a father myself, I don't agree. I find it impossible to believe that babies are wired poorly, or randomly, or just are amorphous blobs of learning. They're active and inter-active from a very early age. Even before they're born. Their brain is still growing connections, and re-wiring itself based on sensory input / feedback. i.e. blind people co-opt the vision centers to process sound. But there is a vision center. There are portions of the brain which are pre-wired to be good at certain activities. If nothing else, look at the inputs. The nerves from the retina and ears go somewhere. They don't just disappear into random parts of the brain. They're pre-wired to certain areas. Those areas are in turn pre-wired to be good at accepting certain inputs. In contrast, many animals have much more hard-wired behavior. And insects are little automatons. Are we really going to say that animals are pre-wired with... nothing? And that they learn all of their behavior after they're born? I find that even harder to believe than the idea that the brain is pre-wired to be good at some things.