Trevor Miller

Please let me know what your opinions are on this matter. I would like this to be more of a discussion than the typical debate (outrageous insulting and ego boosting attempts etc.) but we will see what really happens...

1. What do you think about feral children? Not necessarily children raised by animals, but human beings that have grown up whithout other human intervention...either by language deprivation, or complete isolation? I am not asking what you think ethically towards this type of treatment, but what you think the results might be, or what you know the results to be.

2. What does this show of human nature? What do you believe about human nature? What do the results and observations mean?

3. What sources did you get the information from? Do you know of any experiments and the results? ex. books, websites, stories etc. (I only know of a few stories here and there, and a book called The forbidden Experiment by Roger Shattuck. I have also heard rumors of this in the long list of supposed Nazi experiments, but I would like facts.)

Thank you for your time,
Trevor

p.s. I also posted this in the research forum...for a nicer approach to the same issues. If you would rather post there, go ahead.

meldy

I have only seen multiple shows on this on The Discovery Channel and read a plurb or two in Psych.


I dont really think about feral children. Its such a rare event. I think the few who survive any length of time show that much of what we think of as human nature is learned no inherent.
The boy in Russia who was raised by a pack of stray dogs for a couple years after the age of about 3-4(?) could not talk, didnt walk properly and had no social skills as far as human relationships go. He turned out okay, sort of, but like all feral children didnt live long after he was 'recaptured' and reassimilated.
You should be asking what that means!? Why do they always have such short lifespans? Would they live longer if society didnt deem it necessary to interfere?

I dont know of anyone who experimented in this way and have never heard of it.
Not on people anyway. I have psych references to tests where infant chimps were tested. It was found that most of them withered and died when they werent held, touched and 'loved' basically.(why it was okay to kill off chimps this way I will never know.)

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I thought about building you a raft to survive the river of tears I am crying for you but the worlds smallest violins just arent a realible source of lumber. And that cross you are nailing yourself to seems bouyant enough anyway- G. House.

Trevor Miller

Thank you for the input meldy.

I would like to know what it means, in fact, that is the reason I started this thread. I would love to see your opinions on questions like:

What does this tell us about human nature? The nature-nurture issue? Do we have any inherent human qualities or is everything learned? and if it is all learned (which I do not believe) then why did we teach it in the first place...how did we learn it in the first place?

JoannaMac

I just went and looked up the Russian Dog Boy Meldy was talking about because I'd never heard of him before, and the article I read was on a website called FeralChildren.com | Feral children: isolated, confined, wild and wolf children. There's a lot there you might find useful Trevor.

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If you aint got nuffink, you can't lose it!

meldy

Hmmm..not sure which one the boy in the documentary was?
Maybe this one? FeralChildren.com | Ivan Mishukov, the Russian Dog Boy

They talked about Genie too....but hers as a case of confinement not wild animals (depending on what you think of her parents of course)

The boy in the documentary I am pretty sure was 4 ish and had an older sister who neighbours had taken in but for some reason no one wanted the boy.
Except the neighbourhood dogs.

And I thought the boy died...but maybe not? It was a while ago that I watched it lol

__________________
I thought about building you a raft to survive the river of tears I am crying for you but the worlds smallest violins just arent a realible source of lumber. And that cross you are nailing yourself to seems bouyant enough anyway- G. House.

JoannaMac

Yep, that's the one, but I don't think he died. The article finished with him going back to school.

__________________
If you aint got nuffink, you can't lose it!

Trevor Miller

Actually meldy, I would rather hear about confinement and isolation, rather than animal intervention...not because I am a creep, but becuase I would like to see how humans react by themselves. (I am writing a story about it) Or rather, what human nature is. I have my own beliefs, but would like the evidence - so to speak.

Thanks again,
Trevor

Hodge

It tells us what many philosophers (such as Hobbes) had already explained in the past: human behavior is learned, not innate. We are, essentially, a blank slate at birth. Biology influences how we react with our environment, but our environment gives us all the specific values, ideas, and beliefs that we hold.

Even with things such as height and weight. There have been identical twins who looked entirely different later in life because one had engaged in unhealthy behaviors and the other healthy behaviors. Different height, weight, and even slightly different skeletal structure that has been attributed to poor nutrition as a child. Nature gives us a range, and it's up to environment to determine whether we fall on one end of that range or the other (and it may be even more plasticized when talking about mental functions, as the brain displays an ability to change itself over time).

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Science

Trevor Miller

Ok Hodge, I'm merely a nuteral observer here, but....proof?

How did you come to those conclusions? Show me the process? I don't think that you can make that generalization when there have been other instances of inate human behaviors.

Thanks,
Trevor

p.s. what keeps you going Hodge? What is your reason for doing anything if this is really what you believe? I'm not being rude, just curious.

meldy

Lordy....are you gonna make me pull out my psych crap?


I agree with most of the first bit of what Hodge said. A great deal of what most people think of human nature is, in fact, learned.

Take things like emotional control and such.

Children learn that hitting is wrong otherwise they just beat and bully their way into everything.

Why? Who decided hitting was wrong?

This is what you are looking for isnt it Trevor?

__________________
I thought about building you a raft to survive the river of tears I am crying for you but the worlds smallest violins just arent a realible source of lumber. And that cross you are nailing yourself to seems bouyant enough anyway- G. House.

Hodge

There aren't instances of any "innate human behaviors." There are instances of innate human impulses and drives which are called "emotions."

But you give me an instance of someone who was born a socialist or was born religious or was born with the ability to produce art and you won't be able to, because these are all learned traits that were originally created by humans themselves. Art, religion, and abstract concepts simply do not exist outside of human society, and human society only exists in those who also exist in the society.

As for physical traits, I'm sure you've heard how the people who live now are a lot taller than the people who lived 100, 200, and 300 years ago. That's far too short a time for any widespread genetic change to take hold, so evolution is not an explanation. The explanation is that we eat better in today's world so as children and teens we more greatly fulfill the height potential our genes give us.

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Science

Shawn

Because it infringes on another's free will.

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The most frightening part of leaving a parent's home, to me, is not knowing where one's own home is.

Hodge

Free will? What's free will? I'm just a baby, I don't understand your fancy abstract concepts.

Shawn

Free will is the body's ability to do whatever the mind desires it to do.

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The most frightening part of leaving a parent's home, to me, is not knowing where one's own home is.

meldy

What if the mind of the hitter wants to hit the hitee, regardless of what the "hitee's" free will wants.
Arent you, by that reasoning, impinging on the "hitters' free will as well?
Who decides whose free will take precidence?

Trevor, do a search on B.F. Skinner, who was an American psychologist who conducted a study such as the one you are looking for using his own daughter as the subject.

Its not as indepth and didnt go on for long...but you might find it helpful.

__________________
I thought about building you a raft to survive the river of tears I am crying for you but the worlds smallest violins just arent a realible source of lumber. And that cross you are nailing yourself to seems bouyant enough anyway- G. House.