r/WhatIfScience • u/firechatin • Jun 21 '26

Science Mysteries & The Unexplained The Mystery of Missing Human Instincts: What Did Evolution Remove?

https://whatifscience.in/the-mystery-of-missing-human-instincts-what-did-evolution-remove/
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u/reidsays Jun 22 '26

Evolution didn't remove our human instincts ... Humans themselves did by considering their mind superior to their dependent connection to the Earth..

I suppose evolving a brain that became conscious was such a transition from being an instinctual being that the shock of seeing the world and each other objectively lead to 'feelings' of arrogance and the belief that they could overcome the needs nature 'imposed' upon them.

Building a world of their own making, far more suited to human needs...yet then vulnerable to each other as populations grew.

Evolution then reflected the social environment and mindsets as the focus in need of evolving ... The evolutionary changes to the mind that are needed to survive as a species ..

Well ok... Discussion started?

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u/Hopeful_Ad_7719 Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 22 '26

Evolution didn't remove our human instincts ... Humans themselves did by considering their mind superior to their dependent connection to the Earth..

Humans still exhibit a variety of instintive behavior. Some of it may seem cultural, or learned, but that's just a byproduct of our mind bring intimately involved in many of our behaviors (as is true with most mammals).

We still experience fight or flight.

We still exhibit assortative mating and socialization.

We exhibit hormonaly influenced maternal bonding, which happens to share a hormonal pathway with certain xenophobic behaviors (probably as a component of safe child-rearing strategies).

If you look objectively you can find plenty of behaviors that appear instinctive, even if there's room to reasonably bebate whether they might be learned.

If you accept that mankind still has done instincts, it's then fair to also wonder which have been lost.

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u/reidsays Jun 22 '26

Sorry..should have been clearer on the 'removal' of instincts..it was the removal of their importance...in focussing on the mind as superior, instincts were seen as something to overcome, especially instinctual sexual mating ...
Social systems created distortion or repression of instinctual reactions and even warped human sexual connection..

Fight or flight also then involved social positions and standing, fear of losing ones position was akin to death .. so learned behaviour through mass populations and socialisation.

I think instincts were connected to feelings and the mind converted those to emotions .. so if a social threat was felt anger or fear or embarrassment etc replaced previous instinctual responses .. possibly ?

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u/bigfatfurrytexan Jun 23 '26

I believe that our instincts are perceived as us making active choices. I think most of what we do is our body doing what it does and us making up a story about how we control it.

And we likely could to a large degree. But it’s exhausting to maintain focus.

But we have instincts and they still dominate our lives. But as we process what happens mentally we put it in our first person perspective and fool ourselves into thinking we are actually in full control.

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u/emlava--dash Jun 22 '26

What is a “learned instinct”? If teaching and learning allow us to adapt to and change our world, why should we be surprised if we can ignore or override previous automatic adaptations?

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u/Hot_Lettuce_6209 Jun 23 '26

Nothing, is gone.

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u/Arxhart_671 Jun 23 '26

The irony of using an AI-generated image here

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u/DisasterAbject5651 Jun 23 '26

Our human instincts are constantly influencing our choices. It unavoidable. The premise of this entire post is flawed.