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Two recent scientific studies suggest that people have innate ideas that are not learned through sense experience but are present from birth. One study by Perin, Berger, and Markram, examined how neurons are organized in the brains of newborns. Neurons are brain cells that process, transmit, and preserve thoughts and information. Scientists believe that neurons represent or “encode” information or thoughts by forming circuits that connect them with each other. According to the authors, “neuronal circuitry is often considered a clean slate that can be… arbitrarily molded by experience.” In other words, scientists believed that at birth the brain contained no encoded information, and that whatever information brain neurons encoded after birth came from sense experiences. However, the study discovered that many neurons are already connected in small networks from birth. The study concluded that “experience cannot freely mold” all the neurons of the brain, because from birth the brain contains “neuronal groups that . . . emerged during embryonic development independent of experience.” In short, these small networks of neurons seem to represent innate concepts that are present in the brain from birth and independent of sense experience. The second study, by Hespos and vanMarle, reviewed earlier research on the concepts babies seem to have. The study states: We review how object and substance knowledge interfaces with number knowledge systems [in infants]. The evidence supports the view that certain core principles about these domains are present as early as we can test for them and the nature of the underlying representation is best characterized as primitive intial concepts that are elaborated and refined through learning and experience. . . . Infants have detailed knowledge about how objects behave and interact from the first weeks of life. According to the authors, experiments with babies as young as two months suggest they possess such “initial concepts.” How do scientists know what babies are thinking? Scientists rely on the expressions on babies’ faces and on other responses babies make when they see physical objects being manipulated by the scientists. For example, when babies are shown a ball rolling behind a small screen and coming out on the other side, they show very little reaction and very soon look away from the scene. Apparently such a scene conforms with their knowledge of how physical objects behave. But when they are shown a ball rolling behind a small screen and not coming out the other side, babies seem surprised, they stare at the screen for a long time, and then perhaps look behind the screen for the missing ball. Such experiments have shown that babies know that physical objects continue to exist even when they are not seen, and know that physical objects don’t just blink out of existence. Other similar experiments have shown that babies know what a physical object is, know that physical objects continue to exist even when one is not looking at them, know that two physical objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time, and know that physical objects cannot pass through each other. Babies also know that liquid substances do not behave like physical objects, that liquids can separate, and that objects (like a straw) can pass through them. Finally, babies seem to have some knowledge of small numbers—for example, they know the difference between one cookie, two cookies, and three cookies (they prefer the larger quantity!). QUESTIONS 1. Do these studies show that babies have the kind of innate ideas that Descartes, Plato, and other rationalists had in mind? 2. Do you see any similarities between the claims Descartes makes about his wax example and the findings of these studies?