INSTINCTIVELY RATIONALLY YOURS:-

instinct is defined as - Inborn pattern of behaviour often responsive to specific stimuli

Examples - 1> To suckle a thumb (or a nipple) in new borns.
2> Random movement of arms and legs in babies:- Random Morter (Firing) Phenomenon in infants (involuntary movement of limbs) that causes arms and legs in a new born baby to move randomly and involuntarily (on their own).
3> To open eyelids, blink.
4> cry in response to discomfort (a babies wah wah) are instincts.
5> A babies gripping action
6> Self preservation and fear:- To run away from a known danger ie a situation where harm, pain or loss of life is known (or learnt) to be evident. There is a sudden increase in Adrenalin levels in our blood, which raises our heart beat and thus oxygen levels in our blood, which in turn enables us to run faster, think faster (better), and be stronger etc. We perceive this rise in Adrenalin in our blood as fear. Raising our adrenal gland activity, and hence the adrenalin level in our blood is not known to be a result of some learned or conscious effort and thus is one of our instincts. Though we may learn to control it later in life. With out this instinct, most people will walk off rooftops with absolute ease, or walk into fast moving traffic even when they know that to be fatal, if they had a reason to do so.

6> To RATIONALIZE - we all do that right from birth. We are always seeing images, filing it into memory, and comparing them with other images in our memory or with newer ones and associating them with other information we already have. Acquiring info from our senses and processing them in our brain is instinctive. That is - learning itself is an instinct. Behavior that results from such learning is learned behavior. Also all behavior is either instinctive or learned. The ability to learn, compare, associate data, work out contradictions and thus think and reason is very much in all of us from birth. The instinct to rationalize (learn) is one of the most important of all our instincts, perhaps second only to our instinct of self preservation. So, surprise surprise, we are all born rationalists.
Note on inculcation Read how inculcation is Denial of Basic Human Rights

Religion, faith, various other belief systems, tendency of people to follow a leader etc etc, have done society some good, in that they have made otherwise savage people follow rules of society, and bring order where their was once chaos. The resultant and evident progress further caused many to strengthen their belief in their leader god, goddess or whatever. The development of religion is a somewhat more complex process and can not be simplistically (and incorrectly) attributed directly as an instinct by itself.

Instinctive behaviour is opposite to (mutually exclusive to) learned behavior.
Another follow through is that all our behavioral attributes must either be directly due to an instinct or a result of learned behavior. Further, since learned behavior is a result of our instinct to learn, all our behaviors are either directly or indirectly from instinct. Which is but common sense.

Examples where learned behaviour is clear:-
0> Learning to walk.
1> Writing the alphabet. Even though we seem to do it without much thought, most of us did have to learn it one time.
2> Adding or multiplying two numbers or long division.
3> Integration and differentiation.

One may note that the third example is probably learned at a very mature (more recent) age hence memory of it is strong. Hence it is clearest to us that it is learned behaviour. In all the above examples the memory of the conscious effort at learning that particular behaviour has not been totally wiped out, so we identify these as learned behaviours and not instincts.

Many simple or complex (human) behavior are wrongly thought of as (due to) instincts.
A lot of (other) times we generalize a lot of stuff and call them instincts. This is so because we do not have evidence (or knowledge) that such behaviour is actually learned and not inherent from birth. If we do not know where a behaviour pattern came from, then it must be from birth, right? By simple elimination. So - we consider a behaviour to be instinctive only if we do not know that it is learned behaviour.

Examples of learned behaviour that are wrongly considered to be instinctive :-

1> Running from a tiger. We do not instinctively run away from a tiger. A person who has no prior information that a tiger can be dangerous, will not run away from a tiger when she first comes across one. But when the tiger attacks and takes a bite out of her bum (totai), she starts to associate tigers with danger and (generally) a pain in the butt. Most people however are inundated by innumerous stories of tigers since childhood and or have heard of stories of people being attacked by tigers. Lions and tigers (hunting) are frequently shown on NGC, Animal Planet and Discovery too. Thus some people may think fear of tigers to stem from some natural survival instinct, but wrongly. While self preservation is an instinct, and fear in itself an instinct too, but fear of tigers is very much learned (acquired) after birth. Thus a person who has no previous knowledge of tigers will not suffer a sudden rise in adrenalin levels, and hence feel no fear. On subsequent encounters though, the memory of first meeting, the following pain in the butt, and resultant knowledge that tigers can be a threat to life and limb and bum (totai), would cause the instinct for self-preservation to kick in, causing her to be afraid and instinctively run away. Again - she learned that tigers can be a threat to life, but to preserve life was her instinct.

2> To move a hand and reach for an object is not instinctive behaviour. We do not have any knowledge of how to move our hands or legs from birth. Muscle coordination is very much learned by us, when we are less than six months old. Yes, there is movement at birth but due to a condition prevalent in new born (and prenatal) babies called random motor movement (phenomenon).
Ref- http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=4781716
Such movement is random and not controlled consciously. This has been attributed to the absence of a drug (neurotransmitter) in newborns that stops random firing of motor nerves. I think it was dopamine, but not sure. Ref - Discovery channel or NGC). Coordinated movement, where a baby at will, moves its hand the way it wants it to move, is very much a result of learning. A baby consciously compares the images of its randomly moving hand and then of a subsequent attempt to move it at will by firing the right (or wrong) motor nerve. Initially it is often wrong, and ends up firing a wrong motor nerve. When the resultant motion is wrong and a leg moves up into the air instead of the hand reaching out (and feedback image so indicates), the unexpected (baffling) movement is noted as an error (into memory) by the baby (very consciously). It may then try again to move same arm again, but by firing a different (set of) motor nerves. Alternatively it may remember (learn) which nerve to fire in order to move the leg up.
One can simply observe a two or three month old baby and confirm this. Their movement is random, jerky and they are startled by it themselves. Hold a brightly colored toy in front of them and they go all smiles and want to hold it (and taste it), and try to reach for it, but are disappointed when a leg kicks up instead. More often it is the wrong hand. It takes a while and some number of tries for them to get it right. But once they have reached the object successfully, they seem to grip it by instinct. Gripping and Sucking seem to be instinctive behaviour, but only because we have not been able to eliminate it by any contradictory evidence.
AS the baby grows, it becomes more apt at muscle control. Moving a hand or a leg is no longer a difficult proposition, to be achieved by hit and trial. It no longer has to think a lot to do it, and movement gradually becomes 'second nature'. It is repeated so often that it becomes something much more than habit. The know-how of movement becomes ingrained in him/her. And this happens to almost all of us. The proof of all this is of coarse in the exceptions, and people with some forms of genetic disorders are unable to carry out this learning process properly, and find the simplest movements difficult. But as proficiency in willed movement increases, it loses the memories of the conscious effort it had put in, in acquiring that proficiency. It is due to this loss of memory of that conscious learning effort that causes some adults to think that the ability to move a hand or throw a stick is not learned and that it is inherent in us from birth. Though we do not have to put in much conscious effort for it, we did have to learn it sometime and hence can not be classified as instinct. Most contemporary rationalists today will easily refute that idea with adequate supporting arguments.

3> The tendency to follow a leader, or herd mentality, or the tradition of god based religion, are all certainly NOT in any way one of our instincts. I leave it to the astute to rationalize on this, to work out the hows or whys, or to disagree, if he or she so chooses. Just repeating stuff from some (perhaps well written) book will not help you reach your own conclusions though. So please feel free to first challenge recursively and mercilessly, questioning any and all arguments presented either by me or anyone else (in their very well written book), be convinced of a (perhaps entirely new) set of arguments, thus making them your own, and then share them with me in your comments, if you so chose. All comments will be received gratefully, more so if they are relevant.


PS:-1> Another reason why some will generalize and consider things like religion or god-belief to be one of our instincts, can stem from a tendency to be simplistic. Ie we can quickly assign instinct as to be the source of a particular behaviour pattern, rather than go into the trouble of searching for one (or understanding a reason for it) or try to find out where how or why that behaviour pattern emerged. One thus can avoid a lot of mental effort, and quietly smile away that know-it-all smile at the confused rationalist that is still far from reaching any satisfactory conclusion, and is toiling hard at some foolish looking experiment. The adage - 'The Simplest answer is always the right answer' sounds nice but alas, is not true. Does the theory of relativity sound simple to you ?(assuming it is true). Empirical evidence has shown that simplicity is never a proof of an argument, rather a proof of mental lethargy. John Dalton would never have invented the atom, yes - invented, (and not discovered), for he didn’t chance upon it one day on the road side while on his morning walk. Had he relied on the - theory of simplicity, he probably would have proposed instead that the exact proportions observed in all chemical reactions are all part of god's doing and that it really proves that there is a god. Imagine where human civilization would be today with out the knowledge of the atom - no knowledge of elements, molecules or compounds, no silicon or germanium for transistors, so no phones, TVs or mp3 players, no oil refineries, no cars, no plastics, no advanced medicines and so on and on and on. And further, in place of the subject of chemistry in schools, kids would now have to pass 'religion-studies'.

2> Even if you disagree, could the reader please still help proof read this post.

3> A (fictitious) name at the end of a comment does make it easier to refer to ( to agree with or to rebut). I suggest - 'Lola Lufnigle' .