"Ron" > wrote
> "Dutch" > wrote:

[..]

>> >> I realize that there are irrational fears and fear mongers, but there
>> >> are
>> >> still real threats and animals have an instinctive aversion to
>> >> threats.
>> >> The
>> >> learned part is learning to identify and differentiate real threats in
>> >> one's
>> >> environment.
>> >
>> > Fear is acquired.
>>
>> By experiencing threats. Threats, when they are recognized as such, cause
>> instinctive fear (flight/fight), which teaches the animal to react with
>> avoidance in that situation in the future.
>
> This is old science.

You don't understand any science.

> There is a third option and that is "freezing". Its
> pretty well documented.

Freezing is just an alternate form of harm avoidance, the principle is the
same as flight.

> The logic fallacy of the false dilemma is
> presented. Generalizing that X is harmful and avoiding all X is a
> measure of irrationality. The further irrationality is to assume the
> same outcome.

It sounds like you're smoking pot too.

>> > We learn to fear what we fear.
>>
>> Right, we learn what to fear, we don't learn fear itself, it already
>> exists
>> as one our basic emotions.
>
> From the perspective of adults and people who experience fear, we hope
> that this is true. It's much easier to rationalize fear when we can
> believe that it is innate versus learned and chosen.

Since fear and/or aversion to harm, (aka survival instinct) is observable in
every living organism from a two celled plenarium to a human, it is logical
to conclude that it is part or our biology. The skewed bias in this analysis
is your dogged attachment to this notion that everything is arbitrary and
learned.

>> > Children are, by
>> > comparison fearless.
>>
>> Children can't differentiate enough of their environment to recognize
>> threats. One time with the hand on the stove burner and they will recoil
>> from it instinctively forever.
>
> Which demonstrates my point that they don't avoid the "harm".

They don't perceive it as harm until they experience it.

> In fact,
> most people (the rational ones) will soon realize that a stove element
> is only a harm when it is turned on or as it is cooling. It is
> completely safe to touch it at other times.

Irrelevant.