Does "human nature" really exist?

I'd love to hear other's views on this, as the b/f and I have been disagreeing on this. I believe it does.
We are certainly formed by our environment and experiences with time, but a newborn baby is the most unadulterated form of human nature that exists, and a newborn baby- and we- are intrinsically selfish and curious, just for example, and how this develops or diminishes has only to do with our environment.
TBH, I'm weary of hearing of Marx's theories. :thats-enough:

What if there are two kinds of human nature? On the one hand, there is the automatic responses to events ingrained in humans as well as in all locomotive animals. Avoidance of danger, child-bearing, etc.
On the other hand, there is the learned kind of human nature of the society into which we are thrown, and is unique to human meaning.

This position, though, does not seem to account for the unique ability of humans to view themselves as such in time and space, and all the attendant attributes this implies (guilt, Aristotelian wonder, rational choice and so on).

I'm not convinced that there are any consistent patterns of "human nature," at least not when considering cognition. Everywhere I look, everyone I see is a product of his/her environment and nothing else. Everyone seems to assume that there is a certain way people will act, if put in a vacuum. But how do we know our "instincts," especially those outside of physical instincts, aren't learned? The poster above me referred to the dichotomy as rational and non-rational. Clearly we have non-rational instincts--ie, the instinct to eat and move use our limbs for their purported utility. One need only look at a newborn baby to see this. But I have yet to come across any evidence that convinces me that man's thought process is subject to a natural pattern other than that which is learned and ingrained from others.

I'd love to hear other's views on this, as the b/f and I have been disagreeing on this. I believe it does.
We are certainly formed by our environment and experiences with time, but a newborn baby is the most unadulterated form of human nature that exists, and a newborn baby- and we- are intrinsically selfish and curious, just for example, and how this develops or diminishes has only to do with our environment.
TBH, I'm weary of hearing of Marx's theories. :thats-enough:

nature c.1300, "essential qualities, innate disposition," also "creative power in the material world," from O.Fr. nature, from L. natura "course of things, natural character, the universe," lit. "birth," from natus "born," pp. of nasci "to be born," from PIE *gene- "to give birth, beget" (see genus).