Abstract
Three experiments examined the development of children's causal reasoning in biology. The focus of the experiments was how children come to understand the human non-involvement principle which postulates that humans play no role in the creations of the properties of animals. Children (ages of 3-6) were asked, for example, why the nose of an elephant is long, and selected an explanation which they considered to be correct from among the presented alternatives. Children appeared to understood the principle by the age of 5, but the experience of raising an animal, recognition of the functional roles of a property, and the familiarity of target objects did not facilitate their understanding the principle. In addition, the similarity of target animals to humans did not influence their inferences. These results are evidence of an innate principle which constrains children's causal reasoning related to the field of biology.
