To make a case that something could be learned, all we have to do is write down a plausible learning algorithm. It’s not as straightforward to make that case that something could be innate. Susan Carey and Liz Spelke have worked on uncovering the innate conceptual content, or core knowledge, that underpins cognition. In doing so Carey has proposed several desiderata for innate concepts. While none of the desiderata alone make a strong case for innateness, if something was innate, we should expect it to satisfy many of these conditions:
Using these criteria, at least four distinct domains of core knowledge have been identified: