In molecular developmental biology 'innateness' seems as charmingly old-fashioned a theoretical construct as 'instinct' and equally peripheral to any actual account of gene regulation or morphogenesis. In behavioral ecology some authors regard the innateness concept as irretrievably confused and a term that all serious scientific workers should eschew whilst others claim that the popular demand to know whether important human traits are innate is best construed as a question about whether those traits are adaptations. In cognitive psychology, however, whether cognitive traits are 'innate' is regarded as a significant question and is often the subject of heated debate. Several philosophers of biology have tried to redefine innateness in recent years, with the intention of making sense of its use in cognitive psychology. This paper argues that the vernacular innateness concept represents a key aspect of 'folk biology', namely, the explanatory strategy that psychologists and cognitive anthropologists have labeled 'folk essentialism'. Folk essentialism is inimical to Darwinism, and both Darwin and the founders of the modern synthesis struggled to overcome this way of thinking about living systems. Because the vernacular concept of innateness is part of folk biology, attempt to redefine the term 'innate' rapidly become contaminated by its vernacular meaning, making it preferable to introduce new, neutral terms for the various, related notions that philosophers of biology have proposed.