> Just because intelligent people are good at adapting to evolutionarily novel things does not mean they prefer to do those things.
Okay, the first "things" and the second "things" is a semantic equivocation. Evolutionarily novel "things" would be cigarettes, for instance. Some of us "adapt" to them in that there is an explanation that explains why such a thing does not ultimately lead to our extinction. Certainly no one preferred cigarettes before adaptation occurred; the most basic way to look at this is that the members of the species who were more likely to adapt to gaining pleasure from cigarettes out-lived, statistically speaking, those who were less likely to adapt to gaining pleasure from cigarettes. The presence of the (simplifying) "cigarette-gene" _disappears_.
He's not explaining preferences in the sense you're addressing. Evolution works more like picking teams on a pick up grade school game. It's not that you _prefer_ to pick the fat kid, it's just that on average, they're all fat kids. And that's the lot you get.
Okay, the first "things" and the second "things" is a semantic equivocation. Evolutionarily novel "things" would be cigarettes, for instance. Some of us "adapt" to them in that there is an explanation that explains why such a thing does not ultimately lead to our extinction. Certainly no one preferred cigarettes before adaptation occurred; the most basic way to look at this is that the members of the species who were more likely to adapt to gaining pleasure from cigarettes out-lived, statistically speaking, those who were less likely to adapt to gaining pleasure from cigarettes. The presence of the (simplifying) "cigarette-gene" _disappears_.
He's not explaining preferences in the sense you're addressing. Evolution works more like picking teams on a pick up grade school game. It's not that you _prefer_ to pick the fat kid, it's just that on average, they're all fat kids. And that's the lot you get.
Of course, evolution has the universe as its lot.