Today’s craving for pistachio Häagen-Dazs, no longer praised as a health promoter, is a modern relic of yesteryear’s vital scavenging for calories. It’s Darwinian selection manifested at the level of behavioral inclination. Not that genes determine behavior. Our actions result from a complex amalgam of biological, historical, social, cultural, and all manner of chance influences that are imprinted on our particle arrangement. But our tastes and instincts are an essential part of that mix, and in the service of enhanced survival evolution had a strong hand in shaping them. We can learn new
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