4 ms·

Bitterness is a naturally evolved reaction to unpalatable and dangerous foods. It's not a false premise, it's merely the biological premise behind the developme

Bitterness is a naturally evolved reaction to unpalatable and dangerous foods. It's not a false premise, it's merely the biological premise behind the development of bitter receptors in the first place. We developed bitter receptors to help us identify dangerous plantlife. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitter_taste_evolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitter_taste_evolution (Or for the biologists out there, random development of bitter reception was naturally selected for as a trait which improve fitness). However some two million to half a million years ago, we stopped depending on bitter reception for survival as much because of meat eating and cooking. So it's not expressed as strongly in people anymore. So sure, some people enjoy bitter. But people do bad things. Alcohol is a poison through and through and we as a species love it. Doesn't mean it's not a poison! i.e. just because someone enjoys bitter doesn't invalidate the fact that bitter is unpleasant and our natural instinctual reaction to it is avoidance.

Nursie 9y ago
If someone enjoys bitter then to them it's not unpleasant, surely, by definition?
colechristensen 9y ago
The error here is attributing a linear cause and effect or purpose to evolution. There might be evolutionary pressure towards developing detection of certain things as bitter and an aversion to the flavor, but it's just one pressure among many. The fact that so many people enjoy bitter things so much means that clearly the traits you talk about aren't universal or complete.
Geekette 9y ago
"just because someone enjoys bitter doesn't invalidate the fact that bitter is unpleasant" If they enjoy the taste then it cannot be deemed unpleasant. Taste is subjective, therefore, not universal. You also can't deem evolutionary usage that ceased millions of years ago as basis for usage today and citing analogies employed around function/after-effect to an argument about preference is weak.
- jcelerier 9y ago
  > If they enjoy the taste then it cannot be deemed unpleasant why ? a lot of people have no problem enjoying unpleasant things, it doesn't makes them less unpleasant

Nursie 9y ago

If someone enjoys bitter then to them it's not unpleasant, surely, by definition?

colechristensen 9y ago

The error here is attributing a linear cause and effect or purpose to evolution. There might be evolutionary pressure towards developing detection of certain things as bitter and an aversion to the flavor, but it's just one pressure among many. The fact that so many people enjoy bitter things so much means that clearly the traits you talk about aren't universal or complete.

Geekette 9y ago

"just because someone enjoys bitter doesn't invalidate the fact that bitter is unpleasant" If they enjoy the taste then it cannot be deemed unpleasant. Taste is subjective, therefore, not universal. You also can't deem evolutionary usage that ceased millions of years ago as basis for usage today and citing analogies employed around function/after-effect to an argument about preference is weak.

jcelerier 9y ago
> If they enjoy the taste then it cannot be deemed unpleasant why ? a lot of people have no problem enjoying unpleasant things, it doesn't makes them less unpleasant