• I disliked gold, and preferred silver, until I got older. I’m convinced it’s social programming, in my case. I learned to like gold, because of decades of being told how valuable gold is.

    Why do I like deep blue? Why does anyone like any color? There’s probably some evolved reason for those preferences; for instance, many creatures are attracted to shiny things.

    In any case, I’m also interested in any scientific answer you get, but I wanted to put out there that I have annecdotal evidence that there’s a lot of learned (nurture) preference, combined with some evolved preference (shiny, nature).