Quote Originally Posted by Adrian II View Post
Or getting stone drunk, or smoking cigarettes, or driving recklessly, or ..

Nah, humans clearly have a self-destructive streak that is in no way linked to survival. The balance is different in each individual, but it's there.
It's true that many things are not related to survival or reproduction; but the point I was making is that things related to survival and reproduction consumes a lot of the time once you check the causes of the behaviour, the genetic roots. Drugs have a rewarding effect, that's why they are done; chemicals going straight to the brain. Being social also provides chemicals; because it is favourable for reproduction if done "right". Something that today is not favourable for reproduction, may not actually lead to any noticeable evolution because, for instance, the drive for a higher education could simply be one way a very basic drive is put at display; and that it thus will not weed itself out no matter how the birth rates go, since it is present in the entire populace anyway.

Go tell that to homosexuals.
The goal as in "whatever makes those genes stay on the Earth for the next X generations". If it is genetical, it is favoured over something, somewhere, somehow.

EDIT
By the way, haven't you heard of the theory that genes really use humans to pass themselves on, not the other way around? It's all the rage since 1976 and the publication of The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins.
No. I cannot really see the difference between the two, since the gene made the human in the first place..