I reply:

BoI is full of remarks about preference formation. Doing word searches for “choose between” and “rival explanation”, we can find, for example:

“… we should choose between [policies or theories] not on the basis of their origin, but according to how good they are as explanations: how hard to vary.” (209)

“… how does the ‘dictator’ itself choose between rival explanations …?” (341)

“[The] main use [of experience] is to choose between theories that have already been guessed.” (4)

“The role of experiment and observation is to choose between existing theories…” (32)

I reply:

BoI is full of remarks about preference formation. Doing word searches for “choose between” and “rival explanation”, we can find, for example:

“… we should choose between [policies or theories] not on the basis of their origin, but according to how good they are as explanations: how hard to vary.” (209)

“… how does the ‘dictator’ itself choose between rival explanations …?” (341)

“[The] main use [of experience] is to choose between theories that have already been guessed.” (4)

“The role of experiment and observation is to choose between existing theories…” (32)

I later found more evidence running a word search for the string ‘prefer’:

“Whenever a wide range of variant theories can account equally well for the phenomenon they are trying to explain, there is no reason to prefer one of them over the others, so advocating a particular one in preference to the others is irrational.” (21, emphasis mine)

And chapter 13 is virtually all about forming rational preferences.

Then there’s TCS common-preference finding…