Speculation: some people, or even groups, have more of a distaste for fantasy and fiction and more of a devotion to truth than others, which developed like most of human nature back in the Pleistocene. This would not mean that those more devoted to truth can't plan ahead or strategize using fiction and stories, it would mean that the strict truth had more adaptive value for some groups more than others.
A Contrary Thought: As Denis Dutton pointed out, other animals don't create fictional stories, they are naive realists, responding directly to immediate threats, they don't create future scenarios, they prefer the direct truth. This makes a distaste for fantasy seem less advanced.
Response: It seems to me to be a newer adaptation to use fiction more in the search for truth, so that truth-lovers in fact do use or apply fictional fantasy, but mainly the better to get at the truth, and they use fantasy less for its own sake. This might explain differences between, say, advances in science on some continents more than others. But there is no better/best here, just different survival strategies.
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