>>14307417Humans, being highly intelligent, can form cultures that do not have a genetic basis but that inform how people breed with each other, which would have implications on how the species will change over time, i.e. it becomes a mechanism guided evolution as well. These are traits that do not have genetic basis. The underlying trait for socialization etc. will have a gene that controls such behavior, but then the specific culture being developed would not have any sort of gene associated with it. There is not gene for "japanese culture", but there are genes that control for humans being social.
There are genes that cause males to become aggressive when near females.
There are genes that code for seeing faces, and being more attracted to more symmetrical faces.
When we see a behavior in humans, we run GWAS studies to see if there is any gene or sets of genes that can be used to predict the behavior. In this way, we can find genes that control for attraction to faces, or preference for sweet foods, or aggression, or the fight or flight response, or even intelligence.
If we can not find such a gene that correlates to behavior, then that means that behavior is NOT genetic in origin, but cultural in origin. It does not even matter if the vast majority of cultures practice that behavior, if there's no gene, it's not genetic in origin, that's the end of it. It's simply a cultural meme that has been passed on for a long time, or even passed between many cultures for a long time.
Actual evo-psych, being a natural science tied to biology, must be based in actual physical reductionist science. If you can not use genes to make predictions about psychological states, it's not evo-psych, as the origin of the behavior would not be evolutionary, but rather cultural. At that point you're practicing sociology, not evolutionary biology, of which evo-psych is a sub-field of.
This was my point the whole time that you were missing.
