For example, attraction - you can find 1000 different people and they'll all be attracted to different things, where as Evo-psych needlessly simplifies attraction into simplistic ideas like "macho men are more attractive to everyone everywhere" and "women evolved to be more nurturing!" Both of these are hackish (and false) conclusions.

Evo-psych as a whole is interesting, but should also be taken with a grain of salt, imo. Some of it borders on pseudoscience (if not being outright). I don't like how it tends to dehumanized humans and reduce them to unthinking slaves of their biology. I tend to favor studies of social constructs and how culture influences humanity over the "we're animals and will never be more than raging, unthinking monkeys! (Hyperbole)" form of thinking.

But some choose to think the approach itself is ridiculous. As if millions of years of evolution could have no effect on the way we think. LOL. Not THAT is silly.

There are of course fairly obvious forms of inherited traits that can be observed in humans not subjected to social conditioning. Like instincts. But, beyond that, evolutionary psychology is really nothing other than attempt to make broad reaching hypotheses that are structured in such a way that even disproving proves the hypotheses.

One of the issues is affirming the consequent. Which can be okay for inductive strength under certain conditions. But, generally speaking, is rather pigheaded.

Not that I'm saying this is a unique trait of ES. In fact most theories on social structure suffer from these weakness. What I have a problem with, however, is people who claim ES is somehow above all other theories and this if often the case because there is a very specific agenda at play. They want to construct hypotheses that serve their own preconceived narratives.

Among the various types of human behaviors, I daresay that those that relate to sexuality are among the most highly influenced by instinct.

Care to disagree?

There is the physical act of sex, all the various thrusting, receiving, gyrating, stimulation, pain and pleasure (not referring to the social constructs), orgasm, muscle contractions, sweating, and ejaculation and then there is the social constructs of sex.

The two are not of the same source. Just as the fact that my finger hurts when I burn it says almost nothing of the source of the burning.

It is, according to my own analysis and studies, almost exclusively the process of socialization that creates normative values for things like attraction, sexual orientation, gender identity and much of an individuals pleasure.

But I disagree that it is entirely the process of socialization is behind what people find attractive.

The larger point is, that, claiming that millions of years of evolution has no effect on the substructures of the human brain that influence behavior is really silly.

In animals, the roles of men and women have affected their evolution -this is undeniable. To pretend that such influence ends above where the brain begins is not credible.

Do you see where I'm going with this?

Essentialist arguments are self-serving. The theories were designed not to explain phenomena but to justify certain deplorability.

There is a very thin layer of foundational phenomena that can be explained using social psychology. Above those, social psychology has no footing.

For instance:

Why do we have a tendency to animalize women of color? Is there a specific part of our brain that tells us "women of color are animals?" Of course not because inherited instincts are not complex enough to transmit specific language and symbols. You aren't born knowing complex language. You aren't born understanding demarcations between animals and non-animals.

Yes, anything can be misused.

But evolution has a clear aim. Natural selection favors animals who can raise more children to maturity so that their genes are passed on. This is a fact.

As such, certain behaviors are favored. I am sure you don't deny this.

The question is not whether evolution has resulted in certain behavioral and cognitive differences, the question is only "how much".

Which behavior has the greater evolutionary advantage? Those are the behaviors that are selected -and if you accept that there is a link between brain structure and behavior, then you must accept that evolution has played a part in our behavior.

The ONLY argument is one of degree.

BTW, NONE of what I said is meant to deny the role of socialization in all of this.

That have literally nothing to do with evolution.

A common example is that of the malnourished animal due to a drought. The animal is not underweight because it's phenotype dictates that it be underweight. The drought is not caused by any sort of evolutionary process.

The proximate cause of the animal being underweight is malnourishment. The distal cause is the drought.

So, no, evolution is not always the source. And it is not necessarily the case that all things are sourced in evolutionary processes. The vast majority of the physical realm is not dictated at all by biological evolution.

And now we are talking around each other.

Especially in the case of those who claim social psychology is ALWAYS at play.

I do know a number of people who claim the entire approach is ridiculous and worthy of scorn as a concept.