OMG! An actual post on my blog! Or: I aten't dead, but I have been (sic.)

This is all in response to a post at one of my favorites blogs - NSWATM. Specifically this thought provoking gem by Ozymandias Attraction is Complicated, News at 11.

Well, in defense of evo-psychologists right here on the Evo-psyche wikipedia page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_psychology

"Within-sex variations in voice pitch." are considered "Random noise."

Also, to me, human attraction being based solely on DNA coded concepts of fertility doesn't sound more based on evolution than considering a deep voice the way to 'win' at being male (which could also be based on DNA coding.)   Biological creatures aren't perfect, and if the woman's genetics are driving her to chase the 'better' male it isn't proof that society made her like deep voices just because she doesn't have anything within her that instinctively knows deep voices don't equal more sperm.  Evo-psyche takes this directly into account with ideas like  "Causal mechanism of failure or malfunction of adaptations."  Like, our genetic preference for a sweet taste, which would steer us towards relatively rare high-energy natural sugars in our ancestral environment, causing us to glut to self-debilitating levels in our current society's overabundance of sugar.

That's as far as I can get into my defense of evo-psyche, tho'. I can't sign on to it, because of lines like this (ALSO from the Evo-psyche wiki page) DIT is a "middle-ground" between much of social science, which views culture as the primary cause of human behavioral variation, and human sociobiology and evolutionary psychology which view culture as an insignificant by-product of genetic selection. 

Genetics are affected, even outright determined, by external sources, which would include culture.   If somehow you wind up in a culture that euthanizes everyone born with red hair, the genetic line for red hair could disappear from the human race.  The cultural influence is no less real than the physical influences that cause animals in cold environments to develop bodies with a focus on heat insulation.   It's a total loop:  Women start desiring deeper voices, men get deeper voices, society begins showing men with deeper voices as desirable, women starting desiring deep voices, men get deeper voices, society begins showing men with deeper voices as desirable, and so on.  I chose. “Women start desiring deeper voices,” as the starting point, but it could have started anywhere in the circle. 

Perfect example of cultural genetics: dogs.  :) Dogs have genetic behavioral differences from wolves (their ancestral species); society doesn't cause those behaviors because you can't socialize wolves to have them.  BUT a society where those behaviors were desirable (the human-canine social symbiosis) is what bred those genetics into being.   

Physical environment determines evolution determines physical form determines psychology determines sociology determines physical environment…  And you can pretty much rearrange those terms in any order you want because any one of those things can directly affect the other without any of the other steps as an intermediary. I may occasionally emphasize one of those over the other, because of my specific interest of the moment, but I’d never put it to paper (or text) that one of those thing is the one true human determiner.   It’d be like saying red is more important than yellow when you’re making orange, or that the ingredients are more important than the oven when you’re making a cake.