Already Nietzsche argued, in Beyond Good and Evil, that it is preferable to explain human behavior in terms of cultural variables, since we are in control of culture, but not of biology. It is not clear to me, however, that the two domains can be so clearly divided, that we really are in control of culture, and that a biological explanation of cognition implies our own attempts at understanding ourselves will have no effect. My initial interest in evolutionary psychology was due to what I perceived as a failure of postmodern thinking to provide a possibility for meaningful human change, on either the psychological or the social level. I ultimately found the contradictions merely self-indulgent, promoting a class of academic superstars whose obscure sentiments were cited as authoritative truth. Of course, problems need to be addressed at the local level, but a programmatic and dogmatic exclusion of a general understanding makes little sense.
Evolutionary changes take place slowly, resulting in relatively stable structures.
An understanding of these structures, moreover, puts us under no obligation to act in accordance with their logic. This would surely be a ridiculous conclusion. Since the various desires human beings are capable of having cannot in any case all be satisfied, both because they frequently contradict each other and because such a project would require infinite resources, it is not a meaningful proposition to treat the logic of adaptations as normative for how to organize society. Even if we wanted to, we could not organize society to satisfy all natural desires. This holds true even in hunter-gatherer societies in which conditions approximate those of our ancestors.