"I think "human nature" is a bit of a red herring. We don't currently have any scientific way to separate how much of how people behave is social/environment programming and how much is "human nature"."

Nope. There's been lots of good research in the last several decades. We are not "blank slates", behavior is largely genetic ("human nature"):

http://articles.cnn.com/2004-04-16/world/pinker_1_behaviors-...