There is no doubt that our cultural environment affects the way we live, the way we feel, and the way think. Most people do not try to find out why we have those feelings and why we think the way we do. Aside from our cultural environment's impact on our thoughts, are our genetic makeups involved in our thought processes? Yes, genetics affect our behavior, and its evidence is all around our natural world, from small insects to humans, and to every living species. For instance, people who have down syndrome tends to be happy at all time, even when they're doing boring jobs like washing dishes. 
Only when things are not "normal" then we see a difference. We "normal" human feel "normal" because at large, we share similar genetic makeups that determine our thoughts. But that doesn't mean we all process our thoughts the same way. Apart from cultural factors that impact our thoughts that are based on the human brains' capability of learning. Genetics can make some people more aggressive than others given the similar cultural environment. Many people fear height, but how many of us were told to fear heights? It is how our brains are programed to have the phobia of height. In evolution, the ones that don't have this traits are more likely to die from falling, therefore after a long time, more and more people have the phobia of heights. Same way ants are programed to respond to different chemical signals. We are programed in a more complicated way, that involves learning, and our natural instance build in our subconscious.
My take on how genetics affects our behavior
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The phobia of height still affect our lives. People who fear height are less likely to die from falling. Genetic makeup doesn't program us in a way that makes us naturally fear guns or cars. However, our brain are programmed to learn, if we learned that guns and cars are dangerous, we would fear them. People don't fear guns, people fear when guns are pointed at them. Now if you live in medieval times, you would have absolute no fear at a gun point.
Can all of our fears be explained from this conclusion? I am actually going to be switching my major to genetics soon. I am truly intrigued to learn about how our genes affect our bodies in all these different types of ways that we never think of. Often times we mix-up our nature vs. nurture behaviors and where they actually come from.
This is an interesting topic. The phobia of height and other things can still affect our lives even if we do not want them to. People do not fear guns themselves, they fear the outcome of the guns (Being killed).
It's interesting to think that a lot of how we respond to situations is a result of our genetics. The point you made about being afraid of heights even though no one told us to be is interesting. I think there definitely is a genetic influence there, but I also think a lot of it has to do with your environment. If you are used to being around boring things, normal things might seem exciting to you. If you are used to being around exciting things, normal things might seem boring to you.
I wrote this blog even before I read evolutionary psychology. Of course, once you learn evolution, you will find it could apply to a lot of the things.
Do you think that these phobias are still affecting our survival today? Why don't people fear guns or cars?