So what is going on is more important — and potentiall productive — then “the science moving on while the right and left fight over the scraps” or “the REAL scientists fighting the obfuscatory forces of the politically correct.”

McKinnon’s contribution to the debate is (among other things) an insistence that the new science 1) have a reflexive awareness of the way that its practitioners’ preconceptions influence their approach to the data and 2) rely on the existing ethnographic record (rather than, say, animal behavior) to determine how, on the whole, humans live their lives.

It almost seems like this is a proxy war between right wing and left wing social scientist, with the biological material being used rather like Afganisthan was, as a convenient location for a scrap. A bit like two guys in a bar deciding to go outside.

Thank so much for writing this “counter-review.” You are so so so right.

I am somewhat familiar with the field of evolutionary psychology and I agree with your assessment that her arguments about the “shoddy science” of evolutionary psychology are pretty sound.
But what I am most shocked at is that that the essay could—by any standard—be characterized as a “a rambling screed.”
After reading it, I marked down passages that I thought were as clear as they come and I started scheming as to how I could include her book in a range of my classes, simply to demonstrate the power of a really, really well-reasoned argument. And further as a prime-rib example that you can offer complicated ideas in clear, easy-to-rip-off “packaging.”

It sort of stuns me how such radically different assessments can be reached over the clarity of her writing. Perhaps he was just so incensed at the content, he let his judgment slip so as to attack not just the argument but the form. But in my estimation, her essay was one of the best in the PPP series and given how few ladies have published in the series (which also frustrates me but that is a whole other topic) I was especially proud of her kick-a$$ writing.

I would, of course, very much like to read both McKinnon’s piece and Harpending’s. I like to judge for myself on these matters. Since I haven’t read either at this point, I’ll have to take your word for the results. I can only add that, whatever McKinnon and Harpending say about it, my impression of evolutionary psychology as a discipline is, it’s not, at this point, science.
Anne G