I think you mostly missed my point for most of the answer, but you nailed it here. My point was not to judge whether Pinker or Eisler was the more rigorous academic. Rather, my point was that almost everything you told me about how to judge them was flawed. I was giving examples to highlight the flaws in the nature of your statements in support of Eisler, not because I definitively intended to use Pinker (I haven't even read Better Angels!).

Your quote above gets at the heart of the issue. I'm not sure why you mentioned Fox News, but I'm glad we're in agreement that it is not a reputable source.

It is sensible, I agree, to take critique coming from actual academic experts in the field a little more seriously. But, of course, one doesn't have to look very far through history to notice massive shifts in what the dominant perspective was in some slices of academia. (Freud is always a fun one to consider.) So it's not really enough just to have academic experts giving a thumbs up or down.

And you agree, because you end with: "particularly when they can meaningfully support their position with something of substance."

Exactly! That's what I've been saying the whole time.

So I think at this point we more or less agree on how to evaluate the quality of a critique, and (in the parts I didn't comment on) I can infer that we probably more or less agree on what kinds of things are relevant when evaluating the quality of work produced by a scholar. And that's probably enough if I'm going to use Eisler as an intermediary voice between things you say and things I say.

(Only probably because I'm uncertain whether you think it's fair game to evaluate the substance itself or whether you insist on an expert evaluation of the substance. If the former, then we're certainly good; if the latter, then it's possible that something will hinge on substance for which no expert evaluation is available, or for which the expert has come up with an interpretation as implausible as you find Pinker's to be, but without Dwyer & Micale & co to set things straight. But most of the time I think the situation will be that there is a big gap between your statements and Eisler's.)

So I should probably be quiet until I find The Chalice and the Blade and read more of it, or until Nurturing our Humanity arrives and I have time to read enough of that.