Superficially, he is quite convincing, but when you look at a given statement or claim in isolation, it's common to find anything from an insufficiency of suppo

Superficially, he is quite convincing, but when you look at a given statement or claim in isolation, it's common to find anything from an insufficiency of support, to outright howling fallacy. It's an interesting illustration of his "narratives often begin in one place and end in another" that his Slate piece begins with calling his detractors ill-read and careless ("I didn’t want to debate them. I just wanted them to read my book all the way to the end."), and ends with the implicit argument that criticizing his work is the same thing as calling his adherents stupid ("I was simply saying that all writing about social science need not be presented with the formality and precision of the academic world...My point was that the people who read my books appreciate this.").