Your comment is very much is in the spirit of this community, the point is exactly to add context like this.

It's good to identify biases like you've done. I think it's safe to say that the author of this critique is not sympathetic to the original paper. It's important to understand the scope of the critique though. It's part of this project

https://link.springer.com/journal/11186/updates/53047010

Theory and Society - Article Category Peer Review

Theory & Society is introducing a new article category, “Peer Review,” designed to serve as a structured form a post-publication peer review. This article category aspires to be what peer review was originally meant to be: public, openly engaged, peer analyses. The primary goal is to support the self-correcting nature of academic inquiry.

Purpose of the “Peer Review” Format

The Peer Review article format is intended to serve four main purposes:

1. To allow rigorous post-publication critique of scholarly work with major methodological, theoretical, logical, or evidentiary problems.

2. To restore viewpoint diversity, particularly in fields where conventional peer review may not expose the work to dissenting perspectives or where substantive critique is rare or structurally discouraged.

3. To encourage scholarly accountability, while maintaining clear standards of professionalism and good faith.

4. To encourage dialogue and model constructive disagreement, by giving authors of the original work a clear opportunity to respond.

The format is not meant to be polemical, but to improve the quality and reliability of the scholarly record.

So it's not meant to be an avenue for planning a larger scale study, it's limited to being just a critique of a published study. It's entirely possible the project could turn into political mudslinging, but this one seems valid. The central claim is "Once accounted for, the main finding is no longer statistically significant". That's a real, scientific claim. Is it true? If we simply dismiss it because of who wrote it, we end up falling victim to this

I'm surprised that asking for the study data could be considered harassment. What do you think they should have done instead?

Reading up on the lawsuit adds interesting context. He was given a notice of right to sue, and did so. Without commenting on whether he should have or not, I guess I'm unsurprised that he'd jump on that.

https://www.cornellsun.com/article/2026/01/conservative-biologist-sues-cornell-alleging-the-university-discriminated-against-white-faculty-candidates

Wright’s filing of the suit follows him receiving a Notice of Right to Sue — which is a letter from a state or federal administrative agency that approves a right to initiate a lawsuit — from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on Jan. 23. According to the lawsuit, Wright submitted a formal EEOC discrimination charge against Cornell 180 days before Monday.

According to the suit, in an email obtained from an administrator in the Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology from December 2020, which is listed as confidential, the department allegedly sought to obtain a “diversity hire” for an open position and create an interview list of only “underrepresented minority scholars.”

Lastly, I don't really understand the "evolutionist agenda" angle. Is this a creationist complaint? I read this article

https://retractionwatch.com/2024/01/22/sociology-journals-entire-editorial-board-resigns-after-springer-nature-appointed-new-leadership/

It has a tweet that mentions that again

The coup at Theory & Society is complete. After the ed board resigned, the 2 editors handpicked by Springer installed a new board entirely comprised of cognitive scientists, social psychologists, org sociologists, sociobiologists, b school profs, & folks into evolutionary theory

The people that resigned make it sound much more mundane

For us, this is not only about Theory and Society, but more broadly, the precedent of for-profit owners of academic journals unilaterally installing their selected editors.