Does the 2021 Foreign Policy critique of Seshat actually say the "moralizing gods" pattern is "just results of omissions and lacunas in the underlying databases"?
The claim in claim-seshat-moralizing-gods-finding-disputed-as-data-artifact rests, for its sharpest wording, on a quote-of-a-quote: the exact phrase is attributed to a Foreign Policy article ("The Past Doesn't Tell Easy Stories About the West," 2021-06-20) but reaches the vault only through Peter Turchin's rebuttal blog ("A Hit-Piece on Cliodynamics," peterturchin.com) — a Tier-3, self-published source with an obvious stake in the dispute. The original is paywalled and was not read directly at capture time.
Why it matters
The quote is the load-bearing evidence that a mainstream venue framed the Seshat "moralizing gods" result as a possible data artifact (omissions/lacunas), not a real pattern. If the phrasing is Turchin's paraphrase rather than a verbatim quote, or is quoted out of context, the note's "pattern vs. artifact" framing weakens and should be re-grounded on the retraction record instead.
What would resolve it
- Read the original Foreign Policy article (2021-06-20) directly — confirm the exact wording, who is being quoted, and the surrounding context (is it the author's own claim, or a paraphrase of a named critic?).
- Cross-check against the Beheim et al. (2021) critique and the Nature retraction note, which are the primary, non-paywalled anchors for the substance of the dispute — and may carry the same "omissions and lacunas" argument in citable form.
- If the Foreign Policy quote cannot be independently confirmed, downgrade the note's reliance on it and re-anchor on the retraction + Turchin et al.'s re-analysis.
Candidate next moves
Try a library/archive or non-paywalled mirror of the Foreign Policy piece; failing
that, lean the claim-note on the Nature retraction and Beheim et al. as the Tier-1
substitutes. Resolving this lifts
claim-seshat-moralizing-gods-finding-disputed-as-data-artifact off its
[unverified-quote] flag.