Ror the record, I do not know any of the authors (I have read some papers by Zapperi, and he may be cited somewhere in my stuff). As they concern themselves with a historical phenomenon and use data collected by a historian, I would think it unlikely that their drive is disdain for historiography.
Have you assumed I was calling the authors arrogant? Nowhere have I said that. On the contrary, I assume the authors have a good attitude I responded specifically to commentary in the story you linked to. I quoted directly the comments I find objectionable
Ok, that is fine then. But, what is then left of the critique of the actual work ? I must say the vehemence of this critique was a bit astonishing when looking at the real text and the relatively cautious discussion of the authors and their overall defensive posture in dealing with referees.
I haven’t made a critique of the work. Because I haven’t read it yet, so I can’t answer My experience of similar episodes is that these strong reactions contain some legitimate worries (good) and some turf defending (bad)
(Incidentally, I think cultural phenomena are, at a certain level of abstraction, inherently epidemiological, so I am philosophically sympathetic to the method. But there are also, in this case, important issues of historiography. So, I need the detail to form a view.)