[SkyMarshal]

> attempting to present his answers as more substantial than the underlying investigation could support (instead of doing a substantive sociological investigation);

This was the main issue I noticed when I read it. It read like a newbie academic making the classic fallacy of assuming the conclusion, then citing only sources that support that conclusion, while ignoring 1) that those sources are not definitive or conclusive, and 2) the body of research and evidence that may disprove it.

It's much easier to disprove an assertion than prove one true. In fact all of science is based around rigorously disproving hypotheses, simply because Process of Elimination is the most robust and reliable way of surfacing new truths while minimizing false positives.

Back to Damore's paper, if you're going to write a critique of something so controversial in society, you can't just cherry-pick sources that agree with you. A better approach would have been, as you observe, to raise questions about some issues and challenge society to a discussion, but without trying to prime or anchor it with pre-conceived conclusions.