Yes, an objective account of history or anthropology would be value-neutral, so it would include no teleology or evaluative hierarchies. And yes, historians and anthropologists can approximate the scientific standard of critical thinking, and just present the data and a model that explains it well. As I said in the article, FA deserves credit for presenting all this data.

But to suppose that there's no political correctness in Western liberal arts departments, or that these disciplines should or could be as objective as the sciences, or even that science is perfectly objective is delusional. Science is pragmatic, not strictly neutral. Indeed, all our concepts are simplifying models that help us understand things so we can exploit them with affordances.

My point here is that this tool of relativism in history can be critiqued since it leaves a misimpression that all technological developments are equal. FA says explicitly, as I quoted, that he adopts each culture's standards rather than imposing a universal one on all cultures.

First of all, that's not objective since it posits the local standards of acceptable terraforming. Second, as I argued, this is incoherent since FA does supply a universal standard, namely the relationship between humanity and nature, and the basis for terraforming (the existential revolt against wildness).

So my criticism here is internal to what FA is doing. He already supplies the makings of a telos, but just doesn't follow through with it, presumably for reasons of the left-wing political correctness that's rampant in Western colleges.