I see Cochran as also making the meta-point that we should be sneering at things that are obviously wrong when you look at them from an evolutionary or realist perspective, or that map blue tribe 'what-we-want-to-be' back to the historical past.

Sounds plausible, and there's nothing intrinsically wrong with such sneering. I do ask, though, that the sneering be reserved for obviously wrong claims, and that the sneerer not simultaneously make a sneer-worthy claim of their own.