Perhaps it's weak, but why call it dishonest? It is plausible enough that I'm not convinced by your response, so it's reasonable to suppose it was sincerely made.

The argument itself I need to think more about.

a. I tend not to be convinced by arguments that invoke nature. It's a heuristic at best. Like you said it didn't bother me since it never claimed to be more than circumstantial evidence.

b. Your 'central' point was certainly the most interesting, but it wasn't clear it was central. In fact, I can't see how your style of essay can admit a central anything. Which is a strength, IMO.

In general I don't care as much about accuracy as I do about interestingness. I found myself recently looking back on notes from your essays of 3 years ago. I was quoting 1 in 3 sentences, sometimes 1 in 2. And these were long essays! It's safe to say that's not true anymore.