There was a similar charade a few weeks back when a PNAS paper about differences in the connections between male and female subjects (concluding that males connected more strongly front to back, females more strongly laterally) [...] roundly denounced as quite shoddy research
It wasn't roundly denounced as shoddy research, unless you're referring to certain groups being angry with the study.
Posts on Jezebel, Feministe and Tumblr were angry, and they tried to spin the results inaccurately. They claimed that the results indicated that female brains were different because of culture, and they claimed we should stop acting like there are innate non-physical differences between men and women.
Unfortunately for them, the differences in brain chemistry became pronounced not during the brain's most plastic years, but rapidly during puberty during the flood of sex hormones. And the study made that clear.
I don't know why the notion of different brain chemistry is so threatening to some groups, but it is what it is.