Hello everyone.  Cathy Liles alerted me to this article.  Below is what I 
sent to the journal editors this morning.  It would be great if people would 
copy their critiques of the article to Gail Kennedy, and to the editors of 
JHE, as the article hasn't been officially published yet.  Kennedy's email 
is: [log in to unmask]

Journal of Human Evolution editors' emails are:  [log in to unmask], 
[log in to unmask], [log in to unmask]

Dear editors at JHE,
	A colleague has alerted me to Gail Kennedy's article on the JHE website in 
which she greatly misrepresents my research on the topic of a natural age of 
human weaning.  Since I am the field's leading expert on this topic, I am 
very surprised that I was not asked to be a reviewer of this manuscript.  I 
haven't had a chance yet to read through it closely, but I looked at the 
parts where she cited my work, and she attributes all of my hard work and 
conclusions to other people.  :(    She also misleads readers by citing an 
outdated edition of Ruth Lawrence's book, which has been updated since my 
work was done to incorporate my research.
	Please do not publish this article.  I'm very busy right now with teaching, 
research, and other publication committments, and I would hate to have to 
put a bunch of important things on hold to respond to this paper, which I 
will have to do if it is published.  It will certainly not reflect well on 
JHE if you publish this article as it is currently written.   I appreciate 
your prompt attention to my concerns.

Katherine A. Dettwyler
Author of "A Time to Wean: The Hominid Blueprint for a Natural Age of 
Weaning in Modern Human Populations," in Patricia Stuart-Macadam and 
Katherine A. Dettwyler, editors, Breastfeeding: Biocultural Perspectives.  
1995, Aldine de Gruyter of New York, pp. 39-73.


Here are just three examples:

From Kennedy's article:

There is a considerable literature on the factors that may predict the 
“natural” weaning age in modern humans living in traditional societies. Such 
societies, by definition, would not use proprietary contraceptives or 
manufactured infant foods (see review in Dettwyler, 1995)
>My 1995 paper is not a "review".  There is in fact NOT a considerable 
>literature on this topic of a natural weaning age in modern humans.  There 
>is ONLY MY WORK.  Harvey and Clutton-Brock, and Charnov and Berrigan, and 
>Smith did not have anything to say about humans.  I'm the one who took 
>their research on? nonhuman primates and used it to predict what the 
>natural age of weaning would be in humans.
Harvey and Clutton-Brock (1985), for example, proposed an allometric effect 
on weaning time based on their finding of a high positive correlation 
between weaning age and maternal weight (r = 0.91). Thus, they propose that 
weaning age (in days) = 2.71 × adult female body weight (in grams)0.56; this 
relationship predicts an average weaning age for modern humans of 3.36 years 
(range 2.8-3.7 years).
>When Kennedy says that Harvey and Clutton-Brock's data predicts a range of 
>2.8 to 3.7 years, that is MY RESEARCH AND MY DATA AND MY WORKfrom 1995  
>that she is citing. They did not "propose an average weaning age for human 
>sof 3.36 years.   I'm the one who did the calculations for humans, using 
>Harvey and
>Clutton-Brock's data, and applying it to humans of different adult maternal 
>weights.  The 2.8 figure is what I calculated based on published adult 
>weights for the !Kung.  The 3.7 figure is what I calculated based on 
>published adult weights for the Inuit (studied by my major professor from 
>graduate school, Paul Jamison).
Charnov and Berrigan (1993), on the other hand, stated that weaning should 
occur when the infant reaches about 33% of adult body weight, predicting 
weaning ages for well-nourished western children of 5.75 years for girls and 
7 years for boys
>Ditto for Charnov and Berrigan, and Smith -- none of them have had anything 
>to say about how their data on nonhuman primates applies to humans.  I'm 
>the one that should be credited for this research.
.. Smith (1992) found a very high correlation between weaning age and the 
timing of the eruption of M1 (r = 0.93; slope = 1.07), a relationship so 
close she termed it “isochronous.” This would predict a weaning age of 5.5 
to 6 years in humans, the age, she claims, at which a youngster can 
effectively acquire and process an adult diet (Smith, 1992; see also Smith 
et al., 1994).
Kennedy writes:
Still others have argued that weaning occurs at some multiple of neonatal 
birth weight. Lawrence (1994), for example, in a textbook that is frequently 
cited and used by medical professionals, argued that an infant should be 
weaned when it has tripled its birth weight; in well-nourished western 
infants, this occurs, on average, at about 9 months.
>Dr. Lawrence updates her medical textbook every few years, and once my 
>research was published in 1995, later additions of her book no longer claim 
>that infants should be weaned when they have tripled their birth weight.  
>Instead, she cites my research showing 2.5 to 7.0 years as the range for 
>modern humans.  Note that Kennedy had to go back to a 10 year old version 
>of Lawrence's book in order to find information that would support her 
>view.  What Kennedy has done is really inexcusable -- she has used my work 
>and research without giving me proper credit, and she has deliberately 
>misled
>readers by citing an outdated version of Lawrence's medical text.  This 
>paper should not be allowed to go forward for publication.

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