I don't think anyone has actually endorsed Wrangham's views in this thread
yet, so let's not jump to conclusions about that. I disagree with Wrangham's
main hypothesis, but I discovered myself some time ago that Wrangham's views
are a touchy subject here and just mentioning them seems to generate
hostility. I think it's because he represents probably the most serious
threat to our model of Paleolithic nutrition—because of the power and
prestige that Harvard and his association with Jane Goodall give him, as
well as the convenient political-correctness of his hypothesis, but also
because he argues a bit more cogently than most other critics of
hunter-oriented Paleolithic nutrition do (such as T. Colin Campbell), though
that isn’t saying much, :-) and acknowledges some of the more obvious
principles of Paleolithic nutrition (such as the idea that the first 2.5
million years of human existence had an impact on what the optimal diet of
Homo sapiens sapiens is and also played a role in the development of our
species and that ancient humans and even the ancestors of humans ate
meat—and that admission puts him light years ahead of most vegetarians in
acknowledging reality). Wrangham is probably also the only person in history
who has eaten monkey meat while being a committed vegetarian. :-o

I haven't read Wrangham's books, but I did read some articles in which he
summarized his views, and Wiley's comments seem pretty fair (though the
figure I have seen Wrangham use is 1.8-1.9 million years ago, rather than
2.5 mya). My own sense is that Wrangham decided a priori that cooking is
central to the early evolution of Homo sapiens (to quote him: “Whenever
cooking happened, it must have had absolutely monstrous effects on us,
because cooking enormously increases the quality of the food we eat, and it
enormously increases the range of food items that we can eat”) and then set
out to find facts to support that hypothesis. An early consumption of tubers
as a staple food would support it (and his own vegetarianism), so it's not
surprising that he embraced that concept without much evidence. The tuber
hypothesis also fits in nicely with the vegetarian/vegan and feminist
worldviews, so it got a positive reception, though it is still a minority
view, as Wiley pointed out.

Given Wrangham’s vegetarianism, I would be surprised if he’s completely
given up on the tuber hypothesis, though I have noticed that he hasn’t
talked about it much lately and focuses instead on cooking in general. If he
has changed his view after analyzing the evidence, then that indicates that
he has more intelligence than he’s generally been given credit for here. 

I don't have time to read Wrangham's book and don’t have as much time as I
would like to explore this and other Paleo-related topics these days, so I
greatly appreciate the comments here from all perspectives on them. I also
appreciate the scientific work that people like Wiley and Dr. Cordain and
their international colleagues are doing. Since anecdotal experience is not
deemed hard scientific evidence, we rely on people like them to make our
case in the scientific community, even if we don't necessarily agree with
every jot and tittle of their interpretations.