The first comment I saw when I came in to the post start off:

"Title using 'very large' does not come from the article, which gives a more subtle image:"

which sounds to me like someone taking offense to the title?

They're taking offense to the title being a mischaracterization of the paper, not to the result in the paper

The title is not the title of the paper, but it is a direct quote from the paper. The paper does say differences are very large. (Search for "very large".)

ok thanks.

the first reaction people had was to literally complain about the title, questioning the whole conclusion. I don't think he was too far off the mark

It's been flagged already, so obviously people took offense and would like to shut down the conversation.

“Not what I want on HN” ≠ “I am offended”

Among other things, it can mean, “dear God, just from the title I can tell that the comments on this are going to be 90% people staying their preconceptions of how other people will feel about it and/or imputing motives to thread or comment moderation, 5% people reacting to the title, and 5% people quoting the article in response to the previous 5%.”

If it's not what the want on HN they can ignore it. The flag button is used as "stuff I don't want anyone discussing or knowing about".