I absolutely agree. But even with little substance, the fact that a major publication is saying things like this is relevant - it shifts thought and dialogue in less reasoned circles for the worse. I posted to highlight the absurdity, and to gain insights from the HN community so I could form a better argument against this line of thinking.

Fair enough. It might have been worth making that clear in a top-level reply when you made the submission, though -- people might get the wrong idea otherwise.

There's been a couple of other submissions of articles citing this one -- and a bit of discussion of this daft notion on each:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4350529

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4350221