That's true, but the article as a whole still felt weirdly credulous to me. The reminders that this is a complete flight of fancy work out to like one or two clauses in a 1400-word article that devotes a lot of room to detailing his theory and repeatedly pointing out that it could theoretically be proven true someday.

To this article's credit, though, it is more measured than others. Just as a whole it seems weird to me how much attention such a seemingly insignificant hypothesis is getting.

Did you want them to say "This guy is a crank!" several hundred times to fill up space? How are we ever supposed to learn anything new if everything is run through your hypothetical credibility filter first?

It's just an aside they throw out before going into how This One Maverick's ideas are so exciting. And ultimately, they're still writing yet another article on the idea because it sells.