Good catch. I was trying to give a reason for this misattribution and not justify it.

But back to the larger point. It strikes me that intellectuals who have racked up the greatest kill-scores have done so because of their views in humanitarian fields (politics, philosophy, etc.) I am yet to see a genocide in the name of math or art. One exception I see is the misrepresentation of climate data to support global warming (if indeed that is true).