these are the kind of small detail slip-ups that bother me about the commenters (everywhere, not just HN) that decide to try to educate people in broad-strokes and general overviews.

it's hopeful and altruistic to try to educate the ignorant, but politically-charged topics have a characteristic that when misrepresented -- even accidentally -- someone may use that foul-up to reduce the efficacy of the advice by injecting the shadow of doubt.

(to be clear, issues with data should be corrected by others; my issue is with the grandparent poster getting the small details wrong while Speaking From On High and quoting scientist friends)

This not only hurts the credibility of 'scientist friends' by proxy, but it also just creates another foot-hold for the already suspicious to continue being suspicious; something that is trying to be remedied by the whole speech in the first place.

Please, if you feel the need to educate on something politically charged like this, gather the facts first and triple-check -- otherwise you will likely harm your base motivating premise incidentally through loss-of-trust.

Yes, thank you for correcting this.