1) The editor(s)/photographer(s) probably wanted a nice photo for this post, like whole family being working together to the same issue. The mother may seem un-involved if both the son and the father would focus on the screen. Or maybe for some other reason it was just the most sweet-looking picture out of the series.

IMO, it is easily to get distracted while working in somewhat unfamiliar conditions. I can easily imagine that, if someone takes a photo of me coding in front of my laptop, I will end up looking weird and distracted because I would be nervous about camera.

I am pretty sure that if someone wanted to fake it(even unintentionally), he would pick more "realistic" photo.

2) Just saying it wasn't validated doesn't mean it can't (and doesn't) work. Of course there is a link to wikipedia entry, but there are mixed data, and far from the claim "It doesn't work, plain and simple" (to which you agreed).

30-40 years ago it was mainstream to deny intelligence in non-human animals. But now, there are evidence that animals are intelligent: crowns learning to use tools, dolphins passing mirror test, parrots learning to count objects(and doing a lot of ther cool stuff).