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Comment by JesseObrien | Hacker News Reader

While I agree with the chicken and egg statements, I think the sensationalism is a Good Thing in this instance. The language of the article and the way the information is presented gives way to some good discussion points and thought projects. If you simply wanted more "facts" and "knowledge" of human reproduction, go read Wikipedia.

These kind of articles don't cause misunderstandings, people interpreting the language as fact, do. So long as the reader understands the language in the article, I see no problems with it. Nothing in the article states that the presented information is beyond theory. It's a discussion of those theories with supporting science thrown in where necessary to drive further questions and discussion.

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Can you help me better understand your post? What I got out of it was "so long as the readers understand it's not actually true, it's ok" but I'm not convinced this is the intended interpretation.

A theoretical discussion, such as the article's, isn't trying to nail down true or false. The discussion is rooted in and follows established truths along the way to explore potential new possibilities. This is what theorizing is. If we simply sat around discussing facts and non-facts we'd never get anywhere with discovery.

A question such as "What's true and what's false?" does not prompt for knowledge expanding discussion. We want to ask things like:

* What exists as scientific fact now?

* Is what exists now provable by scientific method or is it still in theory stage?

* What seems likely and/or possible as the next steps?

* Can we test anything in the resulting discussion with scientific method to prove them?

I've read a lot of these, but it usually feels more like we're glossing over Aesop's fables with a veneer of evolutionary theory. It's interesting to read about what happens, but all the suspect explanations in the story detract from it for me.

If we think of the pragmatic and plausible theoretical model probability space for possible models that graph the change over time of the mean biological biogenesis pattern of homo Sapiens, we will find mathematical utility in using the functions in Branching Theory and Lexographic Fractal Permutation (Collation) Algorithms... Which essentially modularize and computationally compress the process of evaluating the distinct (clustered) networks in the lexograph...thus providing the capability to evaluate, compare, and communicate... The logically referenced data in the hypothetical, theoretical, and observational/proven possibility space...in a more efficient, albeit, approximate methodology.

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