[GuiA]

I’m going to call evolution “Mr. R&D.” When he finds a problem, Mr. R&D tests things out in different ways to come up with a solution. But sometimes those solutions have unforeseen consequences. So here we go!

(not quoting every other part of the article where plants form committees to decide what to do next and receive "lignin" as a ready made thing, not as an emergent result of its own evolutionary process)

Oh, no. These kind of weird anthropomorphic ideas - that evolution is actively "finding problems" and "testing solutions" - take years to remove from students' minds. And make it very unclear whether the author themselves actually do understand what they're talking about or just parroting the same story they heard.

Cue the "but it's for kids!" arguments. Kids aren't dumb, and perfectly capable of understanding selective pressure - but you are doing them a huge disservice by making them feel like they understand something when really they understand your inaccurate (yet entertaining!) story.

[acqq]

Yes. And I believe it's not an accident, whenever I see an article posted on HN from nautil.us I expect that the science will be twisted to the point of inducing confusion, and I believe it's an "editorial policy" which stems from the fact that they are financed by John_Templeton_Foundation (1) "a philanthropic organization that reflects the ideas of its founder, John Templeton, who became wealthy after a career as a contrarian investor and wanted to support progress in religious and spiritual knowledge, especially at the intersection of religion and science." (2)

Of course, I don't believe that every article has the same bias, but I saw it appearing with certain regularity.

1) http://nautil.us/about

2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Templeton_Foundation