I'm disappointed. I thought you would link to something where he told someone that they were wrong. Instead, he said conditionally that if the speculation pans out, then he "may be" wrong about a reason why something was observed. It wasn't a refutation, but just offering an alternative hypothesis.
That seems like a perfectly guarded statement, self-aware of its speculative basis.
How do you know? I always thought journalists had some basic level principles about their jobs, until I heard from a first hand witness that you can actually buy some of them with good money...
