...was that they thought it was advantageous to respond to it at all.
Their response struck me as being lame and as tending to call
attention to the very things they'd just as soon have people forget:
that Nature, which has a stellar reputation among its readership,
even put Britannica and WIkipedia in the same category.
It is as if Nature were to say "Britannica eats shit and bays at the
moon," and Britannica were to respond by saying "That conclusion is
false, because Nature's research was invalid. We don't eat nearly as
much shit as Nature claims we eat, and some of what we ate, which
Nature imprecisely referred to as 'shit,' was actually putrescent
offal, and as for baying at the moon, we take issue with that
characterization of our vocalizations, and anyway we only do it when
the moon is full, which is less than 3% of the time. So, when Nature
says we eat shit and bay at the moon, our response is that we do not
eat shit and bay at the moon, so when you think of eating shit and
baying at the moon, don't think of us, and when you think of us,
don't think of eating shit and baying at the moon, because it is
really not very true at all, hardly. Eating shit. Baying. Moon. Not
us. Not really. Not much. Did I mention we don't eat shit and bay at
the moon? Even though Nature says we do?"