what hackery is this?

If this is what it seems, it's a case of quite breathtaking unprofessionalism. In America, people would fired over that. British newspapers need to understand that if they're going to retain a role in a world of proliferating news sources online, they should be raising their editorial standards, not lowering them. This is particularly true of science reporting, on which, as we've been reminded this week, the press here has a woeful record.

Comments

[Neuroskeptic]

I don't know much about political journalism but I assume that if someone invented quotes and opinions and attributed them to a named politician, they'd be fired too. Even in Britain... I think this is more a British Science Journalism thing than a British Journalism one. Although as Ben Goldacre would say, it's symptomatic of the lack of regard for science in the British media that they let it happen.