If you can't beat them, join them.
Mike P
In the space of one hundred and seventy-six years the Mississippi has shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles. Therefore ... in the Old Silurian Period the Mississippi River was upward of one million three hundred thousand miles long ... seven hundred and forty-two years from now the Mississippi will be only a mile and three-quarters long. ... There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesome returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.
-- Mark Twain
Made-up nonsense posing as reputable science is all over the Internet.
Some of it can be quite amusing. Why should the conspiracy theorists have all the fun?
The Culture Is Real
And Iain M Banks was an agent.