I wonder why you chose to link to the story at the bbc when you could have explained the theories direct from the horse's mouth?

There's a difference between the data and the interpretation of the data. If he's a good scientist his data isn't arguable about because that's just numbers collected in a rigorous way (but only in a sense, because you've still chosen which data to collect). But it's the way the data is analysed that's the thing. Even if the numbers coincide with some other numbers doesn't mean the two things are connected. You need a bit of statistics and that to suggest your hypothesis might indeed be right. But it's picking the appropriate statistics isn't it, otherwise you can make your data suggest things that it doesn't really suggest. That's where you can twist / cherrypick your data to support a pet theory.

It's not explained in a media-friendly story (because it's too dull probably) but without that full explanation of the analysis then the believability of the research can't be challenged. And the whole point of science is that it is presented so anyone is at liberty to examine the data and the conclusions, very democratic. So when you say 'you'd rather stick with the scientists and professionals', that was a funny way to put it really, when you don't know whether Tiompan is perfectly capable of examining that data, and you yourself are deferring to the man whose research it was in the first place. (and who admittedly may be right. but that's not the point).