Reading things like this is like playing Chinese whispers ("Telephone" in US-ish). As opposed to the usual situation where the writer knows what the article is

Reading things like this is like playing Chinese whispers ("Telephone" in US-ish). As opposed to the usual situation where the writer knows what the article is about and is struggling to explain it to the audience, in the average New Scientist article we have a situation where the writer doesn't really grasp what the article is supposed to be about either, but has a deadline and a certain amount of space to fill. So you'll see detailed explanations of the bits that the writer did manage to understand combined with quick handwaving and quote-insertion for the bits the writer didn't manage to understand. The net result is something that contains all the right words and sounds sufficiently clever for laymen, but doesn't make much actual sense. Still, it fills in pages and sells magazines, so it's good enough!