He was discussing the phonetic properties of Chinese words. If he'd just missed the tone or if he'd even have gotten remotely close, it wouldn't have been so bad.

The problem is that he decided to include the excerpt in his argument and didn't even bother to listen to the numbers, even when it would have been simple to do so if he wanted.

Edit: I guess the problem is the same as the igon values. He regularly writes with an air of authority about things he doesn't really have much understanding of. He's limited to quoting others' arguments as a journalist would.