Regardless of how not-so-certain he is about it, it seems pretty irrational to say, “well, maybe this bad scenario will happen, but my wishful thinking scenario is just as likely!”.
My interpretation was that he found both about as plausible, i.e. not very. And the fragment out of context made it seem like the part you quoted was what he actually believed to be the truth, which was certainly misrepresenting him regardless of exactly how implausible he found that scenario to be.
Way to quotemine. Here’s the next line, for people who haven’t yet read the article themselves:
“But I’m not terribly certain of this, any more than I’m terribly certain of its opposite.”
Regardless of how not-so-certain he is about it, it seems pretty irrational to say, “well, maybe this bad scenario will happen, but my wishful thinking scenario is just as likely!”.
My interpretation was that he found both about as plausible, i.e. not very. And the fragment out of context made it seem like the part you quoted was what he actually believed to be the truth, which was certainly misrepresenting him regardless of exactly how implausible he found that scenario to be.