But can think of some people here who might have created this explicitly as a test of rationality, who are sort of annoyed that the politics involved here get less scrutiny and want to demonstrate that.
Spreading false data as a "test of rationality" would be actively harmful. But I can imagine people misunderstanding that.
Rationality is a method of working with the data you have. You should update on evidence correctly, instead of updating incorrectly. You should be able to recognize that this specific piece of evidence contradicts the model based on all other evidence, which makes this specific piece of evidence suspicious. But also should estimate your degree of certainty in a given model.
It is proper to say "I defy the data" when one's model is based on a lot of reliable evidence. Saying it more often would be overconfidence, not rationality.
I was assuming that if it were a hoax, they'd let people know in another few days with a gloating update.
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