confidence level: I am a physicist, not a biologist, so don’t take this the account of a domain level expert. But this is really basic stuff, and is very easy to verify. Recently I encountered a scientific claim about biology, made by Eliezer Yudkowsky. I searched around for the source of the claim, and found that he has been repeating versions of the claim for over a decade and a half, including in “the sequences” and his TED talk. In recent years, this claim has primarily been used as an argument for why an AGI attack would be extremely deadly. I believe this claim is factually incorrect.
I suppose when talking about science to a popular audience it can be hard not to make generalizations and oversimplifications and if it’s done poorly that oversimplification can cross over into plain old inaccuracy (if I were to be charitable to Yud I would say that this is what happened here).
To wit: even the “K’nex connector with 4 ports” model of carbon doesn’t really explain the bonding of aromatic molecules like benzene or carbon nanotubes; I’ve likewise seen people confidently make the generalization “noble gases don’t react”, apparently unaware of the existence of noble gas compounds.