When Analogies Attack

I was reading the "preview" of this week's NY Times Magazine article on Freeman Dyson and why he is crazy b/c he's not joining up with the global warming scare-team when I came across this:

...The New York Review of Books, the left-leaning publication that is to gravitas what the Beagle was to Darwin...

What can it possibly mean? The NY Review of Books is to gravitas as the Beagle was to Darwin?

The Beagle was the ship Darwin travelled on that provided him the time and opportunity to catalog the observations that led to his theory of evolution and book laying out said theory "On the Origin of Species".

So the NY Times Review of Books is akin to a ship that gravitas sails on? Or it's the tool that allows gravitas to create new insights?

Am I missing something or is this gibberish?

I think what happened is the writer decided to forget that words actually mean something b/c it was just so nice to be able to shoehorn in a reference to another famously controversial-for-his-time scientist while reminding the reader of the "gravitas" of the NY Review of Books. It flowed so well the actual meaning (or lack thereof) of what he'd written seemed unimportant by comparison.