I don't think that is true at all for "geeks" that witnessed first-hand[1] their manipulative and deceptive attempts at defending their PhDs and scientific papers in early 2000's. After that they doubled down on the intelligent design bullshit, used any opportunity to promote their books (fair enough), while attacking the few journalists that actually tried to expose the fraud.

They should have sticked to sci-fi, but even in their early days they couldn't help but try to vulgarize proper science, even though they weren't really qualified. Good intentions don't make up for peddling pseudoscience, plagiarism, and the constant smoke and mirrors. And it seems they were also facing some pretty serious legal issues in their personal life.

[1] https://forum.hardware.fr/hfr/Discussions/Sciences/topikunik...