I do think it's the playbook: accuse science of ignoring or underappreciating something, portray it as being in a crisis that you are rescuing it from by restating familiar facts as if they were revolutionary.

I think Stephen Jay Gould, for as much of a brilliant and gifted writer as he was, and someone who truly rose to the moment to smack down intelligent design and, separately, the bell curve, was nevertheless borderline fraudulent in characterizing punctuated equilibrium as a revolutionary upheaval of Darwinism. I think it's a familiar model. I wouldn't quite say grifter but dangerously close and with all the familiar hallmarks.