Does popular science pander?
• Hodgepodge
I think I remember some scientist saying popular science journalism is the equivalent of lying to children.
[Brian] Greene will go to nearly any metaphorical lengths to elucidate complex physics. To guide his readers through key concepts, he concocts elaborate scenarios often characterized by cute and slightly corny imagery. (Indeed, his writing is characterized by the rhetoric of self-help literature.) At one point, for instance, he asks us to imagine we've had a bad day—our favorite team lost, our birthday was forgotten, the "last chunk of Velveeta" was eaten by someone else—and tells us to imagine that we then take a boat out on a lake, where "beautiful moonlight reflections dance" on the water's surface. In his eagerness to prod our imaginations—and to make the science non-threatening—Greene indulges in a pandering sort of lyricism.
Where does Brian Greene stand in the pantheon of physicists?