This is something other commenters picked up on - but the tragedy of this is that in the current scientific climate, doing good, unglamorous solid science has nowhere near the payoff than coming up with feel-good theories and then marketing the shit out of them.

Peter Thiel said that: "the political people who are nimble in the art of writing government grants have gradually displaced the eccentric and idiosyncratic people who typically make the best scientists. The eccentric university professor is a species that is going extinct fast" - and that's exactly right. Cuddy is a terrible scientist, but she's a fantastic communicator, an engaging speaker, and a great 'seller'.

How do we fix this? Brian Nosek is doing some absolutely fantastic work on this, and I hope it picks up more traction, but I'd like to see the ecosystem around scientific communication seriously revamped. There are a few publications (the Economist and the Atlantic come to mind) that have excellent scientific writers, but things like TED or Malcom Gladwell's books are a blight upon science.