Did you need a full book to tell you that though? The fundamental problem with pop sci books is that very often the most important facts (and probably the only generally communicable facts) about the topic should not need more than a few dense pages in a long-form article. But you can't sell an article for twenty bucks so the professors who would love a million or two (do they make that much?) Just expand it into drivel and cut corners to "simplify" the prose and take creative license.

Even the greatest popsci book of all time, a brief history of time, is famously a tome almost no one ever reads fully[1]. Every popsci book I've taken up I can never finish because half of it would be repetitive BS and I'll come out of it not taking anymore takeaway points than what was in the article in Forbes promoting the book. The motivations for publishing popular science books by professors are probably to blame here, on top of the fundamental research ethics problems that plague academia nowadays.

1. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/03/1...