This seems more like sour grapes. Is "A Brief History of Time" in this category? Who's to say. There are a ton of non-fiction books that are written for popular audiences that do not make it big. If they are all equal, than all the ones that don't make it should also end up being wrong. That doesn't seem right, why is it only the ones that do become popular must turn out wrong.

This seems more like moralizing on the public being idiots, and so if a book is popular it must be wrong.