He's a populariser of science though. No criticism intended by that. His books are still serious works, but the serious intent is to educate a general audience,

He's a populariser of science though. No criticism intended by that. His books are still serious works, but the serious intent is to educate a general audience, not be an important document for a specialist audience. It's a story about his theory. And good popularisers of science, which I think he definitely is (or was?) are good storytellers. He takes a basic thesis then uses multiple lyrical examples to illustrate it. As a layman, I loved that book and read it several times, it made me feel like I had an understanding of genetics, and many of its ideas have informed how I think about things now (the additional, if somewhat vague, stuff he added re memetics in particular). But I'd also say that book is an epitome of pop science, and that feeling of understanding of genetics was just the basic concepts clicking. Which is also fine, that's a really good thing! Edit: to go back to original article: memorising the stuff in detail isn't hugely useful -- it's a useful jumping off point to investigate in more detail, but the books basic ideas are easily understood, that's the point