Pop science is a really frustrating phenomenon. As a person who loves learning stuff, it's an accessible way to get information about a field I don't have much background in.
As a scientist, I know it will always be somewhat wrong. The science is simplified and flattened if not outright warped to make it understandable and entertaining to people who don't have the background knowledge to wrap our heads around technical jargon. We have that jargon for a reason - we create it to express concepts there weren't previously words for. It's not dense for the sake of it, most of the time, although it certainly can be - it is a very precise communication tool.
Pop sci is not precise. It's hand-wavy. And one of its greatest flaws is that it will only ever show you one perspective - that of the author - while the truth of the matter is more likely to be along the lines of "an entire field of experts are currently having a years-long fight about this and nobody knows which of them is right, if in fact any of them are."
It's also sometimes flat-out wrong - I will never forget, though I've long since forgotten the title, that pop sci anthropology book written by neuroscientists trying to talk about the brains of our hominin ancestors and getting everything just horrendously wrong. They had no anthropology background and I was spitting mad for days just having read the summary.
I do still enjoy pop sci sometimes - currently reading The Body Keeps The Score - but it's crucial to remember that it isn't the full story. It's flat. It's simplified. It's only one perspective. And if you stop there, your understanding of the subject is grossly misinformed at best and utter misinformation at worst.
