Earlier quoted context omitted.
My parents had a hard time explaining my dad's job to me, so they just told me he was a scientist because he had a masters in physics (he was a diplomat). Like any little kid, my parents were my heroes, so of course this led me to becoming obsessed with scientists and reading up on science stuff, eg trying to read my sister's university textbooks. I developed a hobby of reading up on and sharing factoids I found onli…
I get your sentiment, but I think it's important for science communication to adapt to the times. Decades ago (and even as little as one decade ago), most scientists (maybe Hawking being the exception) who would dare appear in these 1hr documentaries would be belittled by the "hardcore" scientists with the same words you used "Science should not be over-simplified like that", "they are not real scientists, they just…
It is a difficult balance to strike, but science should be
> as simple as possible, and no simpler
The hard truth is that any simpler means inaccurate, which means when educating the public there __are__ inaccuracies. So the balance to strike is accuracy vs understanding. Most people do not understand the Schrodinger's Cat thought experiment, wave-particle duality, or many similar things (like how one of my namesake's Incompleteness Theorem, Super Position, and the Halting Problem are linked) yet will confidently correct explanations given that do hold more accuracy (even "teaching" those where it is clear one side is vastly more qualified than the other).
But think about it this way, the people getting mad at the over-simplification are not a force preventing public explanation but rather a pressure to find a better and more accurate explanation. The problem is when we frame these things as adversarial in the sense of enemies fighting rather than adversarial in the sense of improving one's self/group's position/arguments/discourse. Both sides can benefit from a reframing of these interactions by not holding the positions as equivalent to one's intellect but rather recognize that statements are independent. We are better as a coalition than separated, even with disagreement (especially with). It is clear here that everyone is on the same side after all, as all parties involved are seeking the same goal: better public education. It then becomes the duty to read between the lines to extract what the actual complaint is, because this is often also difficult to express (without a lengthy process) given we do not know one another's priors. We should not confuse critiques for attacks or dismissals. Nor should we dismiss or attack when we should critique! Though it is acceptable when errors are egregious or when people intentionally mislead. Unfortunately there is a large amount of that, but let's also distinguish idiocracy from maliciousness, as the former can be fixed (if we formulate with the above framing).