> To argue against a book, you really only need to argue against its central theme. To combat a dozen accusations, you need to reply to each and every one to avoid being wounded by them.

No, you don't get a pass just because your "central theme" is acceptable.

If someone writes a book about a scientific topic, with a "central theme" that is uncontroversial but uninteresting (e.g. "sleep is good"), but otherwise riddles the book with factual and scientific inaccuracies, then they need to fix the problems. If they don't, they're writing science-themed fiction, at best.

At worst, someone can do real harm by dressing up nonsense as science.

It's like that quote from Einstein, when asked about what he thought about his many critics and detractors, he said something along the lines of "if I was wrong a single critic would be sufficient."