I'm inclined to agree, just not with quite as much conviction
I've read a couple of his books and found his writing to be relatively mediocre. Not bad but not good. His books are hardly intellectually stimulating, certainly not an intellectual excercise of any sort, and he relies on
telling his readers what to think moreso than giving the info and letting them reach a conclusion on their own. And he
really needs to lay off the italics key. The hint-dropping italic sidebar crap is annoying as hell and only makes me think he can't write well enough to get his point across without blatantly obvious and/or looked like he thought his readers wouldn't be smart enough to get the point on their own.
I find his premises and information to be interesting but would have to agree that the novels themselves are 'dumbed down' in order to appeal to the masses. Not that that is necessarily a bad thing because at least people are reading
something even if it isn't the most intellectually-stimulating thing in the world.
I do find his novels interesting and not bad reads. But they would be several notches below Michael Crichton on the "Information made Entertaining"-scale in my book (no pun intended). They're like a mix between Crichton and, oh I dunno, R.L. Stine.
