This seems to be another example of the rather intolerant and self-congratulatory attitude one encounters too often here and elsewhere. They aren't necessarily "idiots" - not everyone has the time to read "what we might call the 'primary' selfish gene literature", nor the primary literature of a lot of other subjects they have some interest in. As you say "The popularization of these ideas has lead to many grievous errors"  - blame the popularizers. For a good example of doing the latter see:

Bad science

Ben Goldacre, Wednesday July 18, 2007, The Guardian

Whatever you think about Andrew Wakefield, the real villains of the MMR scandal are the media. Just one week before his GMC hearing, yet another factless "MMR causes autism" news story appeared: and even though it ran on the front page of our very own Observer, I am dismantling it on this page. We're all grown-ups around here

[Though he does acknowledge this]

 think we should recognise that criticising a paper within the same stable is a very unusual thing, and I think it shows phenomenal integrity that the Guardian was willing to give me the opportunity to write about this as I would about any other newspaper story that was so wrong, even if it took some time. I honestly don't think it could happen anywhere else, especially as I was criticising the central facts of a news story, not a comment or opinion piece.

http://www.badscience.net/?p=457