I think there is a bit of a difference between Wolfram and your average perpetuum-mobile constructing quack.
Wolfram has an amazing amount of good work behind him and messed up (in the eyes of most, but not of all) on one thing, which I think is mostly linked to naming his book 'a new kind of science' without having the grace to wait for others to make that decision for him and by most likely being wrong about it.
If he had called it 500 interesting things to do with cellular automata there would have been no problem and his reputation would be unblemished.
It probably wouldn't have sold as many copies though.
Wolfram has an amazing amount of good work behind him and messed up (in the eyes of most, but not of all) on one thing, which I think is mostly linked to naming his book 'a new kind of science' without having the grace to wait for others to make that decision for him and by most likely being wrong about it.
If he had called it 500 interesting things to do with cellular automata there would have been no problem and his reputation would be unblemished.
It probably wouldn't have sold as many copies though.