[rcoilliot]

French here. Lately they weren't that much loved by the public and mostly mocked because of their weirdness but they were still pretty famous and respected by geeks because of their successful (and pretty influential) show about sci-fi back in the 80s. I guess they were still benifiting from that golden era of them, but the consensus is that they were freaky.

[hocuspocus]

> respected by geeks

I don't think that is true at all for "geeks" that witnessed first-hand[1] their manipulative and deceptive attempts at defending their PhDs and scientific papers in early 2000's. After that they doubled down on the intelligent design bullshit, used any opportunity to promote their books (fair enough), while attacking the few journalists that actually tried to expose the fraud.

They should have sticked to sci-fi, but even in their early days they couldn't help but try to vulgarize proper science, even though they weren't really qualified. Good intentions don't make up for peddling pseudoscience, plagiarism, and the constant smoke and mirrors. And it seems they were also facing some pretty serious legal issues in their personal life.

[1] https://forum.hardware.fr/hfr/Discussions/Sciences/topikunik...

[boringg]

Thanks two both of you for the comments - have a better understanding now of their relevance to the greater conversation. Add in their meme nature and I have the full story.

Charlatans and pseudoscience are like moths to a flame. :(

[rcoilliot]

You are right. I should have specified they were still respected for their contribution to sci-fi in France, but scorned for all their scientific frauds.

[hocuspocus]

Talking about sci-fi on mainstream French TV was indeed pretty novel in the 80s. And they also brought up real R&D topics and scientific research, I remember one episode of Temps X when they talk about Dennis Meadows' limits to growth.

I was too young but I'm still not convinced their TV show didn't raise a few eyebrows back then too, since they didn't hesitate to invite crackpots and talk about stuff like telekinesis.

[BrandoElFollito]

I loved them as a kid but they lost everything when they became fraudsters. Instead of being interesting journalists they wanted to become Great Scientists without the brains for it.

To my children they are just a fascinating case of botched cosmetic surgery