A binary distinction between "stupid" (Gladwell?) and "clever" (domain expert) isn't very helpful here. Gladwell's ability to take obscure scientific results and present them in a relevant, insightful way is very powerful. If anything, I think the lesson is about being careful when drawing conclusions outside your domain of expertise, and that it is always helpful to get outside reviewers for your work (astonishing that a mistake of this magnitude slipped into a published book!).
When you fill gaps in your understanding with imagination, the result is that these 'relevant, insightful' ways are in fact made up. They are powerful in the way of teaching the public even more crap. One cannot possibly understand what eigenvalues are about if one doesn't know how to write the word. One may however think he understands what they are about, because one has filled in the gaps with imagination, and get it published, because reviewers think the author understands his stuff. In exactly the same way, all kinds of people, from complete crackpots to usually reasonable journalists, publish all kinds of crap because they think they understand quantum mechanics.
QM, interestingly, relies heavily on those eigenvalues.
