The last line of the article is:

"Maybe the best way to remember Mullis and his invention of PCR is to make some space for the others who made it a reality."

Petty. This is in addition to aspersions like this one:

"Despite knowing little about molecular biology, Mullis was hired to work in the company’s DNA synthesis lab"

Also, there's a direct comparison to Trump for some unfathomable reason (well...unfathomable except that, again, to the readers of a magazine from Berkeley, that means that Mullis is a bad man).

Is this "cancellation"? I don't know. But it's pretty darned immature, and a blatant attempt to tear down the guy in relation to his one objective accomplishment.

As for word choice: pretty much every famous person has a large contingency who cannot stand them, so I guess it's fair game now to just call them all "intolerable". C'est la vie.