In the same sense of "hack" used in "Hacker News", sure, perhaps.
A pattern that's repeated itself multiple times in the history of science is mathematicians and theoretical physicists showing up in other fields and making groundbreaking discoveries that end up re-orienting the field.
It's not at all surprising that incumbents would object to the competition, fault the 'interlopers' for not working within accepted paradigms, or just not have the background to fully understand their projects in the first place.
Do you have real examples? These types of accusations are meaningless without real data. If they are real, I'd like to know the actual threats.