Re: Hard Sci-fi?

Ben:

> Huh? Watership Down has talking rabbits, so it's inconsistent with
> what we know about science.

So are lightsabers and time machines.  "Watership" would be "soft" sci-
fi (if not downright "cuddly"), based around the biology of British
rabbits and other local organisms, with their common sapience as the
fictional element.  (Even the rabbit culture and language Adams
proposes could be tied in with, say, anthropology or linguistics.)

> Jane Austen isn't speculative fiction.

Nobody said anything about "speculative", whatever that means.  We
were talking about "science"...and if you've ever had the misfortune
of listening to sophomore English majors talk for an hour about Jane
Austen (as I have), you'll know that her links to the social sciences
are...sadly...endless.

Luna:

> History isn't a science to start with...

My apologies.  I ought to have said "anthropology", "archaeology", or
some other "-ology" that everyone would be comfortable with.

> ...and plenty of genuine science fiction stories deal with the other
stuff you
> mentioned.

Well, that's the problem, isn't it?  What counts as a "genuine"
science fiction story?  What criteria are we going to use to let
Heinlein in -- who's using physics and astronomy "just as tools to put
the characters in...a story about psychology, sociology, and biology"
-- and the kick the guys who write ER episodes out -- who're using
medicine "just as tools to..." etc.?  Because so far we've just got
"science fiction is fiction that has some kind of science in it,
somewhere, for some reason".