Re: Arthur C Clarke, RIP

Peter Knutsen <peter@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in news:47e0e679$0$15885
$edfadb0f@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Mine is that the writer must be science-literate. Even if he writes 
> something that isn't hard science, he has to be able to know when he's 
> being good and when he's being naughty.
> 

This is a terrible definition for several reasons. One is that it defines 
science fiction in terms of the author, not the material. One is left to 
wonder why Primo Levi or C. P. Snow were not science fiction authors. The 
other is that all too often, scientists don't know when they are being 
naughty. Some of the most egregious scientific blunders in science fiction

have been perpetrated by scientists. Another thing scientists sometimes do
is 
grossly underestimate how naughty they are being.