On Tue, 29 Apr 1997, L. Timmel Duchamp wrote:
(2) "hard
> sf" grossly misrepresents how science works and how practicing
> scientists conduct research. Practicing scientists work collectively
> and collaboratively.
This is a very important point. Most of the conservative, so-called "hard
sf" writers seem obsessed with what has been called The Great Man School of
History. By this I mean that they almost always show one great scientist or
captain of industry leading the way, backed by a bunch of second bananas.
This unscientific idiocy is perpetrated in recent supposedly hard sf by
Poul Anderson, Larry Niven, Michael Flynn, Robert Forward, and others.
Basically it's the same wishfulfillment fantasy idea that was used by the
early space opera writers like E.E. Smith, Ray Cummings, John W. Campbell,
and George O. Smith. As it was by Heinlein.
It's simply an extention of the conservative-libertarian view of the
heroic scientist as high IQ, high sperm-count ubermensch.
Mike Levy
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