> -----Original Message-----
 >
 > Wirt said:
 > > There are of course some differences between science and
 > > science fiction. In
 > > the latter, you can choose for yourself whichever form of
 > > escapist literature
 > > you prefer and live in that world for your entire life, if
 > > you care to.
 > > Unfortunately, at best, it is only a form of mental
 > > masturbation, perhaps
 > > momentarily pleasurable but otherwise completely
 > > nonproductive. But once you
 > > go so far as to adopt philosophies taken from dime store
 > > novels, you've
 > > almost certainly abrogated any possibility of your making
 > > reality any the
 > > better for your doing it.
 > >
 > > There are legitimate approaches to the analyses of complex
 > > problems. Quoting
 > > science fiction authors is not one of them.
 > >
 > > Wirt Atmar
 > >

Chuck Ryan replied:
 > Fortunately there are many outlets available to express ones
 > philosophy.
 > Many science fiction authors make a greater effort at
 > technical accuracy
 > than today's supposed experts. Some, such as Robert Heinlein and Isaac
 > Asimov, have chosen to use science fiction as a way to express their
 > viewpoints on our society in an entertaining way.
 >
 > Labeling their work as "dime store novels" is the typical
 > response of ivory
 > tower elitists who take offense at anyone not part of their
 > inner circle
 > expressing a coherent idea, something they appear to be
 > incapable of, in a
 > way the an average reader can understand. They prefer to
 > spend their time
 > memorizing dictionaries and various trivia while making
 > pronouncements from
 > on high as to the way we should run our society. A society
 > they have little
 > experience with as they wrap themselves protectively in the world of
 > academia.
 >
 > Comments are my own, not my employer's... etc.


Now Isaac Aasimov was an Assiociate Professor of Biochemistry
at University of Boston, and wrote more non-fiction than fiction.

And I would think that Heinlein as a Naval Academy graduate,
graduated 20th in a class of 243 in Naval Science, was NOT
unfamiliar with academia, although he limited himself to
fiction.

Finally, literature has been used to express Politics, Science
and Philosophy through severial millennia.  Need I mention the
Practical Management Philosophy of Machiavelli's "The Prince",
Dante's criticism of church hierarchy in "The Inferno",
Shakespeare's social comment on History in several writings,
the Politics of Orwell's "Animal Farm", the Geometry exercise
of Abbot's "Flatland", the Philosophy of Rand's "Atlas
Shrugged", or the Religion espoused by C.S. Lewis' stories?
Science-Fiction, although a recent phenomenon, is just another
focus of similar media.

And within the last decade, recognition of Edgar Allan Poe's
cosmology (although he had no clue) at:

http://darc.obspm.fr/~luminet/etopo.html

However, I also understand that the Sci-Fi genre has been snooted
at since Jonathan Swift and the reaction that such writings are
"trash", is not uncommon.

--
BT


#NNNN
Tracy Johnson
Justin Thyme Productions
http://hp3000.empireclassic.com/

* To join/leave the list, search archives, change list settings, *
* etc., please visit http://raven.utc.edu/archives/hp3000-l.html *