Tales of Science and Fiction

That's not what I got from this at all -- it sounds like the author of the review seriously detests the science fiction authors in the book and that that distaste carries over to the things they've written.

> . . . the study’s exposure of the selfish, banal, and prurient little world that his group of contributing personae, all of whom knew and socialized with one another, constituted. Nevala-Lee himself treats of that selfishness, banality, and prurience rather indifferently, as though it neither shocked nor repelled him. Perhaps the ambient moral relativism has inveigled his outlook.

That lack of objectivity makes me suspicious of the review more than anything -- not only does he dislike the subjects of the book, but he is willing to go the extra mile to make sure that he's loud about it.

Another example:

> Hubbard’s vulgarity and lewdness mark him as the most repugnant of Nevala-Lee’s cast of characters, but Asimov earns his place next to Hubbard in the repugnance category. Lascivious and self-licensing, he regularly mauled women and tried to seduce them. When science fiction conventions became a feature of the genre, Asimov would patrol the floor and greet strange women by fondling their breasts. . . . He was running his own sexual con-game.

Without bringing the truthfulness into question (I don't know either way), those are some serious claims and he's not at all making it clear whether this is from the book that he's reviewing or whether he's going off on his own with "everybody knows this" facts. Either way, he should be clear about that -- and if it's the latter, it really has no place in a book review unless to point out the omission, in which case he'd still need to be clear about the sourcing.

It sounds less like he's reviewing a book and more like he's taking the book to use as a soapbox to vent.

>The reviewer dislikes this genre. OK. But it's like sending someone who hates horror to review a history of horror movies. The review tends to say more about the reviewer than the subject.

I grew up reading Heinlein. I've read it all; the short stories, the juveniles, the late-period novels, the early and late nonfiction essays, the recently published "lost" works. I consider him and Asimov among my formative influences.

I very much agree that Stranger can only be read with vicarious embarrassment.

You're talking about it as an observer outside of science looking in. Interestingly though even within the framework of science this is true. Nothing in science can be proven. Experimental methods establish correlations not proof. If you get advanced you actually can technically establish causation to a statistical degree but this is not a proof.

From the outside world looking in... The singular religious assumption you have to make about the world to believe in science is you have to believe in probability theory. You have to believe that the foundations of logic and the axioms of probability apply to the real world in order to believe in science. That is the most religious part of science.