Thorns

This is probably just me, but in my head Social Science Fiction does not match up to Hard Science Fiction based in the social sciences. Social science fiction seems to involve the author being very interested in a social science concept and using it in the plot. Hard science fiction seems to be about writing a plot that matches the physical universe in every detail. I kind of agree with the people who suggest that since people are (at this point) not accurately describable this might be kinds of hard to do with a social science. How do we write a plot that matches human society in every concievable way? Alternatively, it can be suggested that every science fiction novel makes an attempt at this just matching the author's view of human society in every way.

I kind of like your description of it as 'Books which don't make the people who have degrees in the respective fields squirm upon reading' (paraphrased slightly) though...