The Evolution of Science Fiction discussion

Do you think a good understanding of science and technology makes science fiction authors' writing better?

I don't think that it makes any difference in the writing style, but it can make the books more plausible.

Science fiction is a broad field, and scientific plausibility is much more important in some subgenres, most notably “hard sf”, than in others.

I like hard SF, but sometimes it lacks other qualities, like good characters. Plus for me, SF is mostly "what if" and if a question is good, I can stay a lot of handwavium. Say, The Left Hand of Darkness is solid sociological SF, but maybe a bit hand-wavy in biology, but this is perfectly fine, for it answers a sociological, not a biological question.

An understanding of science and technology can give SF an illusion of credibility but time reveals most SF writing to be what it is, fiction.

Sometimes the best ideas come from those outside the field of known constraints. Those that know what they know are often restrained by that knowledge. Those that don’t know have no limits.

That's a good point several of you bring up: science is a very broad term and writers can know one area of scientific study and really not know other areas.
And creativity helps when writing fiction!

Great question. Definitely works for some of my favorites like Lem and Clarke. More recently for Cixin Liu.