Hard Sci-Fi? (Score 5, Interesting)

Mr. Niven, How do you respond to writers such as Greg Bear and Gregory Binford who complain that there is no "hard" science fiction today of the sort that Asmov wrote? Do you explain to them that Asmimov wrote pulp fiction, even if it was pretty good pulp fiction; or do you point out that stories without character development but lots of whiz-bang tech were part of the era they were written in and fans have moved on?