The proof of the experiment is if their behaviour

The proof of the experiment is if their behaviour seems interesting, plausible, revealing about human nature. Seems to whom? To the 'reader' - who is not Mr Cleverdick the reviewer, or Mr Sycophant the publicist, but some kind of ideal reader, shrewd, intelligent, demanding but fair, whose persona you try to adopt as you read your own work in the process of composition. I sort of resent the idea of science poking its nose into this business. Hasn't science already appropriated enough of reality ? Must it lay claim to the intangible invisible essential self as well?
I'm a self-taught two-finger typist, prone to error (for which reason I Thank God - and science- for the invention of the word-processor). But some words I always seem to mistype. One of them is 'science' which invariably appears on the screen of my computer as 'scince', with a reproachful red wiggly line drawn under it by the automatic spell-checker. I duly correct it, but there is something onomatopoeically appropriate about ?scince? (pronounce skince) which I am sorry to lose: it expresses the cold, pitiless, reductive character of scientific explanations of the world. I feel this hard, cold, almost ruthless quality In Ralph Messenger. His reaction to Martin's death, when the subject came up in the course of lunch, was like having a bowl of icy water dashed in one's face.It shocked and angered me - I almost got up and left him at the table. But I'm glad I didn't. I might never have seen the Karinthy mural, for one thing. It provoked all kinds of ideas.
From the book 'Thinks? by David Lodge