I'm not going to hold Jeph to any literary/technical standards higher than we could hold Asimov to, I don't know why anybody else would want to.
Questionable Content is about as science-fiction as
Red Dwarf---the `science' is loose, thematic, focusing on the persons, their interactions. I haven't read Asimov, but any his---anyone's, really---science fiction, even if focused on the personal or social, should be held to as high a standard as one would research---the rest being classed sciencey-fantasy.
That's a fair assumption, but when they encounter facts that don't support their assumption, they cling to assumptions and reject learning. It's really not the assumption that's the problem, it's the insistence.
And then there are persons correct by definition, often mistaken as obstinately clinging to outmoded ideals. The new data cannot invalidate their creed, because their creed adapts the new data, maintaining it's effective form. When it does become outmoded, the creed is reformed, preserving as much of it's effective form as possible. For example: Mathematics---has been more-or-less the same for a millennium, reformed (from arithmetical to logical foundations) about a century ago, after a couple centuries of dense research, and likely due another reformation in.. who knows, but there seems to be a minor one (set theory to category theory) likely ready sometime this century.
We don't need to fight our desire for intellectual stability---we need to channel it well.