I think in many ways, Hogarth comes off as a typical pompus scientist, as he generally seems good at tearing down the ideas of others. I admit to the harshness of Hogarth's character, but he is undeniably the voice of what science is. The entire pursuit of truth is based on the peer review process, and Hogarth's demolishing personality is exactly what SHOULD be happening in science. Lem isn't satirizing the scientific process through his main character's actions, he's satirizing the scientific process through the others that Hogarth sees. In essence, Lem is speaking through Hogarth, not setting up Hogarth as the one being satirized. This gives us clues to what exactly Lem has in mind when Hogarth rips apart other scientists attempts at deducing what exactly the message means or implies. The first answers his colleagues come up with are incredibly biased, being based in black and white contexts of "good and evil" nature of the Senders, or whether or not Frog Eggs represents some alien plot to take them over. Hogarth/Lem is right in calling them out as fools, since they're obviously projecting their own views on the message instead of basing their conclusions on hard facts. The message-as-a-Rorschach-test theme plays a prominent role here, and even ties into Hogarth/Lem's brief critique of science fiction, which unsurprisingly, bears resemblance to the hypothesis put up by the scientists that Hogarth criticizes.
The other issue at hand when considering Lem's critique of science is the very question of the signal itself. It's pretty clear that by the end of the book , no one has an answer after years of research. It immediately raises of the question of whether or not it was actually worth it to invest the time, energy, and money into that kind of research. Hogarth gives some justification of it, explaining that many new advances came out of the fields post HMV, so from a purely practical application, the project was probably worth it. But it certainly is telling that even after, it's impossible for humans to even discern whether or not the signal was natural or not. Clearly Lem is telling us that this is beyond human comprehension, beyond what humans can know, at least at this time. Is Lem trying to indicate that humans are not supposed to know certain things? Probably not, else Lem would have written a book sternly anti-scientific. However, I think Lem wants to recognize the falsehood of others preconceptions that science is a be-all end-all answer for things we don't know. If anything, Lem showcased the fragility and limited power of science, even when you bring the best and the brightest together.
You bring up the critique on science fiction. I'd agree that this book seems to point out how most science fiction hands us the aliens. They show up, or we find traces of civilizations, or some irrefutable truth. But would you consider a critique of whether this book itself is science fiction? I'd say for something to be science fiction, some event, individual, or ability has to be drastically be different from reality. For example, space travel, an alien race, or a time machine. With this dramatic change, comes a comment about current society, but through this story of a scientifically different society. What is the difference in HMV? There is no certain differentiation between reality and the book's reality. We have sounds from space that could theoretically be from aliens. We don't know, just like there is not certainty in HMV. Even in Contact, the viewer is given certainty. This doesn't exist. Yes, there is the social message (though I'd say it isn't simply one about science being enough, but human imagination/thought in totality, from science to theology), but it lacks the science fiction aspect. It seem simply a work of fiction which includes science. The only possible answer to this could be the frog eggs, though do you believe that is enough?
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