Advertising reaches out to touch the fantasy part of people's lives. And you know, most people's fantasies are pretty sad.

I don't think the scientific method and the science fictional method are really analogous. The thing about them is that neither is really practiced very much, at least not consciously. But the fact that they are methodical does relate them.

You can't trust reason. We threw it out of the ad profession long ago and have never missed it.

The future depicted in a good SF story ought to be in fact possible, or at least plausible. That means that the writer should be able to convince the reader (and himself) that the wonders he is describing really can come true... and that gets tricky when you take a good, hard look at the world around you.

A good science fiction story should be able to predict not the automobile but the traffic jam.

In terms of stories I would buy for a science fiction magazine, if they take place in the future, that might do it.

If you don't care about science enough to be interested in it on its own, you shouldn't try to write hard science fiction. You can write like Ray Bradbury and Harlan Ellison as much as you want.