even the NSF is stuck with anecdotal evidence

[ursula]

This article doesn't answer my question. But it does have lots of other interesting tidbits, including a link to an article on the correlation between interest in science fiction and interest in the space program, and the fact that people with higher incomes are less likely to watch the X-Files, but equally likely to watch Star Trek.

Comments

[nobu.livejournal.com]

i read sci/fi. i hate math. i like science, but i wouldn't do it for a profession unless they just let me have a lab and stuff and NO paperwork.
i like reading. that is the correlation. :P

[ursula]

Sure, but you could like reading and be reading only biographies, or something.

I guess I'm not the only one who hates X-FIles

[lubeck.livejournal.com]

I'm a big scifi nut. I can't get enough star treck, even when I know it sucks form a storytelling aspect. I'm an engineer, and we chat at work about the odd articles we read in magazines about cutting edge tech that has no applications yet just to spark our imaginations. I think it's important to keep that creative aspect in your science or you just keep applying the same old ideas.

Our quote of the week last week was by me:
"Everyone makes mistakes. If you fail to try anything new you are doomed to repeat the same mistakes and will never learn anything new."

[ex-greythist387.livejournal.com]

Since my last visit to your lj :) I've been reminded that a fair number of the people who have worked in some capacity for space programs wrote/write sf. There's a dialogic relation of some sort, then, between contributions to publicly accessible, imaginative writing about space and formative work behind the scenes that enables generation n+0.5 to rethink what's possible. I imagine that any studies of sf writers with ties to a space program will have been written by literary types--i.e., perhaps not the sort of analysis you'd want. There's a fairly good distribution of age and level of expertise / formal training among the writers that come to mind, too, which makes things more interesting, although I can't think offhand of anyone younger than Stephen Baxter and Wil McCarthy.

Completely unrelated to sci-fi...

[flammifera.livejournal.com]

(even though I've been enjoying starting to read some...)

My habits of procrastination have simply spiraled out of control, as an explanation for this frivolous question. I vaguely remember someone recommending a fanfic in which Snape disappeared, but he was really a raven that Harry had, and I feel like it must've been you, maybe? But I forget the name. :(

Re: Completely unrelated to sci-fi...

[ursula]

I'll rec you sf, too, if you need more help procrastinating . . .

The raven story is by (*cough*) Letitia Landon. It's here. The first chapters are Harry angsting with many silly metaphors; Snape shows up later on and provides a saner point of view.

Re: Completely unrelated to sci-fi...

[flammifera.livejournal.com]

Thanks! :)

and I'll remember to ask you when I'm in the mood for reading sci-fi :)