It's the age-old story: Without dreamers/scientists to dream the new idea and make the next big conceptual leap through fiction or postulation, where would the engineers be, except laying and running around the same tracks in the same closed system? Alas, the engineer/scientist who can also dream is rare. S/he is the genius, while fiction writers are the leapers. The sf writers challenge and inspire the genius to ask the question; I wonder if it's possible to...?
A.A. Bell.

p.s. Like any leap, it's the size that can be off-putting, i.e...
Sci-fi = the pulpier/trashier/less scientific end of the scale, which makes huge leaps over "possible" and "speculative" into the impossible, and which clearly has its place for its entertainment value and to the genius who is usually blinkered to one way of thinking, but is more likely to cause irritation to engineers and scientists because it's too easily dismissed as "ridiculous"

SF = the science-based variety of tomorrow/speculative/extrapolative science fiction (usually classier and leaning towards literary in style) and which strives toward the inspirational, but can also include action/adventure style scientists/engineers fighting for the survival of mankind, so it's hard to imagine any true brainiac not getting a kick out of that kind of scenario, LOL.

p.p.s . LOVE your math's question to verify posting a comment as a human... Nice :)

Just because people are into science doesn’t mean they must only be into science fiction. I don’t know anyone around my lab who reads it (or maybe they don’t admit to it?), and while many of my friends read books that would be in the ‘literary’ section of a book store, science people I know also read fantasy and non-fiction books (eg. Dawkins or Ayaan Hirsi Ali ‘Infidel’). We can find literature about our world, its cultures, geography, history and humanity, as it is right now fascinating – without resorting to future fantasy. I’m not saying don’t have scifi, but can’t your book reviews acknowledge a more widely literate scientific audience beyond a scifi stereotype?

There are plenty of novels that explore the intriguing world we live in today. Now you’re going to want some examples. umm … I recently read Amitav Ghosh’s ‘The Hungry Tide’ – the first time I’d learnt about the incredible Sundurbans. Or if you want an idea for the next magazine edition – Ian McEwan’s ‘Solar’ is coming out this month. Both of those novels are about scientists, but there are plenty of books which are interesting about our world without being about scientists (eg Barbara Kingsolver's 'The Poisonwood Bible' is a fascinating history of American geopolitics as well as a far better evocation of the Congo's environment than Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness'). Most of your science fiction is not truly any more about science than The Poisonwood Bible is.

I didn't know you had one...

If you don't like it, don't read it. just skip over it. I do sometimes.

Have always read sci-fi and will continue to do so. Keep it and the reviews. Love it, love the magazine.