Neil Gaiman talks about Science fiction

This is not hard scientific data, but deserves our attention. Neil Gaiman talks about the influence of Science Fiction:

"I was in China in 2007, at the first party-approved science fiction and fantasy convention in Chinese history. And at one point I took a top official aside and asked him Why? SF had been disapproved of for a long time. What had changed?

It's simple, he told me. The Chinese were brilliant at making things if other people brought them the plans. But they did not innovate and they did not invent. They did not imagine. So they sent a delegation to the US, to Apple, to Microsoft, to Google, and they asked the people there who were inventing the future about themselves. And they found that all of them had read science fiction when they were boys or girls."

 

From: Neil Gaiman, Why our future depends on libraries, reading and daydreaming, http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/oct/15/neil-gaiman-future-libraries-reading-daydreaming

See also for more discussion of Neil Gaiman's quote: http://damiengwalter.com/2011/09/05/science-fiction-is-the-most-valuable-art-ever-discuss/