[RadioAstronomer]

Do you get joy out of stifling people's imagination?

True story. When I was "flying" the Magellan spacecraft to Venus, I had a librarian in a public library get upset with me after she found out what I was doing for a living. She said, "All of you scientists have wrecked my enjoyment of reading SiFi involving the planet Venus". She so wanted it to be a watery swamp with astounding creatures; she truly wished we had never explored that world in reality.

You may want to live in a fantasy world, however; IMHO, there is enough exciting real stuff out there to spark anyone's imagination and wonder.

[PatrickHenry]

I had a librarian in a public library get upset with me after she found out what I was doing for a living.

I certainly hope you slapped her around, and then had your way with her, ideally right on top of her card catalog cabinet. The only librarian who was ever any good is Laura Bush.

[RightWingAtheist]

One of the reasons I love reading science fiction and fantasy is not that they are realistic, but that they are not real, and that they are a testament to the almost limitless boundaries of human imagination. When we start taking our fantasies of aliens, monsters, ghosts and what not literaly, we are only cheapening our imaginations.

My major appeal for science fiction is that it is based in what Hal Clement called "the disciplined imagination", a mindset based firmly in reason and known fact, and tries to stay in those boundaries-yet still manages to provide the basis for acts of stunning mental creativity. This mindset, of course, is also what leads us to do science as well.

[edwin hubble]

"You may want to live in a fantasy world, however; IMHO, there is enough exciting real stuff out there to spark anyone's imagination and wonder."

...and in the end it is always "stranger than we can imagine".