Random thought that’s probably an obvious ‘duh!’ statement – the fact that we don’t know nearly everything there is to know about science is the very thing that allows us to write science fiction literature. Pretty obvious statement, I know, but it did occur to me that if we knew everything there was to know about science, about the universe and all its workings, we probably wouldn’t have much left to write about that would be all that interesting. Much of science fiction is based upon what we know, but so much is speculation about what we don’t know. ((Hence, the reason that science fiction is lumped under the heading of ‘speculative fiction’.)) But then again, maybe we would still be able to create interesting science fiction works even if we _did_ know everything, simply because so many of the concepts and principles in science are so big and so awesome that they would continue to wow us, no matter how well we knew and understood them. It’s just that, with the passing of time, new ideas lose their novelty and become ideas that we take for granted. ((See, the automobile, communication technology, etc.))
Fantasy literature has a bit more of a free reign, of course. In fantasy writing we create entirely new worlds, where the rules can be just about anything we want them to be. The fundamentals are pretty hard and fast, of course – we’re required to have human beings in our stories, else we don’t have a common point of reference and cannot understand the principles and concepts contained therein because the landscape would be entirely and utterly alien. ((The same goes for scifi.)) But the rules of magic and power can come under whatever rules we, the writers, can come up with from our own heads. What we know or don’t know about the real world has little effect on what happens, or can happen, in our new world.
Then again, maybe science fiction can do this, too, though possibly at the risk of alienating every hardcore, hard-scifi aficionado on the face of the planet. The only real rule that scifi has to adhere to is that the story centers around some sort of technology that does not yet exist. ((Or one that could _never_ exist.)) Beyond that, it is the author’s choice what actual scientific knowledge the stories embraces, if the story centers on any such concepts at all. Either way, what we don’t know can only help us as authors of speculative fiction to create fantastic worlds where virtually anything is possible.
