I’ve said before that Science Fiction is “fantasy with spandex”, though more accurately it might be described as “fantasy with military uniforms that don’t have buttons.” Another viable definition might be “fantasy that doesn’t make atheists uncomfortable.”
That last one may be the most accurate of all, but I think it can be refined a little bit: Science Fiction is fantasy which does not suggest the immortality of the soul.
Some evidence I have for this: no one suggests that Star Trek isn’t Science Fiction because of Q, but they do suggest that Battlestar Galactica isn’t Science Fiction because a character died and came back as an angel.
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Chris Lansdown 
Well, I prefer written SF/Fantasy over Television/Movie SF/Fantasy and have read (over the years) plenty of both that don’t fit into your definitions.
In written SF/F, there have been plenty of overlap between apparently SF stories and apparently fantasy.
There was an older Andre Norton SF novel (Dark Companion) that featured a young woman caught in the Realm of the Faerie and her struggle to rescue her charges from that Realm.
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Even in movies, Star Wars is a crossover.
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SF is the branch of fiction that attempts suspension of disbelief by appeal to the authority of science.
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That’s a different way to define it but I won’t argue with that definition.
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Do you mean “the authority of science” generally, rather than specific appeals, e.g. “the trilithium gel works by storing enormous energy because of the normally untenable bond angles”?
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Any way is fine. The point is that you can believe this because Science says so, regardless of the precise level of detail involved.
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That’s a very interesting idea. Thank you.
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While I don’t want to put words in Mary’s mouth, I took her statement a general comment not a specific appeal.
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I don’t know if I agree. The features of science-fiction as a literary genre have changed over time with even some authors like Philip K. Dick have introducing theological questions pertaining to the the soul in their books. Its hard to imagine any form of literary fiction not addressing the nature of the soul. At least as a symbol of human purpose and grit. The most basic definition of Science-fiction is ‘the unreal becoming real through the backdrop of science’. This definition doesn’t come from me but I think is simple enough to make sense. With this definition a science fiction work could have angels and such. I suppose one could re-write Revelation with a cyborg Jesus and it would still fall under the label of science-fiction.
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