If booksellers started calling sci-fi books fantasy, a lot of people would be very confused (me included). No matter how ineptly named sci-fi books are, I still see them as a separate genre from fantasy. And I don't actually think that sci-fi is a bad name for the genre, because to some extent, the authors do try to explain stuff with science, or treat something as theoretically possible, even if it isn't. Sci-fi=our normal, physical world. Fantasy=some alternate magical world. But that's just how I see it. :)
But that's just my point! Seeing the kinds of things that appear in scifi as more "normal" than fantasy is nothing more than the result of prejudice our society has against the fantasy genre. There's nothing scientific about it except what we can imagine. I'll admit that scifi and fantasy should have some distinction, but the name is still entirely inappropriate.
I don't think that the name sci-fi implies that the "science" in the book is legitimate, only that you're supposed to pretend that it's possibly legit science. So, you're right in that there's a more subtle distinction between sci-fi and fantasy than one might think, and that sci-fi can be a misleading name, but I still don't think that it's an undefendable (Is that the right word?) term.
Ok well first off its not that big a deal. There is a reason for the name science fiction and that can be originated with good old Star Wars. Star Wars is indeed a fictional world of science and fantasy. Its not quite fantasy enough to be classified as fantasy cause its all futuristic and I'm pretty sure that we're not going to be able to make lightsabers and blasters and giant war ships the size of moons. So what else could we call it? Space fiction? Future fiction? Alien Fiction(Yes thats it their books about Mexicans!) No its science fiction cause thats how its always been and most likely always will be. Though I do see and respect where you're coming from, but its not really something that needs to be changed.
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