A good science fiction story should be able to predict not the automobile but the traffic jam.

If you don't care about science enough to be interested in it on its own, you shouldn't try to write hard science fiction. You can write like Ray Bradbury and Harlan Ellison as much as you want.

I was thinking of writing a little foreword saying that history is, after all, based on people's recollections, which change with time.

People as me how I do research for my science fiction. The answer is, I never do any research.