Ray Bradbury on Fahrenheit 451 (and SF taking an idea and turning it into a story)

You’re dealing with book burning, a very serious subject. You’ve got to be careful you don’t start lecturing people. So you put your story a few years into the future and you invent a fireman who has been burning books instead of putting out fires.... and locked into [a great suspense story with a grand idea] is this great truth you want to tell, without pontificating....

Instead of looking into the face of truth, you [Perseus] look over your shoulder into the bronze surface of a reflecting shield. Then you reach back with your sword and cut off the head of Medusa.  Science fiction pretends to look into the future but it’s really looking at a reflection... already in front of us. So you have a ricochet vision, a ricochet that enables you to have fun with it, instead of being self-conscious and superintellectual. 

-- Ray Bradbury from a Paris Review interview