I think what that original study really found was that the people running the study were too stupid to imagine worlds way different than our own.
Some of the most inspiring, thought provoking, deeply meaningful stuff I've read has been science fiction. I can guarantee you that most of the people I know that do not like science fiction simply don't have any real ability or inclination to understand what's going on in the stories.
If you consider sci-fi to be poorly written trash as a whole then I'm going to assume you're missing the entire point of the novels and discounting the real meat of those stories as random technobabble that happens around the "real story" of interpersonal relationships. In other words, you're an unimaginative and ignorant fool.
Many times the people in the story are simply there to help paint a picture of how that world works. It's not just a strange setting for yet another three way romance story.
Exploring the human condition is nice and all, but trying to imagine the future you want and seeking out material to help you with that and inspire you is how the world moves forward.
Maybe there are some people who can't get past obviously wrong story elements to enjoy the world those elements make possible... I almost pity those people. Sure, sometimes there's something pretty difficult to get over (like a lot of the science in Star Trek)... but if you let go of that you can really enjoy these things. "So... if a person dies they turn into a monster that can walk around for years to spread the disease by biting other people.... without any functional circulatory system or food intake required at all... but even after that degree of resilience somehow just sticking a thin blade into anywhere in their head kills them..." "Uh, yeah." "Great! so what happens next?"