There was a story in Analog several years ago that set the definition for me.
On a dark stormy night, workers in a lab are testing urine samples for drugs. The machines start malfunctioning.
Strange things are going on. There's one sample that keeps causing machines to stop or otherwise do things they shouldn't.
Creepiness ensues, but it turns out to all be nothing; the sample had been spilled and someone tried to cover up the actions that led to that by adding something to it, alcohol, I think it was.
There were absolutely no future technologies, aliens, space travel, supernatural occurrences. Just a fiction story based on what actually happens to actual equipment in real settings, if things go a bit wrong. Science-centric fiction.
With that definition, things like House and NCIS become Science Fiction, or the earlier term, "scientifiction."
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