It is in our power to change that in our own generation. As nations, we can apply to affairs of state the realism of science: holding to what works and discarding what does not. As individuals, we can grasp the commonsense ideas of science. And there is the most important lesson we must learn: it is the ideas of science that are remaking the world, not itsmechanical achievements. When we have learned that, we will see the achievements too in their proper place. The atomic bomb is not a great achievement of science. But science has made a great discovery: the fundamental discovery that we can tap atomic energy. That is an achievement not of bickering nations but of man. And we have the whole history of science to tell us that every fundamental discovery has in the end brought men more good than harm.I said "has in the end" almost by habit: has, if we are willing to look forward. Every scientist looks forward; what else is research but to begin what others will finish and enjoy? And what other incentive can satisfy any of us but that sense of the future?
我们是有能力在我们这一代改变这种状况的。作为民族，我们可以把科学的实事求是精神运用于处理国家事务上，坚持行之有效的，扬弃不见成效的。作为个人，我们可以掌握常识性的科学思想。有个最为重要的教训我们必须汲取：改造世界的正是科学思想，而不是科学上的具体成果。我们弄明白了这一点之后，也就会恰当地看待科学成就了。原子弹不是科学上的一项重大成果，但科学作出了一个重大发现，即我们可以利用原子能这一带有根本性质的发现。这不是那些争争吵吵的国家的成就，而是全人类的成就。科学的全部历史告诉我们，每一项带有根本性质的发现最终给人们带来的益处总要大于弊端。我几乎是习惯性地说了“最终”：科学上的重大发现都是如此，如果我们愿意向前看的话。每个科学家都是向前看的。如果科研不是着手去做将由别人完成并享受其成果的工作，那它又是什么呢？除了未来意识还有什么别的动机能使我们满足呢？
Disaster threatens us only if we perpetuate the division between science and our own everyday living and thinking. Let no one tell you again that science is only for specialists; it is not. It is no different from history or good talk or reading a novel ; some people doit better and some worse; some make a life's work of it; but it is within the reach of everybody.
除非我们把科学和我们的日常生活与思考永久分开，灾难就不会威胁我们。不要再听信人家说什么科学是专家独霸的天地;科学不是那么一回事。科学同历史、愉快的谈话、读小说没有什么两样；有些人干得好些，有些人做得差些，有些人把它作为终生事业，但科学人人都可参与。
Science is as human as Darwin and his bassoon, and no harder to understand. Its values arethe human values: honesty, tolerance, independence, commonsense, and singleness of mind. Its achievements are among the great achievements of man: the Greeks ranked Pythagoras with Homer.And it has made its way not secretly but by sticking to the plain facts and only the facts — never mind who discovered them or who challenges them. Science listened equally to Newton and his friend Christopher Wren, to Darwin and his critic Samuel Butler: and listens today to every bright lad with an idea as patiently as to the professors.
科学跟达尔文和他的巴松管一样富有人情，而且一点也不难懂。它的价值观念是人类的价值观念：诚实、宽容、独立思考、明事理讲实际、专心致志。它的成就是人类伟大成就的一部分：希腊人把毕达哥拉斯和荷马放在同样崇高的地位。科学进步不是秘密取得的，而是靠了坚持明明白白的事实、只讲事实——从来不管是谁发现了这些事实，也不管是谁向它们提出了挑战。科学一视同仁地聆听牛顿和他的友人克里斯托弗·雷恩，聆听达尔文和他的批评者塞缪尔·勃特勒；今天科学像倾听教授一样耐心地倾听每个有一得之见的聪明男童。
来源:可可英语 //www.utensil-race.com/daxue/201702/467813.shtml
评论
打印
