The beauty of science

我原是学理科的，最早学化学。我学得不坏，老师讲的东西我都懂。化学光懂了不成，还要做实验，做实验我就不行了。用移液管移液体，别人都用橡皮球吸液体，我老用嘴去吸——我知道移液管不能用嘴吸，只是橡皮球经常找不着——吸别的还好，有一回我竟去吸浓氨水，好像吸到了陈年的老尿罐里，此后有半个月嗓子哑掉了。做毕业论文时，我做个萃取实验，烧瓶里盛了一大瓶子氯仿，滚滚沸腾着，按说不该往外跑，但我的装置漏气，一会儿就漏个精光。漏掉了我就去领新的，新的一会儿又漏光。一个星期我漏掉了五大瓶氯仿，漏掉的起码有一小半被我吸了进去。这种东西是种麻醉药，我吸进去的氯仿足以醉死十条大蟒。说也奇怪，我居然站着不倒，只是有点迷糊。在这种情况下，我还把实验做了出来，证明我的化学课学得蛮好。但是老师和同学一致认为我不适合干化学。尤其是和我在一个实验室里做实验的同学更是这样认为，他们也吸进了一些氯仿，远没我吸得多，却都抱怨说头晕。他们还称我为实验室里的人民公敌。我自己也是这样想的：继续干化学，毒死我自己还不要紧，毒死同事就不好了。我对这门科学一直恋恋不舍：学化学的女孩很多，有不少长得很漂亮。

后来我去学数学，在这方面我很有天分。无论是数字运算，还是公式推导，我都像闪电一样快，只是结果不一定全对。人家都说，我做起数学题来像小日本一样疯狂：我们这一代人在银幕上见到的日本人很多，这些人总是头戴战斗帽，挺着刺刀不知死活地冲锋，别人说我做数学题时就是这么个模样。学数学的女孩少，长得也一般。但学这门科学我害不到别人，所以我也很喜欢。有一回考试，我看看试题，觉得很容易，就像刮风一样做完了走人。等分数出来，居然考了全班的最低分。找到老师一问，原来那天的试题分为两部分，一半在试题纸的正面，我看到了，也做了。还有一半在反面，我根本就没看见。我赶紧看看这些没做的题，然后说：这些题目我都会做。老师说，知道你会，但是没做也不能给分。他还说什么“就是要整整你这屁股眼大掉了心的人”。这就是胡说八道了。谁也不能大到了这个地步。一门课学到了要挨整的程度，就不如不学。

我现在既不是化学家，也不是数学家，更不是物理学家。我靠写文章为生，与科技绝缘——只是有时弄弄计算机。这个行当我会的不少，从最低等的汇编语言到最新潮的C++全会写，硬件知识也有一些。但从我自己的利益来看，我还不如一点都不会，省得整夜不睡，鼓捣我的电脑，删东加西，最后把整个系统弄垮，手头又没有软件备份。于是，在凌晨五点钟，我在朋友家门前踱来踱去，抽着烟。早起的清洁工都以为我失恋了，这门里住着我失去的恋人，我在表演失魂落魄给她看。其实不是的，电脑死掉了，我什么都干不了，更睡不着觉。好容易等到天大亮了，我就冲进去，向他借软件来恢复系统。——瞎扯了这么多，现在言归正传，我要说的是：我和科学没有缘分，但是我爱科学，甚至比真正的科学家还要爱得多些。

正如罗素先生所说，近代以来，科学建立了一种理性的权威——这种权威和以往任何一种权威不同。科学的道理不同于“夫子曰”，也不同于红头文件。科学家发表的结果，不需要凭借自己的身份来要人相信。你可以拿一支笔、一张纸，或者备几件简单的实验器材，马上就可以验证别人的结论。当然，这是一百年前的事。验证最新的科学成果要麻烦得多，但是这种原则一点都没有改变。科学和人类其他事业完全不同，它是一种平等的事业。真正的科学没有在中国诞生，这是有原因的。这是因为中国的文化传统里没有平等：从打孔孟到如今，讲的全是尊卑有序。上面说了，拿煤球炉子可以炼钢，你敢说要做实验验证吗？你不敢。炼出牛屎一样的东西，也得闭着眼说是好钢。在这种框架之下，根本就不可能有科学。

科学的美好，还在于它是种自由的事业。它有点像它的一个产物互联网（Internet）——谁都没有想建造这样一个全球性的电脑网络，大家只是把各自的网络连通，不知不觉就把它造成了。科学也是这样的，世界上各地的人把自己的发明贡献给了科学，它就诞生了。这就是科学的实质。还有一样东西也是这么诞生的，那就是市场经济。做生意的方法，你发明一些，我发明一些，慢慢地形成了现在这个东西，你看它不怎么样，但它还无可替代。一种自由发展而成的事业，总是比个人能想出来的强大得多。参与自由的事业，像做自由的人一样，令人神往。当然，扯到这里就离了题。现在总听到有人说，要有个某某学，或者说，我们要创建有民族风格的某某学，仿佛经他这么一规划、一呼吁，在他画出的框子里就会冒出一种真正的科学。老母鸡“格格”地叫一阵，挣红了脸，就能生一个蛋，但科学不会这样产生。人会情绪激动，又会爱慕虚荣。科学没有这些毛病，对人的这些毛病，它也不予回应。最重要的是：科学就是它自己，不在任何人的管辖之内。

对于科学的好处，我已经费尽心机阐述了一番，当然不可能说得全面。其实我最想说的是：科学是人创造的事业，但它比人类本身更为美好。我的老师说过，科学对中国人来说，是种外来的东西，所以我们对它的理解，有过种种偏差：始则惊为洪水猛兽，继而当巫术去理解，再后来把它看做一种宗教，拜倒在它的面前。他说这些理解都是不对的，科学是个不断学习的过程。我老师说得很对。我能补充的只是：除了学习科学已有的内容，还要学习它所有、我们所无的素质。我现在不学科学了，但我始终在学习这些素质。这就是说，人要爱平等、爱自由，人类开创的一切事业中，科学最有成就，就是因为有这两样做根基。对个人而言，没有这两样东西，不仅谈不上成就，而且会活得像一只猪。比这还重要的只有一样，就是要爱智慧。无论是个人，还是民族，做聪明人才有前途，当笨蛋肯定是要倒霉。大概是在一年多以前吧，我写了篇小文章讨论这个问题，论证人爱智慧比当笨蛋好些。结果冒出一位先生把我臭骂一顿，还说我不爱国——真是好没来由！我只是论证一番，又没强逼着你当聪明人。你爱当笨蛋就去当吧，你有这个权利。

I was originally a science major, and I was the first to study chemistry. I'm not bad. I know everything the teacher says. I can't understand chemical light. I have to do experiments. I Can't do experiments. The pipette moves the liquid, others all use the rubber ball to sthe liquid, I always use the mouth to si know pipette can not use the mouth to s but the rubber ball often can not be found-sother good, once I actually went to sstrong ammonia water, seems to sinto the old urine pot, and then half a month after the throat hoarse. When I was doing my thesis, I was doing an extraction experiment, and I had a big bottle of chloroform in a flask, and it was boiling, and it wasn't supposed to go out, but my device was leaking, and it was going to be gone in a second. If I miss it, I get a new one, and then I miss it again. I missed five large bottles of chloroform a week, and I inhaled at least a half of what I missed. This stuff is a narcotic. I inhaled enough chloroform to kill ten pythons. Strange to say, I'm still standing. I'm just a little confused. In this case, I also did experiments to prove that my chemistry class is pretty good. But the teacher and the students agreed that I was not cut out for chemistry. In particular, the students I worked with in a lab felt this way. They also inhaled some chloroform, not nearly as much as I did, and complained of dizziness. They called me an enemy of the people in the lab. I also think so: continue to do chemistry, poisoning myself is not important, poisoning colleagon the bad. I have been reluctant to part with this science: Many Girls study chemistry, many of them are very beautiful. And then I went to math, and I was really good at math. I'm as fast as lightning when it comes to numbers and formulas, but I'm not always right. They say I'm as mad as a JAP when it comes to math: my generation saw a lot of Japanese on screen, always in combat hats and charging around with bayonets, that's what people say I look like when I'm doing math. Girls who study math are few and not so good-looking. But I can't hurt anyone with this science, so I like it, too. One time, I looked at the test qions and found it was very easy. I finished it and left like the wind. When the grade came out, I got the lowest grade in my class. Find a teacher to ask, the original day of the test is divided into two parts, half of the paper on the front, I saw, also do. The other half is on the back. I didn't even see it. I quickly looked at the qions and said, I can do all of them. The teacher said, "I know you will, but you can't score if you don't do it.". He also said that "is to mess with you this ass-hole big heart-broken person.". This is bullshit. No one can be that big. If you learn a subject to the extent that it needs to be rounded, it is better not to learn it. I am neither a chemist, nor a mathematician, nor a physicist. I write for a living, insulated from technology -- just computers sometimes. I know a lot about this industry, from the lowest level of assembly language to the latest C + + all can write, some hardware knowledge. But in my own interest, I might as well not be at all, saving myself from staying up all night, fiddling with my computer, deleting stuff, and finally bringing down the whole system without having a copy of the software on hand. So at five o'clock in the morning, I paced up and down in front of my friend's house, smoking a cigarette. The early sweepers think I'm broken up, and there's my lost love in the door, and I'm performing Abandon for her. It's not. The computer's dead. I Can't do anything. I Can't sleep. When it was finally daylight, I rushed in and asked him for software to restore the system. Now, without further ado, I would like to say that I have no affinity with science, but I love it even more than a real scientist. As Mr Rll says, in modern times science has established a rational authority -- unlike any authority before it. The principle of science is different from that of "Confucius", and it is also different from the red-headed document. Scientists don't have to be themselves to publish their results to be believed. You can get a pen, a piece of paper, or a few simple laboratory equipment, you can immediately verify the conclusions of others. Of co, that was a hundred years ago. Verifying the latest science is much trickier, but that principle has not changed at all. Science is completely different from other human undertakings. It is an equal undertaking. There is a reason that real science was not born in China. This is because there is no equality in Chinese culture: from Confucius and Mencius to the present, it is all about order. It says you can make steel with a briquette stove. Do you dare to test it? You wouldn't dare. To make something that looks like cow shit, you have to close your eyes and say it's good steel. In this framework, there is no science at all. The beauty of science is that it is a free enterprise. It's kind of like its creation, the Internet -- no one wanted to build a global computer network, everyone just connected their own networks and created it without realizing it. The same is true of science, where people from all over the world contribute their inventions to science, and it is born. That's the nature of science. The other thing that was born in the same way was the market economy. The Way You do business, you invent some, I invent some, slowly formed the present thing, yoe it is not good, but it is irreplaceable. A free enterprise is always more powerful than the individual can think of. To join the cause of freedom is as desirable as to be a free man. Of co, that's beside the point. Now, it is often said that there should be a so-and-so school, or that we should create a so-and-so school with a national style, as if by such a plan and such an appeal, there's a real science that pops up in the frames that he draws. An old hen can lay an egg by squawking and blushing, but science does not. People can be emotional and vain. Science doesn't have these problems, and it doesn't respond to them in people. Most important of all: science is what it is, and no one has jurisdiction over it. I have tried my best to spell out the benefits of science, but it is impossible to say all of them. What I really want to say is this: Science is a human enterprise, but it is better than man himself. My teacher said that science is a foreign thing to the Chinese, so our understanding of it has been subject to a variety of biases: first, it was terrifying, then it was witchcraft, later, it was seen as a religion, prostrated before it. He says these understandings are wrong, that science is a learning process. My teacher was right. All I can add is this: in addition to learning what science already has, we must also learn what it has and what we do not have. I don't do science now, but I'm still learning these qualities. That is to say, one should love equality and freedom. Of all the undertakings created by Human Beings, science has been most successful because of these two foundations. For the individual, without these two things, not only can not be achieved, but will live like a pig. There is only one thing more important than that, and that is to love wisdom. Whether it is an individual or a nation, to be a smart person has a future, to be a fool is definitely bad l A little over a year ago, I wrote a little article on the subject, arguing that it's better to be wise than stupid. A gentleman came out and scolded me and said I was unpatriotic-what a good reason! I'm making an argument. I'm not forcing you to be smart. You can be an idiot all you want. You have every right to be.

标题: 科学的美好
作者: 王小波
字数: 2381
简介: 我原是学理科的，最早学化学。我学得不坏，老师讲的东西我都懂。化学光懂了不成，还要做实验，做实验我就不行了。用移液管移液体，别人都用橡皮球吸液