也是一只自由泳的小鸟
Perhaps the sharpest distinction between science and pseudo-science is that science has a far keener appreciation of human imperfections and fallibility than does pseudoscience (or ‘inerrant’ revelation). If we resolutely refuse to acknowledge where we are liable to fall into error, then we can confidently expect that error - even serious error, profound mistakes - will be our companion forever.
If we teach only the findings and products of science - no matter how useful and even inspiring they may be - without communicating its critical method, how can the average person possibly distinguish science from pseudoscience? Both then are presented as unsupported assertion.
[…]
It is enormously easier to present in an appealing way the wisdom distilled from centuries of patient and collective interrogation of Nature than to detail the messy distillation apparatus. The method of science, as stodgy and grumpy as it may seem, is far more important than the findings of science.
When you’re in love, you want to tell the world. This book is a personal statement, reflecting my lifelong love affair with science.
原来还可以这样表白！
Every time a scientific paper presents a bit of data, it’s accompanied by an error bar - a quiet but insistent reminder that no knowledge is complete or perfect.
[…]
Imagine a society in which every speech in the Congressional Record, every television commercial, every sermon had an accompanying error bar or its equivalent.
好棒的 idea！
‘Spirit’ comes from the Latin word ‘to breathe’. What we breathe is air, which is certainly matter, however thin. Despite usage to the contrary, there is no necessary implication in the word ‘spiritual’ that we are talking of anything other than matter (including the matter of which the brain is made), or anything outside the realm of science. On occasion, I will feel free to use the word. Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality.
今天学到的！Spirit, soul, psyche 什么什么的全都来源于拉丁语 spīritus 和希腊语 ψυχή，也就是“呼吸”的意思
We are aware that revered scientists have been wrong. We understand human imperfection. We insist on independent and - to the extent possible - quantitative verification of proposed tenets of belief. We are constantly prodding, challenging, seeking contradictions or small, persistent residual errors, proposing alternative explanations, encouraging heresy. We give our highest rewards to those who convincingly disprove established beliefs.
[…]
This is one of the reasons that the organized religions do not inspire me with confidence. Which leaders of the major faiths acknowledge that their beliefs might be incomplete or erroneous and establish institutes to uncover possible doctrinal deficiencies? Beyond the test of everyday living, who is systematically testing the circumstances in which traditional religious teachings may no longer apply? […] What rewards are religious sceptics given by the established religions - or, for that matter, social and economic sceptics by the society in which they swim?
[…]
The fact that so little of the findings of modern science is prefigured in Scripture to my mind casts further doubt on its divine inspiration. But of course I might be wrong.
最后一句点睛之笔
The moon leaps In the Great River’s current…
Floating on the wind, What do I resemble?
Du Fu, Travelling at Night’
每次在外文书里读到中文古诗，我都有非常大的困难辨认到底是哪首
感觉已经翻译得面目全非了…
《旅夜书怀》
细草微风岸，危樯独夜舟。
星垂平野阔，月涌大江流。
名岂文章著，官应老病休。
飘飘何所似，天地一沙鸥。
原诗带感太太太太多了……
