浩瀚萬象（ONENESS）

（上承 魔鬼盤據的世界 — 原版序文）

1

The Most Precious Thing

第一章　人生至寶

All our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike - and yet it is the most precious thing we have.

Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

我們對現實所進行的所有科學研究都還在起步階段，但這卻是我們所擁有最寶貴的東西。

—— 愛因斯坦（1879－1955）

As I got off the plane, he was waiting for me, holding up a scrap of cardboard with my name scribbled on it. I was on my way to a conference of scientists and TV broadcasters devoted to the seemingly hopeless prospect of improving the presentation of science on commercial television. The organizers had kindly sent a driver. 'Do you mind if I ask you a question?' he said as we waited for my bag. No, I didn't mind. 'Isn't it confusing to have the same name as that scientist guy?' It took me a moment to understand. Was he pulling my leg?

當我下飛機時，他已經手舉著一塊寫有我名字的紙板等在那兒了。我此行的目的是要參加一個會議，與會的還有一些科學家和電視主播，討論的內容是增加商業電視台的科學節目，但在我看來這種努力似乎是徒勞無功。主辦單位很周到的派了一位司機開車來接我，在等托運行李的時候，他說：“你不介意我問個問題吧？”“當然不會。”“你和那個搞科學的傢伙同名，不怕被人弄混了嗎？”我愣了一下，沒明白他的意思，他不是在和我開玩笑吧？

Finally, it dawned on me. 'I am that scientist guy,' I answered. He paused and then smiled. 'Sorry. That's my problem. I thought it was yours too.'

後來我弄懂他的意思後，回答說：“我就是那個搞科學的傢伙。”他愣了一下，然後笑了笑：“真對不起，我沒認出來，我也想那個人應該就是你。”

He put out his hand. 'My name is William F. Buckley.' (Well, he wasn't exactly William F. Buckley, but he did bear the name of a contentious and well-known TV interviewer, for which he doubtless took a lot of good-natured ribbing.)

他伸出手來說：“我叫威廉•F•巴克利”（哦，他的確不是那個好辯的著名電視記者小威廉•F•巴克利，但與他同名，肯定會經常被拿來開玩笑揶揄一番。）

As we settled into the car for the long drive, the windshield wipers rhythmically thwacking, he told me he was glad I was 'that scientist guy' - he had so many questions to ask about science. Would I mind?

我們坐上車開始漫長的路程，擋風玻璃的雨刷有節奏地來回擺動。他告訴我，他很高興我就是那個“搞科學的傢伙”，他說他有許多關於科學的問題要問我，問我是否介意。

No, I didn't mind.

不，我不介意。

And so we got to talking. But not, as it turned out, about science. He wanted to talk about frozen extraterrestrials languishing in an Air Force base near San Antonio, 'channelling' (a way to hear what's on the minds of dead people - not much, it turns out), crystals, the prophecies of Nostradamus, astrology, the shroud of Turin .. . He introduced each portentous subject with buoyant enthusiasm. Each time I had to disappoint him:

就這樣我們聊了起來，但話題都不是科學。他想談的是有關聖安東尼奧附近的一個空軍基地中，正在冷藏而奄奄一息的外星人；還有“通靈”（能聽見死者正在想什麼 —— 其實想法並不多）、水晶球、諾斯特拉達穆斯的預言、占星術、杜林裹屍布（譯註：基督徒認為它可能是耶穌被釘死在十字架後所用的）......等等。他滔滔不絕向我述說每一個懸疑的項目，但每次我都不得不掃他的興。

'The evidence is crummy,' I kept saying. 'There's a much simpler explanation.'

“證據太薄弱，”我一再表示：“那些說法都太粗糙。”

He was, in a way, widely read. He knew the various speculative nuances on, let's say, the 'sunken continents' of Atlantis and Lemuria. He had at his fingertips what underwater expeditions were supposedly just setting out to find the tumbled columns and broken minarets of a once-great civilization whose remains were now visited only by deep sea luminescent fish and giant kraken. Except . . . while the ocean keeps many secrets, I knew that there isn't a trace of oceanographic or geophysical support for Atlantis and Lemuria. As far as science can tell, they never existed. By now a little reluctantly, I told him so.

就某方面來說，他是讀了不少書。他知道許多稀奇古怪又懸疑奧妙的事情，像是“沉沒的大陸”「亞特蘭提斯」和「雷姆利亞」之類的。他很清楚即將開始的海底探測，那是要去找尋那曾經一度輝煌的文明遺跡，而那些倒塌的拱柱和破碎的伊斯蘭叫拜樓（又稱光塔），目前恐怕只有在深海的冷光魚和傳說中巨大的挪威海怪曾造訪過。然而儘管海洋中蘊藏著許多秘密，但我知道沒有任何有關「亞特蘭提斯」和「雷姆利亞」的照片或海底痕跡。就目前科學的研究水準來看，它們從未存在過。就這樣，我有點勉強地告訴了他我的看法。

As we drove through the rain, I could see him getting glummer and glummer. I was dismissing not just some errant doctrine, but a precious facet of his inner life.

當我們在雨中行駛時，我能夠看出他逐漸變得有些悶悶不樂。我所否定的，不僅僅是一些錯誤的說法，而是他內心中蘊藏已久的寶貴信念。

And yet there's so much in real science that's equally exciting, more mysterious, a greater intellectual challenge - as well as being a lot closer to the truth. Did he know about the molecular building blocks of life sitting out there in the cold, tenuous gas between the stars? Had he heard of the footprints of our ancestors found in 4-million-year-old volcanic ash? What about the raising of the Himalayas when India went crashing into Asia? Or how viruses, built like hypodermic syringes, slip their DNA past the host organism's defences and subvert the reproductive machinery of cells; or the radio search for extraterrestrial intelligence; or the newly discovered ancient civilization of Ebla that advertised the virtues of Ebla beer? No, he hadn't heard. Nor did he know, even vaguely, about quantum indeterminacy, and he recognized DNA only as three frequently linked capital letters.

然而在真正的科學領域中，有許多事物同樣會令人激動，更加不可思議，更具有智力的挑戰性，而且更接近真相。他知道星際間寒冷稀薄的氣體中，存在著醞釀生命的分子構建模塊嗎？可聽說過在400萬年前的火山灰裡，發現了早期人類始祖的足跡嗎？又知道關於印度板塊撞擊亞洲板塊從而導致了喜瑪拉雅山脈的隆起嗎？或者聽過病毒是怎樣將DNA像針一樣刺過有機體的防線並改變細胞複製功能的？知道如何利用無線電波找尋外星智慧生命？聽過最近才發現的「埃勃拉」古文明正好為埃勃拉啤酒大作廣告嗎？不，他既未聽說過也不知道這些事，他甚至對量子的不確定性都沒有起碼的瞭解，他所認知的DNA，只不過是三個經常寫在一起的大寫字母罷了。

Mr 'Buckley' - well-spoken, intelligent, curious - had heard virtually nothing of modern science. He had a natural appetite for the wonders of the Universe. He wanted to know about science. It's just that all the science had gotten filtered out before it reached him. Our cultural motifs, our educational system, our communications media had failed this man. What society permitted to trickle through was mainly pretence and confusion. It had never taught him how to distinguish real science from the cheap imitation. He knew nothing about how science works.

非常健談、聰明而又好奇的“巴克利”先生幾乎對現代科學一無所悉。他對宇宙間的神奇事物具有本能的好奇心，他想瞭解科學，但是科學在未到達他的面前時，就已拒於門外。我們的文化形態、教育體系以及大眾媒體毀了他。我們的社會為那些令人分辨不清的假像，提供了傳播的溫床，而從來沒有教導他如何辨別真正的科學與廉價的模仿，以致他對科學方法一無所知。

There are hundreds of books about Atlantis - the mythical continent that is said to have existed something like 10,000 years ago in the Atlantic Ocean. (Or somewhere. A recent book locates it in Antarctica.) The story goes back to Plato, who reported it as hearsay coming down to him from remote ages. Recent books authoritatively describe the high level of Atlantean technology, morals and spirituality, and the great tragedy of an entire populated continent sinking beneath the waves. There is a 'New Age' Atlantis, 'the legendary civilization of advanced sciences,' chiefly devoted to the 'science' of crystals. In a trilogy called Crystal Enlightenment by Katrina Raphaell - the books mainly responsible for the crystal craze in America - Atlantean crystals read minds, transmit thoughts, are the repositories of ancient history and the model and source of the pyramids of Egypt. Nothing approximating evidence is offered to support these assertions. (A resurgence of crystal mania may follow the recent finding by the real science of seismology that the inner core of the Earth may be composed of a single, huge, nearly perfect crystal - of iron.)

目前有數以百計的書描寫過「亞特蘭提斯」（據說是在一萬年前存在於現在大西洋中的神秘陸地；最近亦有說其位於南極洲）。關於「亞特蘭提斯」的傳說可追溯至柏拉圖，他對這塊大陸的描述，也是來自早期人們的道聼塗説。最近還有書籍很具權威性地描述了高度發達的「亞特蘭提斯時代」的科技，說他們擁有高尚的道德水準和精神生活，並記載了那個繁榮昌盛的大陸，最終沉沒在波濤下的悲劇故事。那時存在著「亞特蘭提斯」“新時代”，有著“先進科學的傳奇文明”，而這種“科學”，主要是著重在對於水晶球的研究。在卡崔娜•拉斐爾所寫的水晶三部曲中，第一部名為《水晶光能啟蒙》—— 此書應對風靡美國的水晶球狂熱負主要責任。此書中提到「亞特蘭提斯人」的水晶球能看透別人的心事，且能傳遞思想，是解讀古代歷史和埃及金字塔建造結構與起源的知識寶庫。書中沒有提供任何證據來說明其結論的可靠性。（水晶球占卜熱的死灰復燃，是在真正的地震科學最近的一項發現之後開始的。人們傳說，研究發現地球的內核可能是由一個巨大、幾乎不含雜質的水晶球構成的 ——  實際的研究結果是金屬。）

A few books - Dorothy Vitaliano's Legends of the Earth, for example - sympathetically interpret the original Atlantis legends in terms of a small island in the Mediterranean that was destroyed by a volcanic eruption, or an ancient city that slid into the Gulf of Corinth after an earthquake. This, for all we know, may be the source of the legend, but it is a far cry from the destruction of a continent on which had sprung forth a preternaturally advanced technical and mystical civilization.

有些書（例如多羅迪•維塔萊諾的《地球的傳說》）很富同情心地將地中海上的這個小島解釋為是在一次火山爆發中毀滅的，或者某個古代城市在一次大地震後沉沒於科林斯海灣。這個說法，就我們所知可能是傳說，這種災難，根本不可能毀滅一個在其上創造出不可思議文明並有先進科技的大陸。

What we almost never find - in public libraries or newsstand magazines or prime-time television programmes - is the evidence from sea floor spreading and plate tectonics, and from mapping the ocean floor which shows quite unmistakably that there could have been no continent between Europe and the Americas on anything like the timescale proposed.

在公共圖書館內、報攤雜誌中或黃金時段的電視節目裡，我們幾乎從來沒有在海底大陸擴張、板塊構造，以及海底探勘繪圖中發現過任何的證據。而所有的觀察結果都明白顯示，在歐洲和美洲大陸之間，從未在傳說那段時間存在過任何大陸。

Spurious accounts that snare, the gullible are readily available. Sceptical treatments are much harder to find. Scepticism does not sell well. A bright and curious person who relies entirely on popular culture to be informed about something like Atlantis is hundreds or thousands of times more likely to come upon a fable treated uncritically than a sober and balanced assessment.

騙人的說法，輕信者最容易上當。但是，用懷疑的精神看待事情卻要難得多。懷疑主義不容易被人們接受。一個生活完全依賴大眾文化而精明又有好奇心的人，如果接觸到像「亞特蘭提斯」這樣的資訊，他會察覺，那極可能是未經任何檢視的無稽之談，而不是出自審慎且均衡的判斷結果。

Maybe Mr Buckley should know to be more sceptical about what's dished out to him by popular culture. But apart from that, it's hard to see how it's his fault. He simply accepted what the most widely available and accessible sources of information claimed was true. For his naivety, he was systematically misled and bamboozled.

也許巴克利先生應該知道，對於大眾文化所大量散播的各種傳聞，他應該保持多一些懷疑態度。但是撇開這點，我們很難說這是巴克利先生的錯。他只不過簡單地認為，那些最廣為流傳並最容易獲得的資訊都是對的。由於單純無知，他被社會體系誤導和迷惑了。

Science arouses a soaring sense of wonder. But so does pseudoscience. Sparse and poor popularizations of science abandon ecological niches that pseudoscience promptly fills. If it were widely understood that claims to knowledge require adequate evidence before they can be accepted, there would be no room for pseudoscience. But a kind of Gresham's Law prevails in popular culture by which bad science drives out good.

科學激發了人們不斷提高探求神秘的好奇心，但是偽科學也有同樣的作用。科學普及化的工作不足而且落後，其所放棄的發展空間，很快就被偽科學所佔領。如果大家都能夠明白，一種學說在被接受之前必須要有充足的證據支持，那麼偽科學便無立足之地。但是由於在大眾文化中格雷欣法則（劣幣驅逐良幣）普遍發揮作用，一些不良的“科學”將真正的科學排擠在外。

All over the world there are enormous numbers of smart, even gifted, people who harbour a passion for science. But that passion is unrequited. Surveys suggest that some 95 per cent of Americans are 'scientifically illiterate'. That's just the same fraction as those African Americans, almost all of them slaves, who were illiterate just before the Civil War - when severe penalties were in force for anyone who taught a slave to read. Of course there's a degree of arbitrariness about any determination of illiteracy, whether it applies to language or to science. But anything like 95 per cent illiteracy is extremely serious.

全世界數量眾多的聰明人、甚至有天賦的人對科學懷有激情。但這種激情卻沒有得到回報。調查表明大約95％的美國人“不具備基本的科學素養”。這個數字相當於南北戰爭前美國黑人文盲的比例。那時大多數黑人是奴隸，教黑奴讀書識字會遭受嚴厲的懲罰。當然，對基本文化知識的測定，無論是對語言文字水準的測定還是對科學知識水準的測定，總是帶有某種程度的主觀判斷。但是，無論怎麼說，95％的人不具備基本的科學素養都是非常嚴重的事情。

Every generation worries that educational standards are decaying. One of the oldest short essays in human history, dating from Sumer some 4,000 years ago, laments that the young are disastrously more ignorant than the generation immediately preceding.

每一代人都對教育標準的不斷降低而憂心忡忡。早在約4,000年前，蘇美時代的人類歷史上最早的一篇短文，就感歎年輕一代與上一代相比，其無知已經達到災難性的程度。

Twenty-four hundred years ago, the ageing and grumpy Plato, in Book VII of the Laws, gave his definition of scientific illiteracy:

2,400年前，年老而又性情暴躁的柏拉圖，在《法律》第七卷中，對科學素養作出了定義：

Who is unable to count one, two, three, or to distinguish odd from even numbers, or is unable to count at all, or reckon night and day, and who is totally unacquainted with the revolution of the Sun and Moon, and the other stars . . . All freemen, I conceive, should learn as much of these branches of knowledge as every child in Egypt is taught when he learns the alphabet. In that country arithmetical games have been invented for the use of mere children, which they learn as pleasure and amusement . . . I . . . have late in life heard with amazement of our ignorance in these matters; to me we appear to be more like pigs than men, and I am quite ashamed, not only of myself, but of all Greeks.

還有些人不能數出1、2、3......，或不能分清奇數和偶數，或根本就不會數數，或分不清白天黑夜；完全不知道太陽和月亮以及其他星球是在旋轉......；我認為，所有的自由人都應該學習這些方面的知識，就像埃及的兒童在剛開始學習字母時就要學習各類知識一樣。在那個國家裡，僅僅為了滿足孩子們的需要，就創造了各種數學遊戲，他們可以在愉快的娛樂中進行學習。我......在生命的最後一段時期，聽說了我們的人民對這些問題的無知，對此我感到驚訝。在我看來，我們更像是豬而不是人。我感到非常羞恥，不僅為我自己，更是為全體希臘人。

I don't know to what extent ignorance of science and mathematics contributed to the decline of ancient Athens, but I know that the consequences of scientific illiteracy are far more dangerous in our time than in any that has come before. It's perilous and foolhardy for the average citizen to remain ignorant about global warming, say, or ozone depletion, air pollution, toxic and radioactive wastes, acid rain, topsoil erosion, tropical deforestation, exponential population growth. Jobs and wages depend on science and technology. If our nation can't manufacture, at high quality and low price, products people want to buy, then industries will continue to drift away and transfer a little more prosperity to other parts of the world. Consider the social ramifications of fission and fusion power, supercomputers, data 'highways', abortion, radon, massive reductions in strategic weapons, addiction, government eavesdropping on the lives of its citizens, high-resolution TV, airline and airport safety, foetal tissue transplants, health costs, food additives, drugs to ameliorate mania or depression or schizophrenia, animal rights, superconductivity, morning-after pills, alleged hereditary antisocial predispositions, space stations, going to Mars, finding cures for AIDS and cancer. How can we affect national policy - or even make intelligent decisions in our own lives - if we don't grasp the underlying issues?

我不知道對科學和數學的無知，有多大的程度導致了古雅典的衰亡，但我知道就目前來說，科學素養低下的後果，比過去以往任何一個時代都要危險得多。有關全球變暖、臭氧層破壞、空氣污染、放射性和有毒的廢料、酸雨、表土流失、熱帶森林的消失、人口成指數的增長等等問題，所有人民竟對其持續無知，這是危險且愚昧的表現。就業機會和工資水準都依賴於科學技術。如果我們國家不能製造出我們的人民想買的高質低價產品，我們的工業將會繼續萎縮，並會將繁榮拱手讓給世界其他國家。我們仔細想一下我們的社會是如何構成的：核能裂變與聚變、超級電腦、資訊高速公路、墮胎、氡、大量銷毀戰略武器、吸毒、政府對公民生活的竊聽、高解析度電視、飛機航線和機場安全、胚胎器官移植、醫療費用、食品添加劑、治療狂躁症、抑鬱症或精神分裂的藥品、動物的權利、超導技術、日常保健藥物、有爭議遺產權的反社會傾向、太空站、火星探索、尋找治癒愛滋病和癌症的方法…。假如我們對上述知識所知甚少，我們如何參與國家政策的制定，甚至如何對我們自己的生活作出明智的選擇？

As I write, Congress is dissolving its own Office of Technology Assessment - the only organization specifically tasked to provide advice to the House and Senate on science and technology. Its competence and integrity over the years have been exemplary. Of the 535 members of the US Congress, rarely in the twentieth century have as many as one per cent had any significant background in science. The last scientifically literate President may have been Thomas Jefferson.*

在我寫作此書的時候，國會解散了它的技術評估辦公室（唯一的向參眾兩院提供科學和技術諮詢的專業機構）。在過去的年代裡，這個機構的專業能力和誠實正直堪稱楷模。在國會535個議員中，在20世紀中不到1％的人接受過良好的科學教育。最後的一位科學知識豐富的總統，可能只有湯瑪斯•傑佛遜。*

* Although claims can be made for Theodore Roosevelt, Herbert Hoover and Jimmy Carter. Britain had such a Prime Minister in Margaret Thatcher. Her early studies in chemistry, in part under the tutelage of Nobel laureate Dorothy Hodgkin, were key to the UK's strong and successful advocacy that ozone-depleting CFCs be banned worldwide.

* 雖然有人會為西奧多•羅斯福、赫伯特•胡佛和吉米•卡特等人叫屈。英國也曾有瑪格麗特•柴契爾這樣一位總理，她早年在化學方面師從諾貝爾獎得主的桃樂西•霍奇金的研究，這和英國強烈並成功向全球宣傳禁用會造成臭氧層空洞的二氟二氯甲烷（別名氟利昂-12），有關鍵性的影響。

So how do Americans decide these matters? How do they instruct their representatives? Who in fact makes these decisions, and on what basis?

那麼美國人是怎樣對問題作出決策的呢？他們如何向他們的代言人表達他們的意見和看法呢？誰是事實上的決策人？他們的決策是根據什麼作出的呢？

Hippocrates of Cos is the father of medicine. He is still remembered 2,500 years later for the Hippocratic Oath (a modified form of which is still here and there taken by medical students upon their graduation). But he is chiefly celebrated because of his efforts to bring medicine out of the pall of superstition and into the light of science. In a typical passage Hippocrates wrote: 'Men think epilepsy divine, merely because they do not understand it. But if they called everything divine which they do not understand, why, there would be no end of divine things.' Instead of acknowledging that in many areas we are ignorant, we have tended to say things like the Universe is permeated with the ineffable. A God of the Gaps is assigned responsibility for what we do not yet understand. As knowledge of medicine improved since the fourth century BC, there was more and more that we understood and less and less that had to be attributed to divine intervention - either in the causes or in the treatment of disease. Deaths in childbirth and infant mortality have decreased, lifetimes have lengthened, and medicine has improved the quality of life for billions of us all over the planet.

科斯島的希波克拉底是醫學之父，2,500年後人們仍然記得他的“希波克拉底誓詞”（現在各地的醫科學生在畢業時宣誓，其內容略有變動）。但是，他的主要功績是使醫學從迷信中走出來，成為一門真正的科學。在希波克拉底的一段著名文字中他這樣寫道：“人們認為癲癇症是神靈造成的，僅僅是因為他們不瞭解它。但是如果把所有本身不懂的事物都當作是神靈的安排，那麼神靈造成的事物將層出不窮，永無止境。”我們雖然沒有必要一定要承認我們對許多領域一無所知，但是我們卻一直在說，像宇宙這樣的事物充滿了不可言喻的奧妙。「未知領域之神」承擔了我們對許多事情仍然一無所知的責任。醫學知識從西元前四世紀以來不斷積累提高，我們懂得的東西越來越多，無論是在疾病的病因還是治療上，我們將出現的問題歸咎於神靈的作用越來越少。嬰兒在分娩時的死亡率和兒童的死亡率降低了，人們的平均壽命延長了，醫學提高了這個星球上數十億人的生活品質。

In the diagnosis of disease, Hippocrates introduced elements of the scientific method. He urged careful and meticulous observation: 'Leave nothing to chance. Overlook nothing. Combine contradictory observations. Allow yourself enough time.' Before the invention of the thermometer, he charted the temperature curves of many diseases. He recommended that physicians be able to tell, from present symptoms alone, the probable past and future course of each illness. He stressed honesty. He was willing to admit the limitations of the physician's knowledge. He betrayed no embarrassment in confiding to posterity that more than half his patients were killed by the diseases he was treating. His options of course were limited; the drugs available to him were chiefly laxatives, emetics and narcotics. Surgery was performed, and cauterization. Considerable further advances were made in classical times through to the fall of Rome.

在對疾病的診斷上，希波克拉底引入了科學的基本方法。他強調認真細緻的觀察。“不給任何疾病留下機會。不漏過任何細節。將相互矛盾的觀察結合起來分析。你自己一定要有充分的時間。”在體溫計發明以前，他就對許多疾病都描畫出了其各自的體溫曲線。他建議，醫生應該能夠僅僅根據病人的當前症狀說出每種病的大概病史和病情的發展過程。他強調認真誠實，樂於承認醫生知識的局限性。在面對後代世人時，他毫無尷尬地向後人透漏，有一半以上的人死於他治療的疾病。他那時的治療方法有限，可以使用的藥品也主要是緩瀉藥、催吐藥和麻醉藥。實行外科手術時只能用燒灼的方式來消毒。從古典時期到古羅馬衰亡時，醫學才有了長足的發展。

While medicine in the Islamic world flourished, what followed in Europe was truly a dark age. Much knowledge of anatomy and surgery was lost. Reliance on prayer and miraculous healing abounded. Secular physicians became extinct. Chants, potions, horoscopes and amulets were widely used. Dissections of cadavers were restricted or outlawed, so those who practised medicine were prevented from acquiring first-hand knowledge of the human body. Medical research came to a standstill.

當醫學在伊斯蘭世界興盛時，歐洲卻進入了一個黑暗的時代。許多解剖學和外科學的知識都遺失殆盡，人們依靠祈禱和大量神奇的自我痊癒，民間的醫生幾乎全部消失了。人們廣泛地使用讚美詩、聖水、占星術和護身符。解剖死屍是被禁止的和違法的，於是那些從事醫學的人便無法從人體獲得第一手的知識，以致醫學研究停滯不前。

It was very like what the historian Edward Gibbon described for the entire Eastern Empire, whose capital was Constantinople:

那時的情景酷似歷史學家愛德華•吉本對整個東羅馬帝國（首都為君士坦丁堡）的描述：

In the revolution of ten centuries, not a single discovery was made to exalt the dignity or promote the happiness of mankind. Not a single idea had been added to the speculative systems of antiquity, and a succession of patient disciples became in their turn the dogmatic teachers of the next servile generation.

在十個世紀的革命中，沒有出現一項有助於提高人類的尊嚴和幸福的發明。在古代的思想體系中沒有增加過任何一個新的思維，一個個繼承堅忍勤奮的信徒，輪流成為奴性後代只懂教條的老師。

Even at its best, pre-modern medical practice did not save many. Queen Anne was the last Stuart monarch of Great Britain. In the last seventeen years of the seventeenth century, she was pregnant eighteen times. Only five children were born alive. Only one of them survived infancy. He died before reaching adulthood, and before her coronation in 1702. There seems to be no evidence of some genetic disorder. She had the best medical care money could buy.

即使在現代化之前最好的醫療技術也沒能救活許多人的生命。安妮女王是大英帝國斯圖亞特王室的最後一代君主。在十七世紀的最後17年裡，她懷孕過18次，但僅生了五個孩子。其中只有一個活到了童年，但還未達成年，就在女王1702年加冕前死去了，而他似乎沒有任何遺傳上的疾病；在當時她能夠得到最好的醫療照顧，但卻也無能為力。

Diseases that once tragically carried off countless infants and children have been progressively mitigated and cured by science -through the discovery of the microbial world, via the insight that physicians and midwives should wash their hands and sterilize their instruments, through nutrition, public health and sanitation measures, antibiotics, drugs, vaccines, the uncovering of the molecular structure of DNA, molecular biology, and now gene therapy. In the developed world at least, parents today have an enormously better chance of seeing their children live to adulthood than did the heir to the throne of one of the most powerful nations on Earth in the late seventeenth century. Smallpox has been wiped out worldwide. The area of our planet infested with malaria-carrying mosquitoes has dramatically shrunk. The number of years a child diagnosed with leukaemia can expect to live has been increasing progressively, year by year. Science permits the Earth to feed about a hundred times more humans, and under conditions much less grim, than it could a few thousand years ago.

曾經悲慘地奪走了無數孩子和嬰兒生命的疾病，已經被科學逐步控制和治癒，這都應歸功於人們發現了微生物世界的秘密；歸功於人們意識到醫生和從事接生工作的人應該洗手並對器械消毒；歸功於公共保健和衛生措施；歸功於抗生素、藥物與疫苗；也歸功於對DNA分子結構的瞭解、分子生物學以及新的基因療法。與十七世紀末期世界上最強大國家的王位繼承人相比，至少是在發達國家，今天的父母更有機會看見自己的孩子長大成人。天花在全世界已被消滅，受到瘧疾病媒蚊蟲侵害的地區已經大大縮小，而診斷出患血癌的兒童，其存活年限也一年年逐漸延長。科學使得地球可以供養比幾千年前多幾百倍的人口，並且生活狀況還不會很糟。

We can pray over the cholera victim, or we can give her 500 milligrams of tetracycline every twelve hours. (There is still a religion, Christian Science, that denies the germ theory of disease; if prayer fails, the faithful would rather see their children die than give them antibiotics.) We can try nearly futile psychoanalytic talk therapy on the schizophrenic patient, or we can give him 300 to 500 milligrams a day of chlozapine. The scientific treatments are hundreds or thousands of times more effective than the alternatives. (And even when the alternatives seem to work, we don't actually know that they played any role: spontaneous remissions, even of cholera and schizophrenia, can occur without prayer and without psychoanalysis.) Abandoning science means abandoning much more than air conditioning, CD players, hair dryers and fast cars.

我們可以為霍亂患者祈禱，也可以每隔12小時讓其服用500毫克的四環素（仍然有一種宗教 —— 基督教科學，否認病菌理論。如果祈禱無效，這種宗教的信仰者即使眼睜睜地看著自己的孩子死去，也不給他們服用抗生素）。我們可以嘗試幾乎無效的精神分析談話治療法來治療精神分裂症患者，也可以每天讓他們服用300到500毫克鎮靜劑。科學的醫療方法比其它方法的有效率要高出成百上千倍（即使其它方法好像也有一點作用，但我們卻無法確切知道它們究竟有什麼樣的作用：可能是病情的自我緩解，即使是霍亂和精神分裂，不作祈禱或精神分析治療也可能會自我緩解或康復）。放棄科學就意味著放棄了比空調、CD播放機、吹風機和跑車等等更多的東西。

In hunter-gatherer, pre-agricultural times, the human life expectancy was about 20 to 30 years. That's also what it was in Western Europe in Late Roman and in Medieval times. It didn't rise to 40 years until around the year 1870. It reached 50 in 1915, 60 in 1930, 70 in 1955, and is today approaching 80 (a little more for women, a little less for men). The rest of the world is retracing the European increment in longevity. What is the cause of this stunning, unprecedented, humanitarian transition? The germ theory of disease, public health measures, medicines and medical technology. Longevity is perhaps the best single measure of the physical quality of life. (If you're dead, there's little you can do to be happy.) This is a precious offering from science to humanity - nothing less than the gift of life.

在狩獵和前農業時期，人類的期望壽命大約在20到30歲。在羅馬後期和中世紀時期的西歐的情況下人的期望壽命也是同樣。到1870年時，人的壽命還未達到40歲。1915年達到50歲，1930年60歲，1955年70歲，今天人的期望壽命已經達到80歲（女性稍高）。其他國家也正隨著歐洲人壽命的增長在跟進。是什麼導致了人類會產生如此驚人而前所未有的變化？那都是由於疾病的病菌理論、公眾衛生保健措施，以及藥物和醫療技術的進步。壽命的延長可能是衡量人類物質生活品質唯一最好的標準了（人若死了，那還有什麼幸福可言呢？）。這是科學給人類的最寶貴禮物 —— 沒有任何東西能和生命的價值相提並論。

But micro-organisms mutate. New diseases spread like wildfire. There is a constant battle between microbial measures and human countermeasures. We keep pace in this competition not just by designing new drugs and treatments, but by penetrating progressively more deeply toward an understanding of the nature of life basic research.

但是微生物會變異，新的疾病就像野火般的燎原蔓延。在微生物傳染和人們防止傳染之間，存在著一場不斷的鬥爭。我們如果要在這場鬥爭中取勝，不僅要研製新的藥物和治療方法，而且還要不斷深入地瞭解生命的本質，持續做這樣的基礎研究。

If the world is to escape the direst consequences of global population growth and 10 or 12 billion people on the planet in the late twenty-first century, we must invent safe but more efficient means of growing food - with accompanying seed stocks, irrigation, fertilizers, pesticides, transportation and refrigeration systems. It will also take widely available and acceptable contraception, significant steps toward political equality of women, and improvements in the standards of living of the poorest people. How can all this be accomplished without science and technology?

如果我們這個世界想避免全球人口在21世紀末達到100或120億所帶來的直接衝擊，就必須發明既安全又有效的方法來增加食物，而與此配套的還有種子庫、水利、肥料、滅蟲、運輸和冷藏等。此外還要有足夠並可被接受的避育手段，並要努力設法使婦女享有與男人同樣的政治地位，且要提高最貧困人群的生活標準。而若是沒有科學和技術，如何解決這些問題？

I know that science and technology are not just cornucopias pouring gifts out into the world. Scientists not only conceived nuclear weapons; they also took political leaders by the lapels, arguing that their nation - whichever it happened to be - had to have one first. Then they manufactured over 60,000 of them. During the Cold War, scientists in the United States, the Soviet Union, China and other nations were willing to expose their own fellow citizens to radiation - in most cases without their knowledge - to prepare for nuclear war. Physicians in Tuskegee, Alabama, misled a group of veterans into thinking they were receiving medical treatment for their syphilis, when they were the untreated controls. The atrocious cruelties of Nazi doctors are well-known. Our technology has produced thalidomide, CFCs, Agent Orange, nerve gas, pollution of air and water, species extinctions, and industries so powerful they can ruin the climate of the planet. Roughly half the scientists on Earth work at least part-time for the military. While a few scientists are still perceived as outsiders, courageously criticizing the ills of society and providing early warnings of potential technological catastrophes, many are seen as compliant opportunists, or as the willing source of corporate profits and weapons of mass destruction - never mind the long-term consequences.

我知道科學和技術帶給這個世界的並不都是源源不絕的禮物；科學家不僅研發出了核武，還慫恿政治領袖，促成自己的國家率先擁有核武，於是他們製造出了6萬多枚核彈。在冷戰時期，美國、前蘇聯、中國以及其他國家的科學家為了準備核戰，竟情願使自己的國民在對核武器的危害一無所知的情況下，遭受核輻射的危害。一些殘忍惡毒的醫生在阿拉巴馬的塔斯基吉欺騙一群退伍軍人，在他們受輻射過重而無法挽救的情況下，卻讓他們以為是在接受梅毒治療。我們的技術製造了沙利竇邁（譯註：又名反應停、酞咪脈啶酮、沙利度胺，是研製抗菌藥物過程中發現的一種具有中樞抑制作用的藥物，曾經作為抗妊娠反應藥物在歐洲和日本廣泛使用，投入使用後不久，即出現了大量由沙利竇邁造成的海豹肢症畸形胎兒，歷史上將這一事件稱為反應停事件。）、氟利昂、橙劑（或稱橘劑、落葉劑、枯葉劑、落葉橘）、神經毒氣，造成了大氣和水污染、物種絕滅。我們的工業如此強大，能夠破壞地球的氣候。我們這個地球上大約有一半科學家至少是部分時間在為軍事服務。儘管有少部分科學家被認為是局外人，他們勇敢地批評社會的弊病，並提早警告可能出現的技術災難。但是，人們看到許多科學家還僅僅是只會抱怨的機會主義者，或者是願為公司獲利和生產大規模殺傷武器工作的人，他們從不考慮長期後果。

The technological perils that science serves up, its implicit challenge to received wisdom, and its perceived difficulty, are all reasons for some people to mistrust and avoid it. There's a reason people are nervous about science and technology. And so the image of the mad scientist haunts our world - down to the white-coated loonies of Saturday morning children's TV and the plethora of Faustian bargains in popular culture, from the eponymous Dr Faustus himself to Dr Franken-stein, Dr Strangelove, and Jurassic Park.

科學發展帶來了科技運用的風險，挑戰人類既有的智慧。而科學理論的高深莫測，使得某些人對其敬而遠之，也是人們對“高科技”感到緊張不安的緣故。因此，在我們這個世界上到處都可以看到瘋狂的科學家的身影 —— 星期六早晨兒童電視節目上穿著白外套的狂人，以及從浮士德博士本人到弗蘭肯斯坦博士（科學怪人）；從《奇愛博士》（一部於1964年出品的英語黑色幽默電影）到《侏羅紀公園》，大眾文化中都過分強調「浮士德交易」（譯者註：把靈魂賣給惡魔的交易）的情節。

But we can't simply conclude that science puts too much power into the hands of morally feeble technologists or corrupt, power-crazed politicians and so decide to get rid of it. Advances in medicine and agriculture have saved vastly more lives than have been lost in all the wars in history.* Advances in transportation, communication and entertainment have transformed and unified the world. In opinion poll after opinion poll science is rated among the most admired and trusted occupations, despite the misgivings. The sword of science is double-edged. Its awesome power forces on all of us, including politicians, a new responsibility - more attention to the long-term consequences of technology, a global and transgenerational perspective, an incentive to avoid easy appeals to nationalism and chauvinism. Mistakes are becoming too expensive.

但是，我們不能簡單作結論說，科學使那些行為不檢的技術人員或沉迷於攬權的腐敗政客們掌握了巨大的權力，因此要拋棄科學。要知道：醫學和農業的進步所挽救的人命，比歷史上死於各種戰爭中的總和人數還要多得多*。運輸和通訊的進步以及娛樂業改變了世界，並將全世界連接成了一個整體。許多民意調查都顯示，儘管人們對科學有所顧慮，但是人們仍然將科學工作，列為最值得尊重和信賴的職業之一。科學之劍是双面刃，它令人畏懼的力量，使所有人（包括政治家，當然特別是科學家）必須肩負一種新的責任，那就是：一定要從全球和超越時代的角度，對技術所帶來的長期後果給予更多的關注，竭力避免對民族主義和沙文主義的依戀；犯錯的代價實在太昂貴了。

* At a large dinner party recently, I asked the assembled guests - ranging in age, I guess, from thirties to sixties - how many of them would be alive today if not for antibiotics, cardiac pacemakers, and the rest of the panoply of modern medicine. Only one hand went up. It was not mine.

* 最近我在一個大型的晚宴問在場的賓客 —— 我猜年齡從三十到六十都有 —— 他們當中有多少人，如果沒有抗生素、心律調整器以及其他現代醫學器材，還能活到今天的。結果只有一個人舉手，而那個人並不是我。

Do we care what's true? Does it matter?

你對追求真理是否很關心？真理很重要嗎？

. . . where ignorance is bliss,
'Tis folly to be wise

......在無知就是幸福的地方，愚人就成了智者

wrote the poet Thomas Gray. But is it? Edmund Way Teale in his 1950 book Circle of the Seasons understood the dilemma better:

湯瑪斯•格雷在他的詩中曾寫過這樣的詩句，但這樣對嗎？愛德蒙•衛•提勒在他1950年出版的《四季迴圈》書中，對這個問題有更好的理解：

It is morally as bad not to care whether a thing is true or not, so long as it makes you feel good, as it is not to care how you got your money as long as you have got it.

只要你感覺很好，無論這件事情是真是假，你都不在乎；就像你有了錢，就不在乎錢是如何得到的一樣。從道德上來說，這是不對的。

It's disheartening to discover government corruption and incompetence, for example; but it is better not to know about it? Whose interest does ignorance serve? If we humans bear, say, hereditary propensities toward the hatred of strangers, isn't self-knowledge the only antidote? If we long to believe that the stars rise and set for us, that we are the reason there is a Universe, does science do us a disservice in deflating our conceits?

舉個例子，如果你發現政府是個腐敗和不適任的政府，你會覺得令人沮喪。但是如果不知道這些是否就更好呢？無知對誰有利？如果我們人類具有討厭陌生人的遺傳天性，那麼自覺是否是唯一的解藥？如果我們一定要認為日月星辰為我們升落，而宇宙也是因我們才存在的話，科學是否挫傷了我們的自大心態？

In The Genealogy of Morals, Friedrich Nietzsche, as so many before and after, decries the 'unbroken progress in the self-belittling of man' brought about by the scientific revolution. Nietzsche mourns the loss of 'man's belief in his dignity, his uniqueness, his irreplaceability in the scheme of existence'. For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring. Which attitude is better geared for our long-term survival? Which gives us more leverage on our future? And if our naive self-confidence is a little undermined in the process, is that altogether such a loss? Is there not cause to welcome it as a maturing and character-building experience?

在《道德譜系學》一書中，弗里德里希•尼采就像他的前人和後人一樣，認為科學革命所帶來的是“人類自我貶抑的不斷發展”。尼采哀歎“人類一向所信仰自身的崇高性、獨特性與在萬物中的無可取代性”已蕩然無存。而我認為，瞭解宇宙的真相，無論如何都要比堅信錯覺，更能讓人滿意與安心得多。哪一種態度對我們的長期生存更具有推動作用？哪一種觀念對我們的未來更有正面影響？如果在發展過程中，我們天真的自信受到一點挫折，是否就意味著全部失敗？我們是否應該將其當做是趨向成熟與人格建設的一個過程？

To discover that the Universe is some 8 to 15 billion and not 6 to 12 thousand years old* improves our appreciation of its sweep and grandeur; to entertain the notion that we are a particularly complex arrangement of atoms, and not some breath of divinity, at the very least enhances our respect for atoms; to discover, as now seems probable, that our planet is one of billions of other worlds in the Milky Way galaxy and that our galaxy is one of billions more, majestically expands the arena of what is possible; to find that our ancestors were also the ancestors of apes ties us to the rest of life and makes possible important - if occasionally rueful - reflections on human nature.

發現宇宙年齡為80到150億年，而不是6000到12000年*，使我們對宇宙的廣闊和宏偉更為映象深刻。承認我們是由原子按照複雜的結構所組成，而不是神明的產物，至少可以提高我們對原子的尊重。而近來我們發現，可能我們的星球是銀河系中數十億個星球中的一個，而銀河系是宇宙中數十億個星系中的一個；整個宇宙就這樣在可能的寰宇下向外壯闊延伸。此外還發現我們的祖先同時也是猿類的祖先，這一點說明我們與其他生物擁有共同的血緣關係，並有可能影響對人類本性的重要思考 —— 如果偶爾感到沮喪的話。

* 'No thinking religious person believes this. Old hat,' writes one of the referees of this book. But many 'scientific creationists' not only believe it, but are making increasingly aggressive and successful efforts to have it taught in the schools, museums, zoos, and textbooks. Why? Because adding up the 'begats', the ages of patriarchs and others in the Bible gives such a figure, and the Bible is 'inerrant'.

* '沒有思考能力的宗教人士相信這一點，這是過時的觀念' 這是本書的審查人之一所寫。但很多 '科學神創論者' 不僅相信這種說法，並且積極致力於要在學校、博物館、動物園和教科書中教導他人。為什麼呢？因為這個數字是由《聖經》中雅各的十二個兒子們和其他人物年齡加起來所得到的結果，而《聖經》是 '不會錯的'。

Plainly there is no way back. Like it or not, we are stuck with science. We had better make the best of it. When we finally come to terms with it and fully recognize its beauty and its power, we will find, in spiritual as well as in practical matters, that we have made a bargain strongly in our favour.

無論你喜歡與否，科學與我們已經密不可分，顯然沒有回頭路可走，所以我們最好是盡可能地善用科學。當我們最終認清了科學的本質，充分領悟到它的美妙和力量的時候，我們將會發現，無論是在精神領域還是現實問題上，我們在謀求自身幸福的途中，都已立於不敗之地。

（第一章未完 待續…）

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