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?
我們是有能力在我們這一代改變這種狀況的。作為民族，我們可以把科學的實事求是精神運用于處理國家事務上，堅持行之有效的，揚棄不見成效的。作為個人，我們可以掌握常識性的科學思想。有個最為重要的教訓我們必須汲取：改造世界的正是科學思想，而不是科學上的具體成果。我們弄明白了這一點之后，也就會恰當地看待科學成就了。原子彈不是科學上的一項重大成果，但科學作出了一個重大發現，即我們可以利用原子能這一帶有根本性質的發現。這不是那些爭爭吵吵的國家的成就，而是全人類的成就。科學的全部歷史告訴我們，每一項帶有根本性質的發現最終給人們帶來的益處總要大于弊端。我幾乎是習慣性地說了“最終”：科學上的重大發現都是如此，如果我們愿意向前看的話。每個科學家都是向前看的。如果科研不是著手去做將由別人完成并享受其成果的工作，那它又是什么呢？除了未來意識還有什么別的動機能使我們滿足呢？
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.
除非我們把科學和我們的日常生活與思考永久分開，災難就不會威脅我們。不要再聽信人家說什么科學是專家獨霸的天地;科學不是那么一回事。科學同歷史、愉快的談話、讀小說沒有什么兩樣；有些人干得好些，有些人做得差些，有些人把它作為終生事業，但科學人人都可參與。
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.
科學跟達爾文和他的巴松管一樣富有人情，而且一點也不難懂。它的價值觀念是人類的價值觀念：誠實、寬容、獨立思考、明事理講實際、專心致志。它的成就是人類偉大成就的一部分：希臘人把畢達哥拉斯和荷馬放在同樣崇高的地位。科學進步不是秘密取得的，而是靠了堅持明明白白的事實、只講事實——從來不管是誰發現了這些事實，也不管是誰向它們提出了挑戰。科學一視同仁地聆聽牛頓和他的友人克里斯托弗·雷恩，聆聽達爾文和他的批評者塞繆爾·勃特勒；今天科學像傾聽教授一樣耐心地傾聽每個有一得之見的聰明男童。
來源:可可英語 http://www.ccdyzl.cn/daxue/201702/467813.shtml
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