我鳗鱼 
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……
#TheDemonHauntedWorld 看到现在都在讲破除迷信，总感觉书里的例子本身有些过时，比如 UFO 和麦田怪圈之类的…现在的人真的还信这种东西吗？现在都是电磁场和量子力学啦。也许中学的我看更合适，恍惚记得中学课本有讲麦田怪圈。中学的时候我还在接受果壳的科学启蒙，感觉现在接触到的很多科学方法（比如 false positive）都是那个时候学的…
不过这本书里讲到的概念今天依旧适用，比如迷信之所以是迷信是因为证据不足，而不是现象本身不引起科学家的兴趣，作者也很希望找到外星人。以及如果把所有不明白的现象都称为 Demon 的话，那整个世界都要 demon haunted 了。以及一种迷信倒下了，另一种又会崛起：
So urgent on the vulgar is the necessity of believing, that the fall of any system of mythology will most probably be succeeded by the introduction of some other mode of superstition...
不过也讲到了中世纪的猎巫，我稍微感兴趣一点。说当时教皇的训谕指出 both sexes 跟魔鬼性交，然而最后被猎的都是女巫…
Keeping an open mind is a virtue - but, as the space engineer James Oberg once said, not so open that your brains fall out.
What sceptical thinking boils down to is the means to construct and to understand, a reasoned argument and, especially important, to recognize a fallacious or fraudulent argument. The question is not whether we like
the conclusion that emerges out of a train of reasoning, but whether the conclusion follows from the premises or starting point and whether that premise is true.
Arguments from authority carry little weight – authorities have made mistakes in the past. They will do so again in thi future. Perhaps a better way to say it is that in science there ar no authorities; at most, there are experts.
学到一种逻辑谬误：special pleading（片面辩护），就是说论证的时候故意忽略掉不利于自己观点的方面，或者指明某个东西是特例但又不说为什么是特例。主要是维基里这几个例子太好笑了：
- 為了節省開支，員工出差只准買最便宜的機票，但我是老闆，所以我可以買最好的。
- 我國國情不同，因此西式民主暫時不適合我國。
- 女生該注重外表，應該常保自己的外表乾乾淨淨的，應該留長頭髮但不該有體毛，而且皮膚要白、身材要瘦、身上不能有痘子或疤痕；不過男生不必注重外表。
- 我們應該平等對待所有族群的人，但韓國人很賤，因此韓國人除外。
Observational selection, also called the enumeration of favourable circumstances, or as the philosopher Francis Bacon described it, counting the hits and forgetting the misses (e.g., a state boasts of the Presidents it has produced, but is silent on its serial killers).
唔，感觉这应该是我最容易犯的一种逻辑谬误…
weasel words, […] Presidents […] may therefore be tempted to arrange wars while waving the flag and calling the wars something else - ‘police actions’, ‘armed incursions’, ‘protective reaction strikes’, ‘pacification’,‘safeguarding American interests’, and a wide variety of ‘operations’, such as ‘Operation Just Cause’. Euphemisms for war are one of a broad class of reinventions of language for political purposes. Talleyrand said, ‘An important art of politicians is to find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the public’.
惯用伎俩了，原来叫 weasel words…刚好前段时间在#明亮的对话 里也读到含糊用词 https://rhabarberbarbara.bar/@unagi/107911355987180825
我鳗鱼 :unagi_sword: 也在白莲花般的云朵里穿行 (@[email protected])
> “斗争”是一种有争辩的字词，人们对是不是非要斗争，看法肯定不同。“文革”后的宣传已经基本上放弃了这类“坏词”。此后创造的新说法有一个新的共同特点，那就是用一些根本不容争辩的“好词”。没有人会说不该改革开放、不该和谐、不该代表。问题是，这些好词中可以塞进与它们应有的意思相违背的东西。如果和谐用来消除来自社会的合理批评，和谐就会变成不和谐；如果改革开放用来辩护社会不公正，开放就会为腐败打开大门；如果代表用来强迫人民被代表，代表就会变得不代表。
Tobacco is addictive; by many criteria more so than heroin and cocaine. […] More people have died of tobacco than in all of World War II. According to the World Health Organization, smoking kills three million people every year worldwide. This will rise to ten million annual deaths by 2020, in part because of a massive advertising campaign to portray smoking as advanced and fashionable to young women in the developing world.
2020 已经过了看了下现在的数据，貌似是一年 8 million？今天走在路上还有个人问我有没有烟…
the Harvest Moon Festival is an important holiday in traditional Chinese communities in America. In the week preceding the festival, the death rate in the community is found to fall by 35 per cent. In the following week the death rate jumps by 35 per cent. Control groups of non-Chinese show no such effect. […] On more detailed study, it turned out that the fluctuations in death rate occurred exclusively among women 75 years old or older. The Harvest Moon Festival is presided over by the oldest women in the households. They were able to stave off death for a week or two to perform their ceremonial responsibilities.
？？这就是责任心吗…
Being human, scientists also sometimes engage in observational selection: they like to remember those cases when they’ve been right and forget when they’ve been wrong. But in many instances, what is ‘wrong’ is partly right, or stimulates others to find out what’s right.
if we offer too much silent assent about mysticism and superstition - even when it seems to be doing a little good - we abet a general climate in which scepticism is considered impolite, science tiresome, and rigorous thinking somehow stuffy and inappropriate. Figuring out a prudent balance takes wisdom.
There are perhaps ten times more astrologers than astronomers in the United States. In France there are more astrologers than Roman Catholic clergy.
at the heart of science is an essential balance between two seemingly contradictory attitudes - an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre or counterintuitive, and the most ruthlessly sceptical scrutiny of all ideas, old and new.
An ancient Chinese proverb advises, ‘Better to be too credulous than too sceptical’, but this is from an extremely conservative society in which stability was much more prized than freedom and where the rulers had a powerful vested interest in not being challenged. Most scientists, I believe, would say, ‘Better to be too sceptical than too credulous’.
这是哪句谚语啊每次在外文书里看见中国谚语我都对不上号，想了想感觉我知道的最接近的是“宁可信其有 不可信其无”？但英文翻译成这样感觉跟作者批判的完全就不是一回事儿了？不知道是不是别的谚语…
Every now and then, I’m lucky enough to teach a kindergarten or first-grade class. Many of these children are natural-born scientists - although heavy on the wonder side and light on scepticism. They’re curious, intellectually vigorous. Provocative and insightful questions bubble out of them. They exhibit enormous enthusiasm. I’m asked follow-up questions. They’ve never heard of the notion of a ‘dumb question’.
But when I talk to high school seniors, I find something different. They memorize ‘facts’. By and large, though, the joy of discovery, the life behind those facts, has gone out of them. They’ve lost much of the wonder, and gained very little scepticism. They’re worried about asking ‘dumb’ questions; they’re willing to accept inadequate answers; they don’t pose follow-up questions; the room is awash with sidelong glances to judge, second-by-second, the approval of their peers. They come to class with their questions written out on pieces of paper, which they surreptitiously examine, waiting their turn and oblivious of whatever discussion their peers are at this moment engaged in.
啊啊啊我又看到书里说小孩子有时候十万个为什么的时候会被大人嫌弃/随便打发，我就总想着如果我有孩子一定会好好回答它们“月亮为什么是圆的”“草为什么是绿的”这种问题…
但可能也是我低估了育儿的劳累程度？如果我烦得要死的时候被问到这样的问题说不定也会态度不好
扣扣扣你知道八九学运吗
摩擦一刹火花比星光迷人。
mengminghan@unagi 如果有人帮我全包做饭喂饭洗澡哄睡打扫卫生这些活，我愿意全盘负责回答这些问题 
@mengminghan 我也觉得一种比较典型的状况就是妈妈在家家务全包，爸爸负责以一种智慧的形象示人
Bright, curious children are a national and world resource. They need to be cared for, cherished, and encouraged. But mere encouragement isn’t enough. We must also give them the essential tools to think with.
How much science is there on the radio or television talk shows, or on those dreary Sunday morning programmes in which middle-aged white people sit around agreeing with each other?
“in which middle-aged white people sit around agreeing with each other”好好笑
But what are these time-varying electric and magnetic fields permeating all of space? What do E and B mean? We feel so much more comfortable with the idea of things touching and jiggling, pushing and pulling, rather than ‘fields’ magically moving objects at a distance, or mere mathematical abstractions. But, as Feynman pointed out, our sense that at least in everyday life we can rely on solid, sensible physical contact to explain, say, why the butter knife comes to you when you pick it up, is a misconception. What does it mean to have physical contact? What exactly is happening when you pick up a knife, or push a swing, or make a wave in a waterbed by pressing down on it periodically? When we investigate deeply, we find that there is no physical contact. Instead, the electrical charges on your hand are influencing the electrical charges on the knife or swing or waterbed, and vice versa. Despite everyday experience and common sense, even here, there is only the interaction of electric fields. Nothing is touching anything.
If we no longer insist on our notions of how Nature ought to behave, but instead stand before Nature with an open and receptive mind, we find that common sense often doesn’t work. Why not? Because our notions, both hereditary and learned, of how Nature works were forged in the millions of years our ancestors were hunters and gatherers. In this case common sense is a faithless guide because no hunter-gatherer’s life ever depended on understanding time-variable electric and magnetic fields. There were no evolutionary penalties for ignorance of Maxwell’s equations.
no evolutionary penalties for ignorance of Maxwell’s equations 好好笑😆
His unification of electricity, magnetism and light into one coherent mathematical whole is the inspiration for subsequent attempts - some successful, some still in their rudimentary stages […]
我还以为他要说 some successful, some failed！学到了，以后做得不咋成功的项目就说还在 rudimentary stage
我国处于并将长期处于社会主义 rudimentary stage（什么
seesaw@unagi 聰明反被聰明誤，傻人自有傻人福⋯⋯之類的？😂
@overdrive 这里没有谈到聪不聪明啊
@unagi 聰明反被聰明誤的聰明也不是說智商高的意思吧，就是說一個人攻於心計精於算計吧，我感覺和sceptical有點類似的（警惕/算計/多疑）。相對來說傻人有傻福的那個傻也指的是憨厚老實，沒有警惕和算計。我是這麼理解的。😂