Bridging the Gap: Science Through a Cultural Lens

Author: Ma Jianbo
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2002-02-01
Features: In the "Wooden Plough Book Series," a new sub-series has been added: the Complementary Heaven Collection. Judging from the name alone, its implied meaning seems not difficult to understand. The legend of Nuwa mending the sky has long been a fundamental piece of common knowledge in our cultural tradition. Interestingly, within Chinese traditional culture, the concept of "heaven" is inherently multi-faceted, referring both to the natural heaven and the heaven of moral principles. Here, from a certain contemporary perspective, we might consider them "unified," signifying our understanding and knowledge of nature, that is, our science.
When it comes to science, from a more modern standpoint, we do not believe that only established, concrete scientific knowledge constitutes its entirety. The scientific spirit, scientific culture, scientific methods, and scientific attitudes that coexist with scientific knowledge are also considered important components of the broader scientific whole. In the process of popularizing and disseminating science, attention must be equally given to both the "hard content" of scientific knowledge and these accompanying "soft content." For scholars outside the scientific community, as well as the broader public, the latter may even be more important—only by understanding these aspects can one more deeply grasp what science truly is and what it truly means.
However, in past science popularization and dissemination efforts in China, traditional science popularization, which focused solely on the dissemination and popularization of specific scientific knowledge, has always held the dominant position. With the development of science, culture, and society, as well as the learning of more advanced science popularization concepts in the process of aligning with international standards, an increasing number of scholars in China are now recognizing the significance of new-style science communication efforts, such as "Public Understanding of Science."
In such work, what takes precedence is the research and dissemination of scientific spirit, scientific culture, scientific methods, and scientific attitudes. From another perspective, this effort is also an important part of the broader international and domestic initiative to bridge two cultures.
However, changing perspectives is merely the first step—what is more important is to translate these ideas into action. Of course, we see many individuals in society and academia dedicated to this cause. They are the admirable "heaven-menders" in the field of science communication. But it cannot be denied that compared to countries that have made greater strides in the research and development of science itself, science communication, and science culture research, our level of achievement remains significantly lower. This also means that it will be very difficult to immediately produce large-scale works aligned with these new ideas to meet the urgent needs of academia and the public.
Therefore, in this collection, we have chosen to compile short articles that have already been published or partially unpublished, as well as some excellent interviews, all related to scientific spirit, scientific culture, scientific methods, and scientific attitudes. This approach of gathering the achievements of multiple authors, presenting them in a concentrated and timely manner in the field of science culture and science communication, may be the most viable and effective method at this stage.
In our field of science culture research and science communication, we hope to see more "heaven-menders" join in. After all, we are under the same blue sky.
The book "Bridging the Gap—Science in a Cultural Perspective" is a compilation of the "Science Perspectives" column from China Reading News. Edited by Wang Hongbo and Ma Jianbo, it meticulously summarizes the colorful stones forged over five years in this "stone-smelting workshop."
This Mountain and That Mountain: The Clash of Two Cultures is a dual-colored stone. Here, the cultural perspectives of humanities scholars and the perspectives of natural scientists collide, rub against each other, and blend. Around the pros and cons, virtues and vices of modern high technology, scholars voice their differing opinions: Zhou Guoping argues that the true danger of modern technology lies in its "depriving everything of its real existence and intrinsic value"; Tian Song believes that over-reliance on technology has made modern people "lose the ability to feel happiness"; while Xu Youyu considers this to be the "sky-is-falling panic of anti-science advocates." Computer expert Kang Yanwu finds the views of the humanities scholars utterly baffling, as he argues that it is precisely science and technology that have made humanity freer.
These back-and-forth exchanges, like a game of table tennis, are seen in the writings of Zhao Tingyang, Liu Huajie, Hu Yanhua, Wu Guosheng, Fang Zhouzi, and Gong Jingcai, among others. More interestingly, the column invited writers such as Feng Jicai, Chen Cun, Zhang Wei, Fang Fang, Ye Yonglie, and A Lai to rate high technology. The writers expressed their diverse opinions, with some giving a highly praising 10 points, while others gave a rather pessimistic 4 points. From this, people see that sometimes, "the gap in scientific concepts between humanities scholars and natural science scholars is as vast as the poles," as if they were at opposite ends of the earth. Yet at other times, "the vision of science in the eyes of humanities scholars" and "the vision of humanistic spirit in the eyes of natural science scholars" are so strikingly unique, thought-provoking, and enlightening that they achieve a higher level of communication and complementarity through conflict.
This is precisely the unique contribution of this column—it has always been that science and humanities should not be divided by the Yangtze River and Han River, clear as water and mud, but should converge under the umbrella of a broader cultural concept, achieving a unity of "heaven" and "man."
Cool History, Hot Reading: Did Ancient China Have Science? is a fiery-colored stone, and the flavor of debate is no less intense. Around the concept of "modern science" and the "Needham Question," experts such as Xi Zexong, Jiang Xiaoyuan, Tian Song, Liu Bing, and Ge Ge offer insightful analyses, broadening our horizons while also raising caution about the Chinese tendency to "pursue the ancient and climb the high."
Science Lovers: Scientists Through a Third Eye is a multicolored stone, introducing the other sides of more than a dozen scientists from the East and West: the "scientific giant in a wheelchair" Stephen Hawking's two marriages; the teacher-student relationship between Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein; the independent spirit of the "super science star" Richard Feynman; the "guardian" experience of Hideki Yukawa; and the debate over Einstein as a "genuine hero" versus a "fake hero," all revealing the human side of scientists—they are ordinary people with blood, flesh, emotions, and flaws, not cold, mechanical scientific automatons or awe-inspiring scientific idols.
Green and Grey: Worries on the Path to Modernization is clear in its colors, serving as an environmental alarm for those advancing toward modernization. From an eco-ethical perspective, it reminds people of their natural responsibility to protect the environment.
There are also Frontier Scenery: The Scientific Landscape of the New Era and Eggs and Bones: Critical Book Reviews, as well as Four Thousand and Two Thousand Jin: Commentaries, which can be considered several black stones, as most of the texts are critical. From the revelation of the "Archaeopteryx" to the ridicule of "amateur scientists"; from the condemnation of works on "cloning" and "plagiarism" to the concern over the "forced promotion of young academicians"; from the criticism of crude anecdotes to the exposure of "Cledge"; and even the fight against pseudoscience and pseudoscience popularization such as the "pure water incident," "lottery winning predictions," "Bible statistics," and "psi phenomena"—all demonstrate the scientific method of seeking truth and the scientific attitude of being pragmatic, as well as the fearless scientific spirit of upholding truth and correcting errors.
Our society and our media praise and celebrate excessively, yet criticism is lacking. Yet, a critical spirit is a necessary reflection of the scientific pursuit of truth. In this sense, the fiery stones forged in this book are precisely what are needed to mend this leak in the sky.