Chapter 22 Chapter 19 There Are No Stupid Questions in the World

In the 2 million-year-old rock record of East Africa, you can find a range of labor tools designed and used by our ancestors.Their livelihood depended on making and using these tools, which is of course an early Stone Age technology.Once upon a time, specially crafted stones were used to poke, chip, peel, cut, carve.Although there are many ways of making stone tools, it is worth mentioning that in a given location, tools were made in the same way over long periods of time - which means education must have existed hundreds of thousands of years ago system, even if it is primarily an apprenticeship system.While the similarities are easy to exaggerate, it's easy to imagine corresponding professors and students in loincloths, lab courses, quizzes, failing grades, graduation ceremonies, and graduate education.

If this training has not changed over a long historical period, the tradition is passed on to the next generation intact.But if what needs to be learned changes quickly, especially within a generation, it can be difficult to figure out what to teach and how to teach it.As a result, students will complain about inappropriate content; respect for elders will be reduced.Teachers despaired of lowering standards of education and of students becoming lethargic.In a world in transition, students and teachers alike need to teach themselves an important skill—learning how to learn. None of us, except children (who don't yet know whether to ask important questions), spend much time wondering: Why is nature the way it is?How did the universe come to be, or has it always been that way?If time were to turn back one day, would the effect come before the cause?Is there a limit to what people know.There are even children, I've met a few, wondering what a black hole looks like?What is the smallest part of matter?Why do we remember the past but not the future?Why is there a universe?

From time to time, I'll be very lucky to teach a kindergarten or first grade class.Many of these kids are born scientists - albeit with a little more inclination towards curiosity and less skepticism.They are curious, inquisitive, and thought-provoking.Insightful questions gushed out.They show great enthusiasm.I'm being asked a series of questions.They've never heard of "dumb questions." But when I talk to high school seniors, it's different.They memorize the "facts," but in general the joy of discovery, the soul behind the facts, has left them.They lose most of their curiosity and gain only a little skepticism.They worry about asking "dumb" questions; they are willing to accept inadequate answers; they don't ask consecutive questions; On a piece of paper, they secretly checked, waiting for their turn, but neglected what problem his classmates were concentrating on discussing at this time.

Something must have happened from first grade to twelfth grade, it's not just adolescence.I'm guessing it's partly because of pressure from classmates not to excel (except in sports); partly because of the short-term gratification that society teaches; partly because of the impression that science and math won't get you a car sports cars; partly because expectations are so low for students; and partly because intellectual discussion of science and technology—even learning itself—few rewards or role models.Those few kids who remained interested were belittled as "dumbs," "clowns," or "nerds."

But there are other reasons too: I find that many adults resent children asking scientific questions.Why is the moon round?The child might ask.Why is the grass green?What is the dream?How deep can you dig?When is the world's birthday?Why do we have toes?Most teachers and parents approach these questions with anger or sarcasm, or quickly move on to something else: "What would you like the moon to be, square?" Children soon learn that this kind of question annoys adults.A few more times like this, and yet another child leaves science.Why adults should pretend to know everything in front of children under the age of six is ​​beyond my comprehension.What's wrong with admitting we don't know something?Is our self-esteem so fragile?

Moreover, many of these are deep problems in science, and several have not yet been fully resolved.The fact that the moon is round has to do with gravity being a centripetal force that pulls objects toward the center of any world and the strength of rocks.Grass is green because it contains chlorophyll, sure - we were all drilled into this answer in high school - but why do plants have chlorophyll?This seems silly, since the sun's peak energy output is in the yellow and green parts of the spectrum.Why do plants all over the world reject the most energy-rich wavelengths of sunlight?Perhaps it was due to an unexpected freeze in Earth's ancient biological history.But we still don't know something about why grass is green.

There are many better responses that don't make children feel like they're making a big mistake asking esoteric questions.If we have an idea for an answer, we can try to explain it.Even an incomplete attempt can be reassuring and encouraging.If we don't know the answer, we can look it up in an encyclopedia.If we don't have an encyclopedia, we can take our kids to the library.Or we can say, "I don't know the answer, and maybe no one else has the answer. Maybe when you grow up, you'll be the first to find out." There are innocent questions, tedious questions, ill-phrased questions , and questions posed after inappropriate self-criticism.But each question reveals his desire to make sense of the world.This is by no means a question for dummies.Bright, curious children are an asset to the nation and the world.They need to be cared for, nurtured and encouraged.But encouragement is not enough, we must give them critical thinking tools.

“It’s official,” read one newspaper headline: “We have a terrible reputation in science.” The United States ranks last in an algebra test of 17-year-olds in many parts of the world.On the same test, American kids got an average of 43 percent correct, compared with 78 percent in Japan.On my report card, 78% were very good—roughly equivalent to a C+, or even a B-; 43% were F.Only two of the 13 countries performed worse than the United States on the chemistry test.Britain, Singapore and Hong Kong scored almost above par; 25 percent of 18-year-olds in Canada knew as much chemistry as the 1 percent chosen by American high school seniors. (They were taking a second chemistry class, and most were in "advanced" classes).The 20 best fifth-grade classes in Minneapolis were surpassed by all 20 classes in Sendai, Japan, and by 19 of the 20 classes in Taipei, Taiwan.Korean students far outperform American students in every aspect of math and science, and British Columbia (western Canada) 13-year-olds (who in some ways are even better than Koreans) outperform American students in leaderboards.Twenty-two percent of kids in the U.S. say they don't like school, compared with just 8 percent in South Korea.However, two-thirds of Americans say they are "good at math," but only a quarter of South Koreans say the same.

This tendency toward underachievement among average American students is occasionally offset by the performance of exceptional students. In 1994, at the International Mathematical Olympiad in Hong Kong, American students achieved an unprecedented performance -- beating 360 students from 68 countries in algebra, geometry and number theory.One of them, 17-year-old Jeremy Benn, commented: "Math problems are logic crossword puzzles. There are no rules - all creative and artistic." But my concern here is not to produce a new generation of top-notch scientists and mathematicians, but the level of scientific literacy of the public.

63% of adults in the U.S. don’t know that the last dinosaur died before the first man was born; 75% don’t know that antibiotics kill bacteria, not viruses; 57% don’t know that “electrons are smaller than atoms” ".Polls show that about half of Americans don't know that the earth revolves around the sun and that it takes a year to do so.I could find bright students in my undergraduate class at Cornell who didn't know that the stars rise and set at night, or that the sun is a star. Thanks to science fiction, the education system, NASA, and the role science plays in society, Americans should know more about Copernicus than the average person.A 1993 poll by the China Association for Science and Technology showed that no more than half of the people in China, like the United States, knew that the earth orbits the sun once a year.This obviously means that, four and a half centuries after the birth of Copernicus, most people on Earth still believe, deep down, that our planet is fixed and fixed at the center of the universe, and that we can be proud to think that we are "special".

These are typical questions about "science literacy," and the results are astounding.But what do they measure?Memory for authoritative insights.What they should be asking is how we know - that antibiotics can distinguish microbes, that electrons are "smaller" than atoms, that the sun is a star that the earth orbits once a year.Such questions are a more realistic gauge of the public's understanding of science, and the results of the test will undoubtedly be more depressing. If you take every word of the Bible as truth, then the earth must be flat.The same is true for you.Claiming the earth is round means you are an atheist. In 1993, the highest religious institution in Saudi Arabia, Sheik Abdul-Aziz Ian Baz, issued a decree or proclamation, declaring: The earth is flat, anyone who thinks the earth is round is Disbelief in Allah will be punished.Amidst much derision, clear evidence that the Earth was spherical was spread to the West by Arab and Muslim astronomers, collected by the Krag-Egyptian astronomer Claudius Ptolemy in the 2nd century AD.By the 9th century, they called Ptolemy's book explaining the spherical shape of the earth Almagest—"the greatest." I have met many people who are offended by the theory of evolution, who would rather believe that they are God's handicraft than that they were created by physical and chemical action from ooze over a long period of history.They don't bother to understand the evidence for evolution: it doesn't matter, and they believe what they want to be true.Only 9% of Americans accept the central finding of modern biology that humans (and all other species) evolved slowly from much older species through a natural process of succession, without God's intervention in the process . (When asked simply whether they accepted the theory of evolution, 45 percent of Americans said yes. The corresponding figure in China was 70 percent.) When the movie "Jurassic Park" was released in Israel, some Rabbi condemned for accepting evolution and proclaiming that dinosaurs lived 100 million years ago — while proclaiming at every Rosh Hashanah and Jewish wedding that the universe is less than 6,000 years old.The clearest evidence for evolution can be found in our genes.But the irony is that evolution is still being attacked by those whose own DNA justifies evolution - in schools, in courtrooms, in textbook publishers, and in how much pain we can inflict on other animals without crossing ethical boundaries. During the Great Depression, teachers enjoyed job security, good pay and respect.Teaching is an enviable profession, partly due to the widespread belief that learning is a way out of poverty.Things are very different today.People who teach science (and other subjects) are often incompetent and uncreative, and surprisingly, have little or no training in their subjects, impatient with teaching the scientific method and eager to teach scientific discovery — and sometimes they themselves cannot distinguish science from pseudoscience.Those who are trained often find better-paying jobs elsewhere. Children need to experience experimental methods firsthand, not just read books.We can be told that candle burning can be explained by the oxidation of the wax, but if we see a bell-shaped jar is placed over the candle flame until the carbon dioxide produced by the combustion surrounds the wick and blocks the oxygen, and the candle flame starts to flicker Then turn it off and we get a more vivid impression.Teachers can teach us how the mitochondria in our cells oxidize food like a flame burns wax, and we get a completely different feeling if we observe this process under a microscope.We can be told that some organisms need oxygen to live and others don't, but we don't really begin to understand it until we test this claim with a bell jar deoxygenated.What does oxygen do to us?Why do people die without oxygen?Where does the oxygen in the air come from?What about the reliability of this supply? Experimentation and the scientific method can be taught to students in many ways, not just in science classes.Daniel Kanitz was a friend of mine in college.He is an innovative middle school and high school social science teacher.Want students to understand the U.S. Constitution?You could have them read chapter by chapter and discuss it in class—but, unfortunately, that would put most of them to sleep.Or you'd rather try Kaynitz's approach: You forbid students to read the Constitution.However, you assign students in pairs to represent a state to the Constitutional Convention.You brief the 13 groups in advance on the particular interests of the states or territories they represent.Delegates from South Carolina, for example, would be told about the importance of cotton, the necessity and justification of the slave trade, the threat posed by the industrialized North, and so on. Thirteen delegations came together, with some guidance from the faculty, but largely on their own, to write a constitution over the course of a few weeks.Then they read the real constitution.The students left it to the president to start the war. The delegates in 1787 gave this right to Congress.Why?The students set the slaves free.The original Constitutional Convention did not.Why?Doing so required more preparation from the teacher and more work from the student, but the experience was unforgettable.It's hard not to think that the nations of the planet would be in better political shape if every citizen had a similar experience. To improve teacher training, salaries, and labs, we need more money.But across the United States, school bond issuance is routinely vetoed.No one is proposing that property taxes be used for military budgets, or farm subsidies, or to clean up toxic waste.Why education?Why not support education being funded from general taxes at the local and state levels?What about a special education tax on businesses whose workers especially need technical training? Children in American schools do not do enough homework.The standard school year in the United States has 180 days, compared to 220 in South Korea, 230 in Germany and 243 in Japan.In several of these countries students also go to school on Saturdays.American high school students spend an average of 3.5 hours a week doing homework.The time spent studying, curricular or extracurricular, is about 20 hours per week.The average Japanese fifth grade student is 33 hours.Japan, with only half the population of the United States, produces twice as many highly educated scientists and engineers as the United States every year. During four years of high school, American students spend less than 1,500 hours on subjects such as math, science and history.Japanese, French, and German students took twice as long.A 1994 report by the U.S. Department of Education stated: The traditional school day had to meet a whole set of needs called "New Tasks for Schools" - education in personal safety, consumer affairs, AIDS, conservation and energy, family life and driver training. Thus, due to the lack of social education and improper home education, high school students only have three hours a day for core academic subjects. There is a pervasive notion that science is "too hard" for the average person.We can see this through statistics.Only about 10 percent of American high school students ever take a physics class.What makes science suddenly "too hard"?Why is science not too difficult for citizens of countries that do better than the US?Has the American genius for science, technological innovation, and hard work disappeared?Americans were once immensely proud of their inventors, who pioneered the telegraph, telephone, light bulb, phonograph, automobile, and airplane.Everything but computers is yesterday's work.Where did all that "Yankee ingenuity" go? Most American children are not stupid.Part of the reason they don't study hard is that they seldom get real benefits from studying hard.Now for the average young person, competence in vocabulary skills, math, science and history (literally knowing the basics) doesn't add to their earnings in the first eight years after high school -- many of them Work in the service industry rather than in industrial enterprises. In the productive sectors of the economy the situation is different.A furniture factory, for example, is in danger of going bankrupt—not because there are no customers, but because few junior workers understand simple arithmetic.A major electronics company reported that 80 percent of its job applicants failed a fifth-grade math test.The U.S. already loses about $40 billion a year (mainly in lost productivity and spending on remedial education) because workers are largely unable to read, write, count, and think. The survey of 139 high-tech companies in the United States by the National Science Council of the United States shows that the main national policies that cause the decline of research and development are: (1) lack of long-term strategies to deal with the problem; (2) too little emphasis on the training of future scientists and engineers; (3) Too much investment in "defense" and not enough investment in civilian research and development; (4) Not enough emphasis on pre-university education.Ignorance breeds ignorance.Fear of science is contagious. In America, the people who love science the most are young, wealthy, college-educated white men.But three-quarters of America's new workers in the next decade will be women, nonwhites, and immigrants.Failure to arouse their enthusiasm for science - and I have no intention of discriminating against them - would be not only injustice, but also a stupid act of self-destruction of the Great Wall.This will deprive the economy of much-needed skilled labor. African-American and Latino students have made great strides in standardized science tests compared to the 1960s, but the progress is limited to them.The gap between white and black U.S. high school graduates in math remains large—two to three grades; but the gap between white U.S. high school graduates and students from other countries such as Japan, Canada, the U.K., or Finland is the above-mentioned Twice the gap (US students lagging behind).If you have little motivation and little education, you don't know much—no surprise there.Suburban African Americans with college-educated parents do just as well in college as white suburban parents with college-educated parents.According to some statistics, if a poor kid enrolls in the Head Start program, his chances of finding a job in the future will be doubled; if he completes the Leap Program, his chances of going to college will increase by four times.If we are serious, we will know what to do. What about colleges and universities?Obvious steps that should be taken: rely on teaching success for prestige; determine teacher promotion based on student performance on standardized, double-blind tests; teachers should be paid close to what they earn in corporate jobs; more scholarships, grants, and experiments laboratory equipment; imaginative and stimulating courses and teaching materials, in which excellent teachers should play a major role; laboratory courses are compulsory for everyone to graduate; great emphasis is placed on traditional deviations from science.We should also encourage the best academic scientists to devote more time to public education—textbooks, lectures, newspaper and magazine articles, television programs, mandatory courses in skeptical thinking and the scientific method in freshmen and sophomores perhaps It's worth trying. The mystic William Blake stared at the sun and said he saw the ambassador, while others, more worldly, "saw only an object the size and color of a gin guinea".Did Blake really see the angel in the sun, or was it some kind of perception and perception error?I know of no photos showing such a thing on the sun.Did Blake see what cameras and telescopes couldn't?Or does this interpretation reside more within Blake's head than outside it?Isn’t modern science’s explanation of the nature of the sun even more fantastic: there are no angels or gold coins in the sun, it’s a sphere big enough to hold a million earths, and at its core, invisible atomic nuclei squeeze together, hydrogen turns into helium , the energy hidden in the hydrogen for billions of years is released, and the earth and other planets are warmed and illuminated by it, and the same process is repeated 400 billion times in the rest of the galaxy. The blueprints, detailed expositions, and work instructions needed to construct a person from scratch could fill 1,000 volumes of an encyclopedia if written in English.And each of your cells has a set of such encyclopedias.The quasar is so far away that the light we see from it traveled intergalactically before Earth was born.Everyone on Earth is descended from the same East African ape-human ancestors millions of years ago, which makes us all cousins. Whenever I think about these discoveries, I get a thrill.My heart was beating fast and uncontrollably.Science is one of surprise and delight.Every time a spaceship flies by a new world, I am amazed.Planetary scientists ask themselves, "Oh, so? How did we not think of that?" But nature is always more subtle, more intricate, and more refined than we can imagine.Given our apparent flaws as humans, it's surprising that we've come so far in discovering nature's secrets. Almost every scientist has experienced a moment of awe-inspiring astonishment during a moment of discovery or epiphany.Science—pure science, not for any application but for itself—has a deep emotional content for those who practice it, and for those who come now and then to see what the latest discoveries are. Like a detective story, the process of framing key questions, discerning possible explanations, and even making scientific discoveries is a joy.Pick a few at random from the following examples, some of which are simple and some of which are far from it: * Could there be undiscovered integers between 6 and 7? * Could there be new undiscovered chemical elements between atomic number 6 (carbon) and atomic number 7 (nitrogen)? * New preservative causes cancer in mice.But what if you gave a pound of the drug a day to a human who weighed much more than a mouse?In this case, perhaps the new preservative is not so dangerous.Perhaps the benefits of long-term preservation of food outweigh the cancer risks?Who decides?What information do they need to make an informed decision? * In a rock that is 3.8 billion years old, you find the same ratio of carbon isotopes as in living organisms today, but not in inorganic sediments.Do you deduce from this that there was life on earth 3.8 billion years ago?Or the chemical remnants of a more modern organism that has infiltrated the rock?Or is there a way to separate isotopes in rocks from biological processes? * Measurements of the electrical sensitivity of the human brain show that when certain memory or mental activity occurs, specific areas of the brain go into action.Are our thoughts, memories, and emotions produced by specialized circuits of neurons in the brain?Is it possible to simulate this circuit in a robot?Is it possible to insert new or change old circuits in the brain to change opinions, memories, emotions, logical reasoning?Is such stuffing too dangerous? * Your theory of the origin of the solar system predicts that there will be many disks of gas and dust gathered in the Milky Way galaxy. You have seen many disks through your telescope, and you are happy to conclude that your theory has been confirmed.But the disk you see is actually a spiral galaxy much farther away than the Milky Way, and too large to be a nascent solar system.Would you give up your theory?Or will you be looking for another disc?Or is this just an expression of your reluctance to let go of a dubious assumption? * A developing cancer tumor issues a communiqué to cells near blood vessels: "We need blood." Endothelial cells are then forced to build vascular bridges to supply blood to the cancer cell.How did this happen?Can this message be intercepted or canceled? * You mix purple, blue, green, yellow, orange and red paints together to get dark brown.And you mix lights of the same color together and you get white.How is this going? * There are long, repetitive sequences of genetic information (called "waste") in the genes of humans and many other animals.Certain sequences cause genetic diseases.Could this part of DNA be a nasty piece of nucleic acid, self-replicating, going about its own way, regardless of the normal state of the organism they inhabit? * Many animals behave very strangely before an earthquake, do they know something that seismologists don't? * The word for "God" was almost the same in the ancient Aztecs and the ancient Greeks.Does this indicate some connection or commonality between the two cultures, or should we consider the coincidence of these two unrelated languages ​​to be mere chance?Or, as Plato thought in Genesis, that certain words are innate to us? * The second law of thermodynamics states that looking at the universe as a whole, disorder grows with time. (Of course, local worlds, life, and intelligence can arise through orderly reductions elsewhere in the universe.) But if we lived in a universe where the expansion of the Big Bang was about to slow, stagnate, and then contract, would the second law be reversed? ?Does the effect come before the cause? * The human stomach uses concentrated hydrochloric acid to dissolve food and aid in digestion.Why doesn't hydrochloric acid dissolve the stomach itself? * As I write this, the oldest stars have been found that appear to be older than the universe.Like claiming that a friend has a child who is older than the friend, you don't have to know much to realize that someone must have made a mistake.So who is it? * Today's technology can move individual atoms, so that long and complex information can be written on an ultra-microscopic scale.Molecular-sized machines can also be made, and the most fundamental examples of these "nanotechnologies" have now been successfully demonstrated.Where will it lead us in the next few decades? * In several different labs, scientists have discovered that certain complex molecules can replicate themselves in test tubes under the right conditions.Some of these molecules, like DNA and RNA, are made of nucleotides; others are not.Some use enzymes to speed up the rate of chemical reactions; others do not.Mistakes sometimes occur in replication; the mistakes are then continually reproduced in descendant molecules.So they become slightly different self-replicating molecules, some of which replicate faster than others.more efficient.So the first to prosper.The molecules in the test tube became more efficient over time.How much will this tell us about the origin of life as we begin to witness molecular evolution? * Why is normal ice white and pure ice blue? *Life has been discovered miles below the earth.How deep can the existence of life reach? * According to a French anthropologist, the Dogon people in Mali have a legend: Sirius has an extremely dense companion star.In fact Sirius does have such a companion star, although it can only be detected with fairly sophisticated astronomical techniques.So, (1) did the Dogon originate from a forgotten civilization that once possessed enormous telescopes and theoretical astrophysics?Or, (2) did they ever get advice from extraterrestrials?Or, (3) Did the Dogon hear about Sirius' white dwarf companion from visiting Europeans?Or, (4) French anthropologists got it wrong and the Dogon never had similar legends?Why is it difficult for scientists to promote science?Some scientists—including some very good ones—tell me that they enjoy popularizing science and just feel they lack talent in the field.Knowing and explaining, they say, are not the same thing.Where is the secret? Just one, I think: You can't speak to the general public as you would to your fellow scientist.Some of the terms used to convey your ideas are instantly and accurately understood by experts; you may say these words in various ways in your professional work every day, but they will be indistinguishable to non-expert listeners. riddles; use language as simple as possible; above all, whatever you are trying to explain, think about what your understanding looked like before you caught it yourself; recall any misunderstandings you almost fell into, and remind others clearly; remember your Know nothing too; recap your first steps from ignorance to knowledge; never forget that innate wisdom is universal among us humans.Indeed, this is the secret of our success. The effort is small, but the benefits are huge.Potential pitfalls include oversimplification, omitting qualitative (and quantitative) requirements, giving undue credit to concerned scientists, and failing to adequately discern the difference between useful analogies and reality.Undoubtedly, compromises will be required. The more presentations you do, the clearer it will be about what works and what doesn't.Metaphors, similes, analogies, anecdotes, etc. can be chosen naturally.You'll soon find that you can go almost where you want by stepping on the audience-tested stepping stones.You are able to tailor your introduction to the needs of your audience. Some scientists, like many editors and television producers, believe that the public is too ignorant or too stupid to understand science, and that science popularization is a hopeless enterprise that amounts to fraternity, if not outright sympathy, with the enemy.Among the many criticisms that underlie this judgment—along with intolerable arrogance and the neglect of many examples of wildly successful science popularization—imply an overconfidence and, for the scientists concerned, a natural Destroy the Great Wall. The history of large-scale government support for science is not long, dating back only to World War II—although patronage of a few scientists by the rich and powerful has long existed.With the end of the Cold War, the national defense trump card, which once supported all kinds of basic research, is no longer playing.Partly for this reason, most scientists, I think, support popularizing science. (Since almost all funding for science comes from public property, it would be queer suicidal flirting for scientists to object to doing enough popularization.) What is understood and appreciated by the public tends to be supported by the public.I don't mean writing articles for magazines like Scientific American, reading by science enthusiasts and scientists in other fields, or just teaching an introductory course to undergraduates.I'm talking about efforts to communicate the nature and methods of science in newspapers, magazines, radio and television, in lectures to the general public, and in elementary, middle, and high school textbooks. Judgment will of course be required in the popularization effort.It is important to neither mystify nor benefactor.In an effort to heighten public interest, scientists occasionally go too far—such as drawing unverifiable religious conclusions.Astronomer George Smoot described his discovery of irregular electromagnetic radiation from the Big Bang as "seeing God face to face".Nobel Prize-winning physicist Leon Lederman has dubbed the Higgs boson (a hypothetical building block of matter) the "God particle" and has given it the title of a book. (In my opinion, they are both God's 'particles'.) If the Higgs boson does not exist, is the hypothesis of God's existence also disproved?Physicist Frank Tipler proposes that in the distant future computers will prove the existence of God and bring our physical bodies back to life. A little attention from journals and television to science can spark ideas, and that's important.But—besides beginner or well-organized classes and research classes—the best way to popularize science is through textbooks.Popular books, CD-ROM and LaserVideo.You can think carefully, take your time, review difficult parts, compare context, and dig deeper.This has to be done the right way, which is not usually the case in schools.As the philosopher John Passmore put it, science often acts as: A thing to learn some methods and apply them in regular steps.It is learned from textbooks, not by reading the works of great scientists or the daily reading of scientific literature. …  Early scientists were not as directly connected with genius as were early humanists.Actually...the school curriculum attracts the wrong kind of people to science—boys and girls who like routine and lack imagination. I maintain that popular science is successful if it ignites people's curiosity.To do this, a glimpse of scientific discoveries is sufficient, without a full explanation of how they were made.描述目的比描述旅程要容易。但是，在可能的时候，推广者应该试着记录科学发现过程中所经历的某些失误、错误的开端和失败的结果及明显绝望时的困惑。至少有的时候，我们应该提供证据让读者得出他或她自己的结论。这将把对新知识的被动吸收转变为个人的发现。当你自己作出发现——即使你是地球上最后一个看见光明的人——你也会永生难忘。 在我年轻的时候，我被许多通俗的科学书籍和文章所启发，作者包括乔治·伽莫夫，詹姆斯·金斯，亚瑟·爱丁顿，J·B·S·豪登，朱里安·赫胥黎，蕾切尔·卡逊和亚瑟·C·克拉克——他们所有人都受过科学的训练，其中大多数人是顶尖的科学实践者。在过去的20年中，文字优美、解释清楚、富于想象力的通俗科学书籍打动了我们的心灵和思维，而且似乎比以往任何时候都更流行，撰写这些书籍的科学家的数量和专业的多样性也是前所未有的。当代最优秀的科学普及者中，在生物学方面有斯蒂芬·詹·格尔德、E·O·威尔逊、路易斯·托马斯和理查德·道金斯；在物理学方面有斯蒂芬·温伯格，阿兰·莱特曼，和奇普·索恩；化学方面有洛得·霍夫曼；以及天文学方面弗雷德·豪勒的早期作品。伊萨克·阿西莫夫的写作涉及各个方面。(尽管需要微积分，在我看来过去几十年中最为令人激动。引人入胜、鼓舞人心的科普作品是理查德·费因曼的《物理学讲座》第一卷。)然而，当前的工作与公众兴趣的需要相比是远远不够的。当然，如果我们不识字，我们就不能从这些作品中受益，不论它们是多么鼓舞人心。 我希望我们能挽救“巴克利”先生和上百万像他那样的人，我还希望我们能停止产生沉闷的、无好奇心、无辨别力的、缺乏想象力的高中生。我们人类需要，也应当得到，完全清醒的、基本了解世界是如何运作的公民。 科学，我坚持认为，对于任何一个希望生存到下个世纪并保留其基本的价值观的社会来说，都是绝对重要的工具——我所说的科学，不仅是科学的实践者所从事的，而是应被整个人类社会所理解和接受的科学。如果科学家们不能实现这一目标，谁能？