荀子《勸學》篇中指出:
「故不積蹞步,無以致千里;不積小流,無以成江海。」
近二百年來科學的發展和歷史告訴我們,人類「征服」大自然,
靠的只不過是這「六道板斧」:
1. 開放式小圈子的集體智慧,
2. 日積月累,鍥而不捨的功夫,
3. 發展小圈子內共同使用的精密語言,
4. 根據事實而互相作出的最嚴苛挑剔──批判,
5. 小圈子做初級裁判,自然界做最後裁判,
6. 拒絕平庸,不斷地站在一個接著一個巨人的肩膀上。
No bird soars too high
if he soars with his own wings.
( William Blake, Marriage of Heaven and Hell, 1793 )
If I have seen farther
it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.
( Bernard of Chartres )
簡而言之,科學界遵循一條定律,就是
The Principle of Consensus of Significant Others。
而所謂 Significant Others,
就是小圈子內受過專業訓練和有思考能力的同業。
There is nothing more odious than the majority.
It consists of a few powerful men who lead the way;
of accommodating rascals and submissive weaklings;
and of a mass of men who trot after them without
in the least knowing their own minds.
( Goethe )
One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men.
No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man.
( Elbert Hubbard )
Modern Western civilization is the result of endowing
with the fruits of a dozen men of genius a population
which is emotionally at the level of savages and
culturally at the level of schoolboys.
( Cyril Joad )
Only when he has published his ideas and findings
has the scientist made his contribution, and only
when he has thus made it part of the public domain
of scholarship can he truly lay claim to it as his own.
For his claim resides only in the recognition accorded
by peers in the social system of science through
reference to his work.
( Robert K. Merton )
筆者認為科學的「六道板斧」,
蘊藏著現代精神文明中執行方法上最頂尖的精華!
筆者可以大膽地說一句,
不懂得科學世界和她蘊涵的精神的人,
根本不懂得甚麼叫做「集體智慧」,
不懂得「集思廣益」的最高境界是甚麼!
一般市民只知科學界重視「理性」,
但重視到甚麼程度,如何操作,一無所知;
一般市民只知科學界有一個「包容和開放的環境」,
但究竟如何包容,如何開放,一無所知;
一般市民只知科學界重視「實驗」,
但如何進行「實驗」,可能只有小部份人知;
一般市民只知科學界重視「溝通」,
但科學家究竟如何「溝通」,市民一無所知;
一般市民只知科學界「競爭」激烈,
但科學家「競爭」的目的和目標,市民一無所知,
科學界如何對待「競爭」的失敗者,市民一無所知,
為甚麼科學界的革命不需要流血,市民一無所知。
所以說:
「科學世界」百多年來,根本就是和市民生活的世界,
在意識形態之上完全脫節,
只靠科技世界和市民藕斷絲連,雖然這一些絲是鋼絲!
最令人悲哀的是,社會上的思想家,
很多都沒有投身過科學界,
根本不知道原來這個世界中,
還有這樣一個人數少少、無國界的大同世界,
而且成功地發展了一百多年;
另一方面,科學界 (不是科技界) 中人,
性格上對政治和社會有興趣的有如鳳毛麟角。
兩個世界的人,就有如火星人和地球人一樣,
難以溝通!