关于科学与社会的异端思想 |Edge.org --- HERETICAL THOUGHTS ABOUT SCIENCE AND SOCIETY | Edge.org(https://www.edge.org/conversation/freeman_dyson-heretical-thoughts-about-science-and-society)

HERETICAL THOUGHTS ABOUT SCIENCE AND SOCIETY 关于科学和社会的异端思想

An essay by 一篇文章 Freeman Dyson 弗里曼·戴森

我的第一个异端邪说是，所有关于全球变暖的大惊小怪都被严重夸大了。在这里，我反对气候模型专家的神圣兄弟会和一群相信计算机模型预测的数字的受骗公民。当然，他们说，我没有气象学学位，因此我没有资格发言。但我研究过气候模型，我知道它们能做什么。这些模型求解了流体动力学的方程，它们在描述大气和海洋的流体运动方面做得很好。他们在描述云、尘埃、化学和田野、农场和森林的生物学方面做得很差。他们没有开始描述我们生活的现实世界。现实世界是泥泞和凌乱的，充满了我们还不了解的东西。对于科学家来说，坐在有空调的建筑物里运行计算机模型要比穿上冬装并测量沼泽和云层中真正发生的事情要容易得多。这就是为什么气候模型专家最终相信了他们自己的模型。

FREEMAN DYSON is professor of physics at the Institute for Advanced Study, in Princeton. His professional interests are in mathematics and astronomy. Among his many books areDisturbing the Universe, Infinite in All Directions Origins of Life, From Eros to Gaia, Imagined Worlds, and The Sun, the Genome, and the Internet. His most recent book, Many Colored Glass: Reflections on the Place of Life in the Universe (Page Barbour Lectures), is being published this month by University of Virgina Press.
弗里曼·戴森（FREEMAN DYSON）是普林斯顿大学高级研究所的物理学教授。他的专业兴趣是数学和天文学。他的许多著作包括《扰乱宇宙》、《全方位无限》、《生命的起源》、《从爱神到盖亚》、《想象的世界》和《太阳、基因组和互联网》。他的最新著作《许多有色玻璃：对宇宙中生命地位的反思》（Page Barbour Lectures）将于本月由弗吉尼亚大学出版社出版。

Freeman Dyson's *Edge* Bio Page
弗里曼·戴森（Freeman Dyson）的 Edge 生物页面

1. The Need for Heretics
\1. 对异教徒的需求

In the modern world, science and society often interact in a perverse way. We live in a technological society, and technology causes political problems. The politicians and the public expect science to provide answers to the problems. Scientific experts are paid and encouraged to provide answers. The public does not have much use for a scientist who says, “Sorry, but we don’t know”. The public prefers to listen to scientists who give confident answers to questions and make confident predictions of what will happen as a result of human activities. So it happens that the experts who talk publicly about politically contentious questions tend to speak more clearly than they think. They make confident predictions about the future, and end up believing their own predictions. Their predictions become dogmas which they do not question. The public is led to believe that the fashionable scientific dogmas are true, and it may sometimes happen that they are wrong. That is why heretics who question the dogmas are needed.
在现代世界中，科学和社会经常以一种不正当的方式相互作用。我们生活在一个技术社会，技术会引起政治问题。政治家和公众都期望科学能为这些问题提供答案。科学专家获得报酬并鼓励他们提供答案。公众对说“对不起，但我们不知道”的科学家没有多大用处。公众更喜欢听取科学家的意见，他们对问题给出自信的答案，并对人类活动将会发生什么做出自信的预测。因此，公开谈论政治上有争议问题的专家往往比他们想象的更清楚。他们对未来做出自信的预测，并最终相信自己的预测。他们的预言成为教条，他们不会质疑。公众被引导相信时髦的科学教条是正确的，有时它们可能会出错。这就是为什么需要质疑教条的异教徒。

As a scientist I do not have much faith in predictions. Science is organized unpredictability. The best scientists like to arrange things in an experiment to be as unpredictable as possible, and then they do the experiment to see what will happen. You might say that if something is predictable then it is not science. When I make predictions, I am not speaking as a scientist. I am speaking as a story-teller, and my predictions are science-fiction rather than science. The predictions of science-fiction writers are notoriously inaccurate. Their purpose is to imagine what might happen rather than to describe what will happen. I will be telling stories that challenge the prevailing dogmas of today. The prevailing dogmas may be right, but they still need to be challenged. I am proud to be a heretic. The world always needs heretics to challenge the prevailing orthodoxies. Since I am heretic, I am accustomed to being in the minority. If I could persuade everyone to agree with me, I would not be a heretic.
作为一名科学家，我对预测没有太大的信心。科学是有组织的不可预测性。最好的科学家喜欢将实验中的事物安排得尽可能不可预测，然后他们进行实验，看看会发生什么。你可能会说，如果某件事是可预测的，那么它就不是科学。当我做出预测时，我不是以科学家的身份说话。我是以讲故事的身份说话的，我的预测是科幻小说而不是科学。科幻作家的预测是出了名的不准确。他们的目的是想象可能发生的事情，而不是描述将要发生的事情。我将讲述挑战当今主流教条的故事。流行的教条可能是正确的，但它们仍然需要受到挑战。我很自豪自己是个异教徒。世界总是需要异教徒来挑战盛行的正统观念。因为我是异教徒，所以我习惯于成为少数派。如果我能说服所有人同意我的观点，我就不会成为异教徒。

We are lucky that we can be heretics today without any danger of being burned at the stake. But unfortunately I am an old heretic. Old heretics do not cut much ice. When you hear an old heretic talking, you can always say, “Too bad he has lost his marbles”, and pass on. What the world needs is young heretics. I am hoping that one or two of the people who read this piece may fill that role.
我们很幸运，我们今天可以成为异教徒，而没有任何被烧死在火刑柱上的危险。但不幸的是，我是一个老异教徒。老异教徒不怎么破冰。当你听到一个老异教徒说话时，你总是可以说，“太糟糕了，他丢了弹珠”，然后就过去了。世界需要的是年轻的异教徒。我希望读过这篇文章的人中有一两个人可以担任这个角色。

Two years ago, I was at Cornell University celebrating the life of Tommy Gold, a famous astronomer who died at a ripe old age. He was famous as a heretic, promoting unpopular ideas that usually turned out to be right. Long ago I was a guinea-pig in Tommy’s experiments on human hearing. He had a heretical idea that the human ear discriminates pitch by means of a set of tuned resonators with active electromechanical feedback. He published a paper explaining how the ear must work, [Gold, 1948]. He described how the vibrations of the inner ear must be converted into electrical signals which feed back into the mechanical motion, reinforcing the vibrations and increasing the sharpness of the resonance. The experts in auditory physiology ignored his work because he did not have a degree in physiology. Many years later, the experts discovered the two kinds of hair-cells in the inner ear that actually do the feedback as Tommy had predicted, one kind of hair-cell acting as electrical sensors and the other kind acting as mechanical drivers. It took the experts forty years to admit that he was right. Of course, I knew that he was right, because I had helped him do the experiments.
两年前，我在康奈尔大学（Cornell University）庆祝汤米·戈尔德（Tommy Gold）的一生，汤米·戈尔德（Tommy Gold）是一位著名的天文学家，在年老时去世。他以异教徒而闻名，宣传不受欢迎的想法，这些想法通常被证明是正确的。很久以前，我是汤米关于人类听觉的实验中的一只小白鼠。他有一个异端的想法，即人耳通过一组具有主动机电反馈的调谐谐振器来区分音高。他发表了一篇论文，解释了耳朵必须如何工作，[Gold，1948]。他描述了如何将内耳的振动转换为电信号，这些电信号会反馈到机械运动中，从而增强振动并增加共振的锐度。听觉生理学专家忽略了他的工作，因为他没有生理学学位。许多年后，专家们在内耳中发现了两种毛细胞，它们实际上正如汤米所预测的那样进行反馈，一种毛细胞充当电传感器，另一种充当机械驱动器。专家们花了四十年的时间才承认他是对的。当然，我知道他是对的，因为我帮助他做了实验。

Later in his life, Tommy Gold promoted another heretical idea, that the oil and natural gas in the ground come up from deep in the mantle of the earth and have nothing to do with biology. Again the experts are sure that he is wrong, and he did not live long enough to change their minds. Just a few weeks before he died, some chemists at the Carnegie Institution in Washington did a beautiful experiment in a diamond anvil cell, [Scott et al., 2004]. They mixed together tiny quantities of three things that we know exist in the mantle of the earth, and observed them at the pressure and temperature appropriate to the mantle about two hundred kilometers down. The three things were calcium carbonate which is sedimentary rock, iron oxide which is a component of igneous rock, and water. These three things are certainly present when a slab of subducted ocean floor descends from a deep ocean trench into the mantle. The experiment showed that they react quickly to produce lots of methane, which is natural gas. Knowing the result of the experiment, we can be sure that big quantities of natural gas exist in the mantle two hundred kilometers down. We do not know how much of this natural gas pushes its way up through cracks and channels in the overlying rock to form the shallow reservoirs of natural gas that we are now burning. If the gas moves up rapidly enough, it will arrive intact in the cooler regions where the reservoirs are found. If it moves too slowly through the hot region, the methane may be reconverted to carbonate rock and water. The Carnegie Institute experiment shows that there is at least a possibility that Tommy Gold was right and the natural gas reservoirs are fed from deep below. The chemists sent an E-mail to Tommy Gold to tell him their result, and got back a message that he had died three days earlier. Now that he is dead, we need more heretics to take his place.
在他生命的后期，汤米·戈尔德（Tommy Gold）提出了另一种异端观点，即地下的石油和天然气来自地球地幔深处，与生物学无关。专家们再次确信他错了，他没有活足够长的时间来改变他们的想法。就在他去世前几周，华盛顿卡内基研究所的一些化学家在钻石砧池中做了一个漂亮的实验，[Scott et al.， 2004]。他们将我们知道存在于地幔中的三种微小的东西混合在一起，并在大约两百公里以下的地幔适当的压力和温度下观察它们。这三样东西是碳酸钙（沉积岩）、氧化铁（火成岩的成分）和水。当一块俯冲的海底板从深海海沟下降到地幔中时，这三样东西肯定存在。实验表明，它们会迅速反应产生大量甲烷，即天然气。知道了实验的结果，我们可以确定在两百公里以下的地幔中存在大量的天然气。我们不知道有多少天然气通过上覆岩石的裂缝和通道向上推进，形成了我们现在正在燃烧的浅层天然气储层。如果气体上升得足够快，它将完好无损地到达发现储层的较冷区域。如果它在炎热区域移动得太慢，甲烷可能会重新转化为碳酸盐岩和水。卡内基研究所（Carnegie Institute）的实验表明，汤米·戈尔德（Tommy Gold）至少有可能是对的，天然气储层是从地下深处供水的。化学家们给汤米·戈尔德发了一封电子邮件，告诉他他们的结果，并得到一条消息，说他在三天前就去世了。现在他已经死了，我们需要更多的异教徒来取代他的位置。

2. Climate and Land Management
\2. 气候与土地管理

The main subject of this piece is the problem of climate change. This is a contentious subject, involving politics and economics as well as science. The science is inextricably mixed up with politics. Everyone agrees that the climate is changing, but there are violently diverging opinions about the causes of change, about the consequences of change, and about possible remedies. I am promoting a heretical opinion, the first of three heresies that I will discuss in this piece.
这篇文章的主题是气候变化问题。这是一个有争议的话题，涉及政治、经济和科学。科学与政治密不可分。每个人都同意气候正在发生变化，但对于变化的原因、变化的后果以及可能的补救措施，存在着激烈的意见分歧。我正在宣扬一种异端观点，这是我将在这篇文章中讨论的三个异端中的第一个。

My first heresy says that all the fuss about global warming is grossly exaggerated. Here I am opposing the holy brotherhood of climate model experts and the crowd of deluded citizens who believe the numbers predicted by the computer models. Of course, they say, I have no degree in meteorology and I am therefore not qualified to speak. But I have studied the climate models and I know what they can do. The models solve the equations of fluid dynamics, and they do a very good job of describing the fluid motions of the atmosphere and the oceans. They do a very poor job of describing the clouds, the dust, the chemistry and the biology of fields and farms and forests. They do not begin to describe the real world that we live in. The real world is muddy and messy and full of things that we do not yet understand. It is much easier for a scientist to sit in an air-conditioned building and run computer models, than to put on winter clothes and measure what is really happening outside in the swamps and the clouds. That is why the climate model experts end up believing their own models.
我的第一个异端邪说是，所有关于全球变暖的大惊小怪都被严重夸大了。在这里，我反对气候模型专家的神圣兄弟会和一群相信计算机模型预测的数字的受骗公民。当然，他们说，我没有气象学学位，因此我没有资格发言。但我研究过气候模型，我知道它们能做什么。这些模型求解了流体动力学的方程，它们在描述大气和海洋的流体运动方面做得很好。他们在描述云、尘埃、化学和田野、农场和森林的生物学方面做得很差。他们没有开始描述我们生活的现实世界。现实世界是泥泞和凌乱的，充满了我们还不了解的东西。对于科学家来说，坐在有空调的建筑物里运行计算机模型要比穿上冬装并测量沼泽和云层中真正发生的事情要容易得多。这就是为什么气候模型专家最终相信了他们自己的模型。

There is no doubt that parts of the world are getting warmer, but the warming is not global. I am not saying that the warming does not cause problems. Obviously it does. Obviously we should be trying to understand it better. I am saying that the problems are grossly exaggerated. They take away money and attention from other problems that are more urgent and more important, such as poverty and infectious disease and public education and public health, and the preservation of living creatures on land and in the oceans, not to mention easy problems such as the timely construction of adequate dikes around the city of New Orleans.
毫无疑问，世界部分地区正在变暖，但变暖并不是全球性的。我并不是说变暖不会引起问题。显然确实如此。显然，我们应该尝试更好地理解它。我是说这些问题被严重夸大了。他们从其他更紧迫和更重要的问题上夺走了金钱和注意力，例如贫困和传染病以及公共教育和公共卫生，以及保护陆地和海洋中的生物，更不用说诸如在新奥尔良市周围及时建造足够的堤坝之类的简单问题了。

I will discuss the global warming problem in detail because it is interesting, even though its importance is exaggerated. One of the main causes of warming is the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere resulting from our burning of fossil fuels such as oil and coal and natural gas. To understand the movement of carbon through the atmosphere and biosphere, we need to measure a lot of numbers. I do not want to confuse you with a lot of numbers, so I will ask you to remember just one number. The number that I ask you to remember is one hundredth of an inch per year. Now I will explain what this number means. Consider the half of the land area of the earth that is not desert or ice-cap or city or road or parking-lot. This is the half of the land that is covered with soil and supports vegetation of one kind or another. Every year, it absorbs and converts into biomass a certain fraction of the carbon dioxide that we emit into the atmosphere. Biomass means living creatures, plants and microbes and animals, and the organic materials that are left behind when the creatures die and decay. We don’t know how big a fraction of our emissions is absorbed by the land, since we have not measured the increase or decrease of the biomass. The number that I ask you to remember is the increase in thickness, averaged over one half of the land area of the planet, of the biomass that would result if all the carbon that we are emitting by burning fossil fuels were absorbed. The average increase in thickness is one hundredth of an inch per year.
我将详细讨论全球变暖问题，因为它很有趣，尽管它的重要性被夸大了。气候变暖的主要原因之一是我们燃烧石油、煤炭和天然气等化石燃料导致大气中二氧化碳的增加。为了了解碳在大气和生物圈中的运动，我们需要测量很多数字。我不想让你与很多数字混淆，所以我会请你只记住一个数字。我请你们记住这个数字是每年百分之一英寸。现在我将解释这个数字的含义。考虑一下地球上一半的陆地面积，不是沙漠、冰盖、城市、道路或停车场。这是被土壤覆盖并支撑着一种或另一种植被的土地的一半。每年，它都会吸收我们排放到大气中的一定比例的二氧化碳并将其转化为生物质。生物质是指生物、植物、微生物和动物，以及生物死亡和腐烂时留下的有机物质。我们不知道我们排放物中有多少部分被土地吸收，因为我们没有测量过生物量的增加或减少。我请你们记住这个数字是，如果我们燃烧化石燃料所排放的所有碳都被吸收，那么所产生的生物量的厚度增加，平均超过地球陆地面积的一半。厚度的平均增加是每年百分之一英寸。

The point of this calculation is the very favorable rate of exchange between carbon in the atmosphere and carbon in the soil. To stop the carbon in the atmosphere from increasing, we only need to grow the biomass in the soil by a hundredth of an inch per year. Good topsoil contains about ten percent biomass, [Schlesinger, 1977], so a hundredth of an inch of biomass growth means about a tenth of an inch of topsoil. Changes in farming practices such as no-till farming, avoiding the use of the plow, cause biomass to grow at least as fast as this. If we plant crops without plowing the soil, more of the biomass goes into roots which stay in the soil, and less returns to the atmosphere. If we use genetic engineering to put more biomass into roots, we can probably achieve much more rapid growth of topsoil. I conclude from this calculation that the problem of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is a problem of land management, not a problem of meteorology. No computer model of atmosphere and ocean can hope to predict the way we shall manage our land.
这个计算的重点是大气中的碳和土壤中的碳之间非常有利的交换率。为了阻止大气中的碳增加，我们只需要每年将土壤中的生物量增加百分之一英寸。良好的表土含有大约百分之十的生物量，[Schlesinger，1977]，因此百分之一英寸的生物量增长意味着大约十分之一英寸的表土。耕作方式的改变，如免耕农业，避免使用犁，导致生物量的增长至少与此一样快。如果我们在不耕地的情况下种植庄稼，那么更多的生物质会进入根部，这些根部会留在土壤中，而较少的生物质会返回大气中。如果我们使用基因工程将更多的生物量放入根系，我们可能可以实现表土的更快生长。我从这个计算中得出结论，大气中的二氧化碳问题是土地管理的问题，而不是气象学的问题。没有任何关于大气和海洋的计算机模型能够预测我们将如何管理我们的土地。

Here is another heretical thought. Instead of calculating world-wide averages of biomass growth, we may prefer to look at the problem locally. Consider a possible future, with China continuing to develop an industrial economy based largely on the burning of coal, and the United States deciding to absorb the resulting carbon dioxide by increasing the biomass in our topsoil. The quantity of biomass that can be accumulated in living plants and trees is limited, but there is no limit to the quantity that can be stored in topsoil. To grow topsoil on a massive scale may or may not be practical, depending on the economics of farming and forestry. It is at least a possibility to be seriously considered, that China could become rich by burning coal, while the United States could become environmentally virtuous by accumulating topsoil, with transport of carbon from mine in China to soil in America provided free of charge by the atmosphere, and the inventory of carbon in the atmosphere remaining constant. We should take such possibilities into account when we listen to predictions about climate change and fossil fuels. If biotechnology takes over the planet in the next fifty years, as computer technology has taken it over in the last fifty years, the rules of the climate game will be radically changed.
这是另一个异端思想。我们可能更愿意在当地研究这个问题，而不是计算世界范围内生物量增长的平均数。考虑一个可能的未来，中国继续发展主要基于燃煤的工业经济，而美国决定通过增加表土中的生物量来吸收由此产生的二氧化碳。在活的植物和树木中可以积累的生物量是有限的，但可以在表土中储存的生物量是没有限制的。大规模种植表土可能是切实可行的，也可能是不切实际的，这取决于农业和林业的经济性。至少可以认真考虑一下，中国可以通过燃烧煤炭致富，而美国可以通过积累表土来变得对环境有益，中国的碳矿向美国的土壤的运输由大气免费提供，大气中的碳库存保持不变。当我们听取有关气候变化和化石燃料的预测时，我们应该考虑到这种可能性。如果生物技术在未来五十年内接管地球，就像计算机技术在过去五十年中接管地球一样，气候游戏的规则将发生根本性的变化。

When I listen to the public debates about climate change, I am impressed by the enormous gaps in our knowledge, the sparseness of our observations and the superficiality of our theories. Many of the basic processes of planetary ecology are poorly understood. They must be better understood before we can reach an accurate diagnosis of the present condition of our planet. When we are trying to take care of a planet, just as when we are taking care of a human patient, diseases must be diagnosed before they can be cured. We need to observe and measure what is going on in the biosphere, rather than relying on computer models.
当我听到关于气候变化的公开辩论时，我们对知识的巨大差距、我们观察的稀疏和我们理论的肤浅印象深刻。人们对行星生态学的许多基本过程知之甚少。在我们能够对地球的现状做出准确诊断之前，必须更好地理解它们。当我们试图照顾一个星球时，就像我们照顾一个人类病人一样，疾病必须在被治愈之前得到诊断。我们需要观察和测量生物圈中正在发生的事情，而不是依赖计算机模型。

Everyone agrees that the increasing abundance of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has two important consequences, first a change in the physics of radiation transport in the atmosphere, and second a change in the biology of plants on the ground and in the ocean. Opinions differ on the relative importance of the physical and biological effects, and on whether the effects, either separately or together, are beneficial or harmful. The physical effects are seen in changes of rainfall, cloudiness, wind-strength and temperature, which are customarily lumped together in the misleading phrase “global warming”. In humid air, the effect of carbon dioxide on radiation transport is unimportant because the transport of thermal radiation is already blocked by the much larger greenhouse effect of water vapor. The effect of carbon dioxide is important where the air is dry, and air is usually dry only where it is cold. Hot desert air may feel dry but often contains a lot of water vapor. The warming effect of carbon dioxide is strongest where air is cold and dry, mainly in the arctic rather than in the tropics, mainly in mountainous regions rather than in lowlands, mainly in winter rather than in summer, and mainly at night rather than in daytime. The warming is real, but it is mostly making cold places warmer rather than making hot places hotter. To represent this local warming by a global average is misleading.
每个人都同意，大气中二氧化碳含量的增加会产生两个重要后果，首先是大气中辐射传输物理学的变化，其次是地面和海洋中植物生物学的变化。对于物理效应和生物效应的相对重要性，以及这些效应（无论是单独还是一起）是有益的还是有害的，人们意见不一。物理效应体现在降雨量、云量、风力和温度的变化上，这些变化通常被混为一谈，用“全球变暖”这个误导性的短语来形容。在潮湿的空气中，二氧化碳对辐射传输的影响并不重要，因为热辐射的传输已经被更大的温室效应的水蒸气阻挡了。二氧化碳的影响在空气干燥的地方很重要，而空气通常只有在寒冷的地方才是干燥的。炎热的沙漠空气可能会感到干燥，但通常含有大量的水蒸气。二氧化碳的增温效应在空气寒冷干燥的地方最强，主要在北极而不是热带地区，主要在山区而不是低地，主要在冬季而不是夏季，主要在夜间而不是白天。变暖是真实的，但它主要是使寒冷的地方变得温暖，而不是使炎热的地方变得更热。用全球平均水平来表示这种局部变暖是具有误导性的。

The fundamental reason why carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is critically important to biology is that there is so little of it. A field of corn growing in full sunlight in the middle of the day uses up all the carbon dioxide within a meter of the ground in about five minutes. If the air were not constantly stirred by convection currents and winds, the corn would stop growing. About a tenth of all the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is converted into biomass every summer and given back to the atmosphere every fall. That is why the effects of fossil-fuel burning cannot be separated from the effects of plant growth and decay. There are five reservoirs of carbon that are biologically accessible on a short time-scale, not counting the carbonate rocks and the deep ocean which are only accessible on a time-scale of thousands of years. The five accessible reservoirs are the atmosphere, the land plants, the topsoil in which land plants grow, the surface layer of the ocean in which ocean plants grow, and our proved reserves of fossil fuels. The atmosphere is the smallest reservoir and the fossil fuels are the largest, but all five reservoirs are of comparable size. They all interact strongly with one another. To understand any of them, it is necessary to understand all of them.
大气中的二氧化碳对生物学至关重要的根本原因是它的含量太少了。中午在充足的阳光下生长的玉米田在大约五分钟内消耗掉距离地面一米以内的所有二氧化碳。如果空气没有不断受到对流和风的搅动，玉米就会停止生长。每年夏天，大气中大约十分之一的二氧化碳被转化为生物质，并在每年秋天返回大气。这就是为什么化石燃料燃烧的影响不能与植物生长和腐烂的影响分开的原因。有五个碳库可以在短时间尺度上生物学上获得，这还不包括碳酸盐岩和深海，它们只能在数千年的时间尺度上获得。这五个可进入的水库是大气、陆地植物、陆地植物生长的表土、海洋植物生长的海洋表层以及我们探明的化石燃料储量。大气是最小的储层，化石燃料是最大的，但所有五个储层的规模相当。它们彼此之间都有强烈的互动。要理解其中任何一个，就必须理解它们中的任何一个。

As an example of the way different reservoirs of carbon dioxide may interact with each other, consider the atmosphere and the topsoil. Greenhouse experiments show that many plants growing in an atmosphere enriched with carbon dioxide react by increasing their root-to-shoot ratio. This means that the plants put more of their growth into roots and less into stems and leaves. A change in this direction is to be expected, because the plants have to maintain a balance between the leaves collecting carbon from the air and the roots collecting mineral nutrients from the soil. The enriched atmosphere tilts the balance so that the plants need less leaf-area and more root-area. Now consider what happens to the roots and shoots when the growing season is over, when the leaves fall and the plants die. The new-grown biomass decays and is eaten by fungi or microbes. Some of it returns to the atmosphere and some of it is converted into topsoil. On the average, more of the above-ground growth will return to the atmosphere and more of the below-ground growth will become topsoil. So the plants with increased root-to-shoot ratio will cause an increased transfer of carbon from the atmosphere into topsoil. If the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide due to fossil-fuel burning has caused an increase in the average root-to-shoot ratio of plants over large areas, then the possible effect on the top-soil reservoir will not be small. At present we have no way to measure or even to guess the size of this effect. The aggregate biomass of the topsoil of the planet is not a measurable quantity. But the fact that the topsoil is unmeasurable does not mean that it is unimportant.
作为不同二氧化碳储层可能相互作用方式的一个例子，考虑大气和表土。温室实验表明，许多生长在富含二氧化碳的大气中的植物通过增加其根冠比来做出反应。这意味着植物将更多的生长投入到根部，较少投入到茎和叶中。这个方向的变化是可以预料的，因为植物必须在叶子从空气中收集碳和根部从土壤中收集矿物质养分之间保持平衡。浓郁的气氛使天平倾斜，使植物需要更少的叶面积和更多的根面积。现在考虑一下，当生长季节结束时，当叶子掉落和植物死亡时，根和芽会发生什么。新生长的生物质腐烂并被真菌或微生物吃掉。其中一些返回大气，一些被转化为表土。平均而言，更多的地上生长物将返回到大气中，更多的地下生长物将成为表土。因此，根冠比增加的植物将导致碳从大气转移到表土的增加。如果由于化石燃料燃烧导致的大气中二氧化碳的增加导致大面积植物的平均根叶比增加，那么对表层土壤水库的可能影响将不小。目前，我们没有办法测量，甚至没有办法猜测这种效应的大小。地球表土的总生物量不是一个可测量的量。但是，表土无法测量这一事实并不意味着它不重要。

At present we do not know whether the topsoil of the United States is increasing or decreasing. Over the rest of the world, because of large-scale deforestation and erosion, the topsoil reservoir is probably decreasing. We do not know whether intelligent land-management could increase the growth of the topsoil reservoir by four billion tons of carbon per year, the amount needed to stop the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. All that we can say for sure is that this is a theoretical possibility and ought to be seriously explored.
目前，我们不知道美国的表土是在增加还是在减少。在世界其他地区，由于大规模的森林砍伐和侵蚀，表土储层可能正在减少。我们不知道智能土地管理是否能使表土水库的生长每年增加40亿吨碳，这是阻止大气中二氧化碳增加所需的量。我们只能肯定地说，这是一种理论上的可能性，应该认真探索。

3. Oceans and Ice-ages 3. 海洋和冰河时代

Another problem that has to be taken seriously is a slow rise of sea level which could become catastrophic if it continues to accelerate. We have accurate measurements of sea level going back two hundred years. We observe a steady rise from 1800 to the present, with an acceleration during the last fifty years. It is widely believed that the recent acceleration is due to human activities, since it coincides in time with the rapid increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. But the rise from 1800 to 1900 was probably not due to human activities. The scale of industrial activities in the nineteenth century was not large enough to have had measurable global effects. So a large part of the observed rise in sea level must have other causes. One possible cause is a slow readjustment of the shape of the earth to the disappearance of the northern ice-sheets at the end of the ice age twelve thousand years ago. Another possible cause is the large-scale melting of glaciers, which also began long before human influences on climate became significant. Once again, we have an environmental danger whose magnitude cannot be predicted until we know more about its causes, [Munk, 2002].
另一个必须认真对待的问题是海平面缓慢上升，如果继续加速，可能会变成灾难性的。我们对海平面的准确测量可以追溯到两百年前。我们观察到，从1800年到现在，它稳步上升，在过去的50年里有所加速。人们普遍认为，最近的加速是由于人类活动造成的，因为它与大气中二氧化碳的迅速增加相吻合。但从1800年到1900年的上升可能不是由于人类活动。19世纪的工业活动规模还不够大，无法产生可衡量的全球影响。因此，观测到的海平面上升的很大一部分必须有其他原因。一个可能的原因是，在一万二千年前的冰河时代末期，随着北方冰盖的消失，地球的形状缓慢地重新调整。另一个可能的原因是冰川的大规模融化，这种融化也早在人类对气候的影响变得重大之前就开始了。再一次，我们面临着环境危险，除非我们更多地了解其原因，否则无法预测其程度，[Munk，2002]。

The most alarming possible cause of sea-level rise is a rapid disintegration of the West Antarctic ice-sheet, which is the part of Antarctica where the bottom of the ice is far below sea level. Warming seas around the edge of Antarctica might erode the ice-cap from below and cause it to collapse into the ocean. If the whole of West Antarctica disintegrated rapidly, sea-level would rise by five meters, with disastrous effects on billions of people. However, recent measurements of the ice-cap show that it is not losing volume fast enough to make a significant contribution to the presently observed sea-level rise. It appears that the warming seas around Antarctica are causing an increase in snowfall over the ice-cap, and the increased snowfall on top roughly cancels out the decrease of ice volume caused by erosion at the edges. The same changes, increased melting of ice at the edges and increased snowfall adding ice on top, are also observed in Greenland. In addition, there is an increase in snowfall over the East Antarctic Ice-cap, which is much larger and colder and is in no danger of melting. This is another situation where we do not know how much of the environmental change is due to human activities and how much to long-term natural processes over which we have no control.
海平面上升最令人震惊的可能原因是西南极冰盖的迅速瓦解，这是南极洲的一部分，冰底远低于海平面。南极洲边缘周围的海洋变暖可能会从下方侵蚀冰盖并导致其坍缩到海洋中。如果整个西南极洲迅速瓦解，海平面将上升五米，对数十亿人造成灾难性影响。然而，最近对冰盖的测量表明，它的体积损失速度不足以对目前观察到的海平面上升做出重大贡献。看来，南极洲周围的海洋变暖正在导致冰盖上的降雪量增加，而顶部降雪的增加大致抵消了由边缘侵蚀引起的冰量减少。在格陵兰岛也观察到了同样的变化，边缘的冰融化增加，降雪量增加，增加了顶部的冰。此外，东南极冰盖的降雪量有所增加，该冰盖更大、更冷，没有融化的危险。这是另一种情况，我们不知道环境变化有多少是由于人类活动造成的，又有多少是我们无法控制的长期自然过程造成的。

Another environmental danger that is even more poorly understood is the possible coming of a new ice-age. A new ice-age would mean the burial of half of North America and half of Europe under massive ice-sheets. We know that there is a natural cycle that has been operating for the last eight hundred thousand years. The length of the cycle is a hundred thousand years. In each hundred-thousand year period, there is an ice-age that lasts about ninety thousand years and a warm interglacial period that lasts about ten thousand years. We are at present in a warm period that began twelve thousand years ago, so the onset of the next ice-age is overdue. If human activities were not disturbing the climate, a new ice-age might already have begun. We do not know how to answer the most important question: do our human activities in general, and our burning of fossil fuels in particular, make the onset of the next ice-age more likely or less likely?
另一个知之甚少的环境危险是新冰河时代可能到来。新的冰河时代将意味着一半的北美和一半的欧洲被埋葬在巨大的冰盖之下。我们知道，在过去的八十万年里，有一个自然循环一直在运作。周期的长度是十万年。在每十万年期间，有一个持续约九万年的冰河时代和一个持续约一万年的温暖间冰期。我们目前正处于一个始于一万二千年前的温暖时期，因此下一个冰河时代的到来已经过时了。如果人类活动没有扰乱气候，一个新的冰河时代可能已经开始了。我们不知道如何回答最重要的问题：我们的人类活动，特别是我们燃烧化石燃料的活动，是否使下一个冰河时代的到来更有可能或更不可能？

There are good arguments on both sides of this question. On the one side, we know that the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was much lower during past ice-ages than during warm periods, so it is reasonable to expect that an artificially high level of carbon dioxide might stop an ice-age from beginning. On the other side, the oceanographer Wallace Broecker [Broecker, 1997] has argued that the present warm climate in Europe depends on a circulation of ocean water, with the Gulf Stream flowing north on the surface and bringing warmth to Europe, and with a counter-current of cold water flowing south in the deep ocean. So a new ice-age could begin whenever the cold deep counter-current is interrupted. The counter-current could be interrupted when the surface water in the Arctic becomes less salty and fails to sink, and the water could become less salty when the warming climate increases the Arctic rainfall. Thus Broecker argues that a warm climate in the Arctic may paradoxically cause an ice-age to begin. Since we are confronted with two plausible arguments leading to opposite conclusions, the only rational response is to admit our ignorance. Until the causes of ice-ages are understood, we cannot know whether the increase of carbon-dioxide in the atmosphere is increasing or decreasing the danger.
这个问题的双方都有很好的论据。一方面，我们知道，在过去的冰河时代，大气中的二氧化碳含量比温暖时期要低得多，因此有理由预期，人为的高二氧化碳水平可能会阻止冰河时代的开始。另一方面，海洋学家华莱士·布罗克（Wallace Broecker，1997）认为，欧洲目前温暖的气候取决于海水的循环，墨西哥湾流在地表向北流动，给欧洲带来温暖，而冷水的逆流在深海中向南流动。因此，每当寒冷的深度逆流被中断时，新的冰河时代就可能开始。当北极的地表水变得不那么咸并且无法下沉时，逆流可能会被中断，当气候变暖增加北极降雨量时，水可能会变得不那么咸。因此，布罗克认为，北极温暖的气候可能会自相矛盾地导致冰河时代的开始。由于我们面临着两个看似合理的论点，导致了相反的结论，唯一合理的反应就是承认我们的无知。在了解冰河时代的原因之前，我们无法知道大气中二氧化碳的增加是在增加还是在减少危险。

4. The Wet Sahara 4. 湿漉漉的撒哈拉沙漠

My second heresy is also concerned with climate change. It is about the mystery of the wet Sahara. This is a mystery that has always fascinated me. At many places in the Sahara desert that are now dry and unpopulated, we find rock-paintings showing people with herds of animals. The paintings are abundant, and some of them are of high artistic quality, comparable with the more famous cave-paintings in France and Spain. The Sahara paintings are more recent than the cave-paintings. They come in a variety of styles and were probably painted over a period of several thousand years. The latest of them show Egyptian influences and may be contemporaneous with early Egyptian tomb paintings. Henri Lhote’s book, “The Search for the Tassili Frescoes”, [Lhote, 1958], is illustrated with reproductions of fifty of the paintings. The best of the herd paintings date from roughly six thousand years ago. They are strong evidence that the Sahara at that time was wet. There was enough rain to support herds of cows and giraffes, which must have grazed on grass and trees. There were also some hippopotamuses and elephants. The Sahara then must have been like the Serengeti today.
我的第二个异端也与气候变化有关。这是关于潮湿撒哈拉沙漠的神秘之处。这是一个一直让我着迷的谜。在撒哈拉沙漠中许多现在干燥且人口稀少的地方，我们发现了岩画，描绘了人们与成群的动物在一起。壁画丰富，其中一些具有很高的艺术质量，可与法国和西班牙比较著名的洞穴壁画相媲美。撒哈拉沙漠的绘画比洞穴壁画更新。它们有各种风格，可能是在几千年的时间里绘制的。其中最新的一幅显示了埃及的影响，可能与早期的埃及墓葬壁画同时期。亨利·洛特（Henri Lhote）的书“寻找塔西里壁画”（Lhote，1958 年）配有 50 幅画作的复制品。最好的牛群壁画可以追溯到大约六千年前。它们是有力的证据，表明当时的撒哈拉沙漠是潮湿的。有足够的雨水来支持成群的奶牛和长颈鹿，它们一定是在草地和树木上吃草的。还有一些河马和大象。那时的撒哈拉沙漠一定就像今天的塞伦盖蒂一样。

At the same time, roughly six thousand years ago, there were deciduous forests in Northern Europe where the trees are now conifers, proving that the climate in the far north was milder than it is today. There were also trees standing in mountain valleys in Switzerland that are now filled with famous glaciers. The glaciers that are now shrinking were much smaller six thousand years ago than they are today. Six thousand years ago seems to have been the warmest and wettest period of the interglacial era that began twelve thousand years ago when the last Ice Age ended. I would like to ask two questions. First, if the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is allowed to continue, shall we arrive at a climate similar to the climate of six thousand years ago when the Sahara was wet? Second, if we could choose between the climate of today with a dry Sahara and the climate of six thousand years ago with a wet Sahara, should we prefer the climate of today? My second heresy answers yes to the first question and no to the second. It says that the warm climate of six thousand years ago with the wet Sahara is to be preferred, and that increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere may help to bring it back. I am not saying that this heresy is true. I am only saying that it will not do us any harm to think about it.
与此同时，大约六千年前，北欧有落叶林，那里的树木现在是针叶树，证明遥远北方的气候比今天温和。在瑞士的山谷中也有树木矗立，现在到处都是著名的冰川。现在正在萎缩的冰川在六千年前比今天要小得多。六千年前似乎是间冰期最温暖、最潮湿的时期，始于一万二千年前的最后一个冰河时代结束时。我想问两个问题。首先，如果任由大气中二氧化碳的增加继续下去，我们是否会达到类似于六千年前撒哈拉沙漠潮湿时的气候？其次，如果我们可以在今天的气候与干燥的撒哈拉沙漠和六千年前的气候与潮湿的撒哈拉沙漠之间做出选择，我们应该更喜欢今天的气候吗？我的第二个异端对第一个问题的回答是肯定的，对第二个问题的回答是否定的。它说，六千年前潮湿的撒哈拉沙漠的温暖气候是首选，而增加大气中的二氧化碳可能有助于将其带回来。我并不是说这种异端邪说是真的。我只是说，想想它不会对我们造成任何伤害。

The biosphere is the most complicated of all the things we humans have to deal with. The science of planetary ecology is still young and undeveloped. It is not surprising that honest and well-informed experts can disagree about facts. But beyond the disagreement about facts, there is another deeper disagreement about values. The disagreement about values may be described in an over-simplified way as a disagreement between naturalists and humanists. Naturalists believe that nature knows best. For them the highest value is to respect the natural order of things. Any gross human disruption of the natural environment is evil. Excessive burning of fossil fuels is evil. Changing nature’s desert, either the Sahara desert or the ocean desert, into a managed ecosystem where giraffes or tunafish may flourish, is likewise evil. Nature knows best, and anything we do to improve upon Nature will only bring trouble.
生物圈是我们人类必须处理的所有事情中最复杂的。行星生态学还很年轻，还不发达。诚实和消息灵通的专家可能会对事实提出不同意见，这并不奇怪。但除了对事实的分歧之外，还有另一个关于价值观的更深层次的分歧。关于价值观的分歧可以用过于简化的方式描述为自然主义者和人文主义者之间的分歧。博物学家认为大自然最清楚。对他们来说，最高的价值是尊重事物的自然秩序。任何人类对自然环境的粗暴破坏都是邪恶的。过度燃烧化石燃料是邪恶的。将自然界的沙漠，无论是撒哈拉沙漠还是海洋沙漠，变成长颈鹿或金枪鱼可能繁衍生息的受管理生态系统，同样是邪恶的。大自然最清楚，我们为了改善大自然所做的任何事情都只会带来麻烦。

The humanist ethic begins with the belief that humans are an essential part of nature. Through human minds the biosphere has acquired the capacity to steer its own evolution, and now we are in charge. Humans have the right and the duty to reconstruct nature so that humans and biosphere can both survive and prosper. For humanists, the highest value is harmonious coexistence between humans and nature. The greatest evils are poverty, underdevelopment, unemployment, disease and hunger, all the conditions that deprive people of opportunities and limit their freedoms. The humanist ethic accepts an increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as a small price to pay, if world-wide industrial development can alleviate the miseries of the poorer half of humanity. The humanist ethic accepts our responsibility to guide the evolution of the planet.
人文主义伦理始于人类是自然的重要组成部分的信念。通过人类的思想，生物圈已经获得了引导自身进化的能力，现在我们掌权了。人类有权利也有义务重建自然，使人类和生物圈既能生存又能繁荣。对于人文主义者来说，最高的价值是人与自然的和谐共处。最大的罪恶是贫穷、不发达、失业、疾病和饥饿，所有这些剥夺人们机会和限制他们自由的条件。人文主义伦理认为，如果世界范围内的工业发展能够减轻人类中较贫穷的一半人的苦难，那么大气中二氧化碳的增加只是一个很小的代价。人文主义伦理接受我们指导地球进化的责任。

The sharpest conflict between naturalist and humanist ethics arises in the regulation of genetic engineering. The naturalist ethic condemns genetically modified food-crops and all other genetic engineering projects that might upset the natural ecology. The humanist ethic looks forward to a time not far distant, when genetically engineered food-crops and energy-crops will bring wealth to poor people in tropical countries, and incidentally give us tools to control the growth of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Here I must confess my own bias. Since I was born and brought up in England, I spent my formative years in a land with great beauty and a rich ecology which is almost entirely man-made. The natural ecology of England was uninterrupted and rather boring forest. Humans replaced the forest with an artificial landscape of grassland and moorland, fields and farms, with a much richer variety of plant and animal species. Quite recently, only about a thousand years ago, we introduced rabbits, a non-native species which had a profound effect on the ecology. Rabbits opened glades in the forest where flowering plants now flourish. There is no wilderness in England, and yet there is plenty of room for wild-flowers and birds and butterflies as well as a high density of humans. Perhaps that is why I am a humanist.
自然主义伦理学和人文主义伦理学之间最尖锐的冲突出现在基因工程的监管中。自然主义伦理谴责转基因粮食作物和所有其他可能破坏自然生态的基因工程项目。人文主义伦理期待在不久的将来，转基因粮食作物和能源作物将为热带国家的穷人带来财富，并顺便为我们提供控制大气中二氧化碳增长的工具。在这里，我必须承认我自己的偏见。由于我在英国出生和长大，所以我在一片美丽而生态丰富的土地上度过了我的成长岁月，这片土地几乎完全是人造的。英格兰的自然生态是一不间断的，相当无聊的森林。人类用草原和沼泽地、田野和农场的人工景观取代了森林，拥有种类更丰富的植物和动物物种。最近，就在大约一千年前，我们引入了兔子，这是一种非本地物种，对生态产生了深远的影响。兔子在森林中打开了林间空地，开花植物现在在那里茁壮成长。英格兰没有荒野，但有足够的空间容纳野花、鸟类和蝴蝶，以及高密度的人类。也许这就是为什么我是一个人文主义者。

To conclude this piece I come to my third and last heresy. My third heresy says that the United States has less than a century left of its turn as top nation. Since the modern nation-state was invented around the year 1500, a succession of countries have taken turns at being top nation, first Spain, then France, Britain, America. Each turn lasted about 150 years. Ours began in 1920, so it should end about 2070. The reason why each top nation’s turn comes to an end is that the top nation becomes over-extended, militarily, economically and politically. Greater and greater efforts are required to maintain the number one position. Finally the over-extension becomes so extreme that the structure collapses. Already we can see in the American posture today some clear symptoms of over-extension. Who will be the next top nation? China is the obvious candidate. After that it might be India or Brazil. We should be asking ourselves, not how to live in an America-dominated world, but how to prepare for a world that is not America-dominated. That may be the most important problem for the next generation of Americans to solve. How does a people that thinks of itself as number one yield gracefully to become number two?
为了结束这篇文章，我来谈谈我的第三个也是最后一个异端邪说。我的第三个异端邪说说，美国距离成为头号国家还有不到一个世纪的时间。自从现代民族国家在1500年左右发明以来，一系列国家轮流成为顶级国家，首先是西班牙，然后是法国，英国，美国。每个转折持续了大约150年。我们的开始于 1920 年，所以它应该在 2070 年左右结束。每个顶级国家的轮到结束的原因是，顶级国家在军事上、经济上和政治上都变得过度扩张。要保持第一的位置，需要越来越大的努力。最后，过度伸展变得如此极端，以至于结构倒塌。我们已经可以在今天的美国姿态中看到一些明显的过度扩张症状。谁将成为下一个顶级国家？中国是显而易见的候选国。之后可能是印度或巴西。我们应该问问自己，不是如何生活在一个美国主导的世界中，而是如何为一个不是美国主导的世界做准备。这可能是下一代美国人需要解决的最重要的问题。一个自认为是第一的民族如何优雅地屈服成为第二名？

I am telling the next generation of young students, who will still be alive in the second half of our century, that misfortunes are on the way. Their precious Ph.D., or whichever degree they went through long years of hard work to acquire, may be worth less than they think. Their specialized training may become obsolete. They may find themselves over-qualified for the available jobs. They may be declared redundant. The country and the culture to which they belong may move far away from the mainstream. But these misfortunes are also opportunities. It is always open to them to join the heretics and find another way to make a living. With or without a Ph.D., there are big and important problems for them to solve.
我告诉下一代年轻学生，他们在本世纪下半叶仍然活着，不幸正在发生。他们宝贵的博士学位，或者他们经过多年努力获得的学位，可能比他们想象的要便宜。他们的专业培训可能已经过时了。他们可能会发现自己对现有工作的资格过高。它们可能会被宣布为冗余。他们所属的国家和文化可能会远离主流。但这些不幸也是机遇。他们总是可以加入异教徒并找到另一种谋生方式。无论有没有博士学位，他们都需要解决一些重大而重要的问题。

I will not attempt to summarize the lessons that my readers should learn from these heresies. The main lesson that I would like them to take home is that the long-range future is not predetermined. The future is in their hands. The rules of the world-historical game change from decade to decade in unpredictable ways. All our fashionable worries and all our prevailing dogmas will probably be obsolete in fifty years. My heresies will probably also be obsolete. It is up to them to find new heresies to guide our way to a more hopeful future.
我不会试图总结我的读者应该从这些异端邪说中吸取的教训。我希望他们带回家的主要教训是，长期的未来不是预先确定的。未来掌握在他们手中。世界历史游戏的规则以不可预测的方式从十年到十年变化。我们所有时髦的忧虑和所有流行的教条可能在五十年后就会过时。我的异端邪说可能也会过时。他们有责任找到新的异端邪说来引导我们走向更有希望的未来。

5. Bad Advice to a Young Scientist
\5. 给年轻科学家的坏建议

Sixty years ago, when I was a young and arrogant physicist, I tried to predict the future of physics and biology. My prediction was an extreme example of wrongness, perhaps a world record in the category of wrong predictions. I was giving advice about future employment to Francis Crick, the great biologist who died in 2005 after a long and brilliant career. He discovered, with Jim Watson, the double helix. They discovered the double helix structure of DNA in 1953, and thereby gave birth to the new science of molecular genetics. Eight years before that, in 1945, before World War 2 came to an end, I met Francis Crick for the first time. He was in Fanum House, a dismal office building in London where the Royal Navy kept a staff of scientists. Crick had been working for the Royal Navy for a long time and was depressed and discouraged. He said he had missed his chance of ever amounting to anything as a scientist. Before World War 2, he had started a promising career as a physicist. But then the war hit him at the worst time, putting a stop to his work in physics and keeping him away from science for six years. The six best years of his life, squandered on naval intelligence, lost and gone forever. Crick was good at naval intelligence, and did important work for the navy. But military intelligence bears the same relation to intelligence as military music bears to music. After six years doing this kind of intelligence, it was far too late for Crick to start all over again as a student and relearn all the stuff he had forgotten. No wonder he was depressed. I came away from Fanum House thinking, “How sad. Such a bright chap. If it hadn’t been for the war, he would probably have been quite a good scientist”.
六十年前，当我还是一个年轻而傲慢的物理学家时，我试图预测物理学和生物学的未来。我的预测是错误的一个极端例子，也许是错误预测类别中的世界纪录。我正在向弗朗西斯·克里克（Francis Crick）提供关于未来就业的建议，这位伟大的生物学家在经历了漫长而辉煌的职业生涯后于2005年去世。他与吉姆·沃森（Jim Watson）一起发现了双螺旋结构。他们在1953年发现了DNA的双螺旋结构，从而诞生了分子遗传学这门新的科学。八年前的1945年，在第二次世界大战结束之前，我第一次见到了弗朗西斯·克里克。他当时在伦敦一栋破败的办公楼Fanum House里，皇家海军在那里留着一批科学家。克里克在皇家海军工作了很长时间，感到沮丧和气馁。他说，他已经错过了作为一名科学家做任何事的机会。在第二次世界大战之前，他开始了有前途的物理学家职业生涯。但后来战争在最糟糕的时候打击了他，停止了他的物理学工作，并使他六年没有科学。他生命中最美好的六年，浪费在海军情报上，永远消失了。克里克擅长海军情报，为海军做了重要的工作。但是，军事情报与情报的关系，就像军事音乐与音乐的关系一样。在做了六年的这种智能之后，克里克以学生的身份重新开始并重新学习他已经忘记的所有东西已经太晚了。难怪他很沮丧。我从Fanum House出来时想，“多么可悲。这么聪明的小伙子。如果不是因为战争，他可能会成为一名相当优秀的科学家。

A year later, I met Crick again. The war was over and he was much more cheerful. He said he was thinking of giving up physics and making a completely fresh start as a biologist. He said the most exciting science for the next twenty years would be in biology and not in physics. I was then twenty-two years old and very sure of myself. I said, “No, you’re wrong. In the long run biology will be more exciting, but not yet. The next twenty years will still belong to physics. If you switch to biology now, you will be too old to do the exciting stuff when biology finally takes off”. Fortunately, he didn’t listen to me. He went to Cambridge and began thinking about DNA. It took him only seven years to prove me wrong. The moral of this story is clear. Even a smart twenty-two-year-old is not a reliable guide to the future of science. And the twenty-two-year-old has become even less reliable now that he is eighty-two.
一年后，我再次遇见了克里克。战争结束了，他开朗多了。他说他正在考虑放弃物理学，以生物学家的身份重新开始。他说，未来二十年最令人兴奋的科学将是生物学，而不是物理学。那时我二十二岁，对自己非常有信心。我说：“不，你错了。从长远来看，生物学将更加令人兴奋，但现在还不是。接下来的二十年仍将属于物理学。如果你现在转向生物学，当生物学最终起飞时，你将太老了，无法做令人兴奋的事情。幸运的是，他没有听我的话。他去了剑桥，开始思考DNA。他只用了七年时间就证明我错了。这个故事的寓意很明确。即使是一个聪明的二十二岁年轻人也不是通往科学未来的可靠指南。而二十二岁的他现在已经八十二岁了，变得更不可靠了。

[Excerpted from Many Colored Glass: Reflections on the Place of Life in the Universe (Page Barbour Lectures) by Freeman Dyson, University of Virgina Press, 2007.]
[摘自弗里曼·戴森（Freeman Dyson）的《许多有色玻璃：对宇宙中生命地位的反思》（Page Barbour Lectures），弗吉尼亚大学出版社，2007年。