科学家对宗教不再客气 Scientists Put an End To Polite Talk of Religion 陈宜君译 当诺贝尔物理学奖得主史蒂芬．温柏格发出「世界须从宗教信仰的长期梦 魇中醒来」的警告，或是诺贝尔化学奖得主哈洛德．柯洛托爵士呼吁约翰．坦 伯顿基金会，将下一笔表扬「心灵发现方面进展」的150万美元奖金颁给着有 全国畅销书「神的错觉」的无神论者、牛津大学进化生物学家里察．道金斯时 ，这个关键性时刻或许已然来临。 Maybe the pivotal moment came when Steven Weinberg, a Nobel laureate in physics, warned that “the world needs to wake up from its long nightmare of religious belief,” or when a Nobelist in chemistry, Sir Harold Kroto, called for the John Templeton Foundation to give its next $1.5 million prize for “progress in spiritual discoveries” to an atheist － Richard Dawkins, the Oxford evolutionary biologist whose book “The God Delusion” is a national best-seller. 或者，转捩点出现在纽约市海登天文馆馆长兼布希政府太空探索顾问尼尔 ．狄葛拉斯．泰森以令人心碎的先天性畸形新生儿照片让观众鸦雀无声的时刻 。他指出，这证明主宰一切的是人力无法控制的大自然，而非一个睿智的监督 者。 Or perhaps the turning point occurred when Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York City and an adviser to the Bush administration on space exploration, hushed the audience with heartbreaking photographs of newborns misshapen by birth defects － testimony, he suggested, that blind nature, not an intelligent overseer, is in control. 在这个过程当中，加州拉贺亚「沙克生物研究中心」上月举行一场研讨会 ，会议原可作为科学与宗教以礼相待的又一个对话平台，不料却变得犹如某个 单一政纲政党的成立大会，而这个政纲就是：在意识形态充斥到危险程度的世 界里，科学须扮演传播福音的角色，与宗教争夺历来最伟大故事的讲述人地位。 Somewhere along the way, a forum last month at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, which might have been one more polite － dialogue between science and religion, began to resemble the founding convention for a political party built on a single plank: in a world dangerously charged with ideology, science needs to take on an evangelical role, vying with religion as teller of the greatest story ever told. 科罗拉多州波尔德「太空科学研究所」资深研究科学家卡洛琳．波尔柯半 开玩笑地呼吁创立另类教会，由泰森博士出任首任牧师。她并非全然开玩笑。 波尔柯博士说：「我们应该以宗教的成功之道为师。」 Carolyn Porco, a senior research scientist at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado, called, half joking, for the establishment of an alternative church, with Dr. Tyson as its first minister. She was not entirely kidding. “We should let the success of the religious formula guide us,” Dr. Porco said. 近年来旨在消弭科学与宗教间歧见的会议不可谓少，通常是由坦伯顿基金 会主办，结果却总是在形而上的层次搞得难分难解。改由总部位於加州的教育 组织「科学网络」赞助，并获得圣地牙哥投资家罗伯．济波斯（他承认其角色 有点「反坦伯顿」）资助，名为「超越信仰：科学、宗教、理性与生存」的拉 贺亚会议，迅速提升为活力充沛的自由知识论坛。不断有演说者请求同行放胆 挑战只以经文和信仰为基础的自然学说。 There has been no shortage of conferences in recent years, commonly organized by the Templeton Foundation, seeking to smooth over the differences between science and religion and ending in a metaphysical tie. Sponsored instead by the Science Network, an educational organization based in California, and underwritten by a San Diego investor, Robert Zeps (who acknowledged his role as a kind of “anti-Templeton”), the La Jolla meeting, “Beyond Belief: Science, Religion, Reason and Survival,” rapidly escalated into an invigorating intellectual free-for-all. One speaker after another called on their colleagues to be less timid in challenging teachings about nature based only on scripture and belief. 以坚决反对教导创造论闻名的凯斯西储大学物理学家劳伦斯．Ｍ．克劳斯 ，这回倒成了温和派。克劳斯博士坚称：「科学不会让人无法信仰上帝，我们 应认清与接受事实，别再夜郎自大。」 Lawrence M. Krauss, a physicist at Case Western Reserve University known for his staunch opposition to teaching creationism, found himself in the unfamiliar role of playing the moderate. “Science does not make it impossible to believe in God,” Dr. Krauss insisted. “We should recognize that fact and live with it and stop being so pompous about it.” 就是这种通融的态度激怒了道金斯博士。他说：「我实在受够了我们每个 人，包括没有信仰的人，被洗脑而赋予宗教的尊重」，「小孩被有系统地灌输 ，有一种出自信仰、启示、经文、传统的更高等知识，而且这种知识即使不比 基於真凭实据的知识优越，至少也可等量齐观」。 That was just the kind of accommodating attitude that angered Dr. Dawkins. “I am utterly fed up with the respect that we － all of us, including the secular among us － are brainwashed into bestowing on religion,” he said. “Children are systematically taught that there is a higher kind of knowledge which comes from faith, which comes from revelation, which comes from scripture, which comes from tradition, and that it is the equal if not the superior of knowledge that comes from real evidence.” 温伯格博士离开前，似乎暂且软化了态度，以略显天真的语气把宗教比作 古怪的老女人。 Before he left, Dr. Weinberg seemed to soften for a moment, describing religion a bit fondly as a crazy old aunt. 道金斯博士却不同意。他说：「我一点也不会怀念她。」丝毫不会。「门 儿都没有。」 Dr. Dawkins wasn’t agreeing. “I won’t miss her at all,’ ‘he said. Not a scrap. “Not a smidgen.” Richard Dawkins, center, urged the scientific community to be less timid in challenging teachings based only on religious belief and not on science. By GEORGE JOHNSON -- 赵客缦胡缨 吴钩霜雪明 银鞍照白马 飒沓如流星 十步杀一人 千里不留行 事了拂衣去 深藏身与名 闲过信陵饮 脱剑膝前横 将炙啖朱亥 持觞劝侯赢 三盃吐然诺 五岳倒为轻 眼花耳热後 意气素霓生 救赵挥金槌 邯郸先震惊 千秋二壮士 烜赫大梁城 纵使侠骨香 不惭世上英 谁能书合下 白首太玄经 李白 侠客行 --

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