费曼 Richard Phillips Feynman：拜运输机教科学 Cargo Cult Science （草包族科学）

转载自：

https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/30042840?from_voters_page=true

拜运输机教科学 CARGO CULT SCIENCE

范遥  人生如逆旅，我亦是行人。

CARGO CULT SCIENCE by Richard Feynman

拜运输机教科学

--理查德·费曼

Adapted from the Caltech commencement address given in 1974.

录自1974年加州理工学院毕业典礼演讲，（译注：标题为加州理工校刊所加，此前新语丝曾发布译文《祖神来归式科学》）

   During the Middle Ages there were all kinds of crazy ideas, such as that a piece of rhinoceros horn would increase potency. Then a method was discovered for separating the ideas--which was to try one to see if it worked, and if it didn't work, to eliminate it. This method became organized, of course, into science. And it developed very well, so that we are now in the scientific age. It is such a scientific age, in fact that we have difficulty in understanding how witch doctors could ever have existed, when nothing that they proposed ever really worked--or very little of it did.

   中世纪时，有着各种各样的奇思异想，例如一片犀牛角可以壮阳。后来发现了一种方式可以区分这些想法--通过试验以证明是否有效，如果一种想法没有效果，就排除它。当然了，这种方式被组织归纳为科学。它发展得很好，所以我们现在生活在科学时代。实际上，在这个科学时代，我们很难理解巫医怎么还能存在，他们的治疗意见从不奏效，或者说极少有效。

   But even today I meet lots of people who sooner or later get me into a conversation about UFOS, or astrology, or some form of mysticism, expanded consciousness, new types of awareness, ESP, and so forth. And I've concluded that it's not a scientific world.

   但直到今天，我还是会遇到许多人。他们和我谈话时，迟早总会扯到UFO，占星术，或者某些形式的神秘主义，大觉悟，新意识，超感觉 诸如此类的东西。我的结论是，这些都不属于科学世界。

   Most people believe so many wonderful things that I decided to investigate why they did. And what has been referred to as my curiosity for investigation has landed me in a difficulty where I found so much junk that I'm overwhelmed. First I started out by investigating various ideas of mysticism, and mystic experiences. I went into isolation tanks and got many hours of hallucinations, so I know something about that. Then I went to Esalen, which is a hotbed of this kind of thought (it's a wonderful place; you should go visit there). Then I became overwhelmed. I didn't realize how much there was.

   大多数人都相信这么多精彩的故事，以至于我决定研究一下为什么他们迷这个。我被好奇心驱使着研究，参考的资料让我头大。发现了这么多垃圾，我简直要跪了。起初，我从研究各种神秘主义和神秘体验开始。我钻进隔离舱里，出现了好几个小时的幻觉。如此，我得到了一些与之有关的感悟。再后来我去了埃萨兰学院，那里是这类思想的温床。（此地风景甚好，建议游玩），我也是醉了，没想到那里这么夸张。

   （译注：这所学院位于加州大苏尔，知乎上有相关的回答https://www.zhihu.com/question/24481556/answer/144564176 ）

   At Esalen there are some large baths fed by hot springs situated on a ledge about thirty feet above the ocean. One of my most pleasurable experiences has been to sit in one of those baths and watch the waves crashing onto the rocky shore below, to gaze into the clear blue sky above, and to study a beautiful nude as she quietly appears and settles into the bath with me.

   在埃萨伦，海拔30英尺的岩架上有几处温泉大浴池。我最喜欢的回忆之一是坐在一个浴池中，俯视浪拍礁岸，仰望碧空如洗，一个美丽裸体悄然出现，同池共坐，飨我眼福。

   One time I sat down in a bath where there was a beautiful girl sitting with a guy who didn't seem to know her. Right away I began thinking, "Gee! How am I gonna get started talking to this beautiful nude babe?"

   一次，我所在的浴池中，有一位漂亮女郎和另一个家伙坐在一起，他似乎并不认识她。我立即开始琢磨，“哎呀，我要如何与这可人儿搭讪呢？”

   I'm trying to figure out what to say, when the guy says to her, I'm, uh, studying massage. Could I practice on you?"

   我还在琢磨呢，那家伙已经问姑娘：“嗯，我正在学习按摩术， 可以在你身上试验一下吗？”

   "Sure," she says. They get out of the bath and she lies down on a massage table nearby.

   “当然可以。”姑娘回答，他俩出了浴池，她躺在就近的一张按摩椅上。

   I think to myself, "What a nifty line! I can never think of anything like that!" He starts to rub her big toe. "I think I feel it, "he says. "I feel a kind of dent--is that the pituitary?"

   我暗想：“这一手真漂亮！我就想不到。”他开始按摩她的大脚趾，“我想我感觉到了。”他说，“我觉察到一点凹陷，这是脑垂体吧？”

   I blurt out, "You're a helluva long way from the pituitary, man!"

   我脱口而出“伙计，你离脑垂体远着呢！”

   They looked at me, horrified--I had blown my cover--and said, "It's reflexology!"

   他俩吓了一跳，看着我--光着的--然后说“这是反射疗法！”

   （译注：足反射疗法是通过按摩足部穴位，刺激人体其他部位以治疗的医术。始于中国传到欧美日本，后在中国衰微，近年又回传回国内）

   I quickly closed my eyes and appeared to be meditating.

   我赶紧地闭上眼，作沉思状。

   That's just an example of the kind of things that overwhelm me. I also looked into extrasensory perception and PSI phenomena, and the latest craze there was Uri Geller, a man who is supposed to be able to bend keys by rubbing them with his finger. So I went to his hotel room, on his invitation, to see a demonstration of both mindreading and bending keys. He didn't do any mindreading that succeeded; nobody can read my mind, I guess. And my boy held a key and Geller rubbed it, and nothing happened. Then he told us it works better under water, and so you can picture all of us standing in the bathroom with the water turned on and the key under it, and him rubbing the key with his finger. Nothing happened. So I was unable to investigate that phenomenon.

   这只是让我跪的例子之一。我也曾研究过超感知觉和超心理现象，最近的一个疯狂的例子来自尤里·盖勒。据这位先生称，他可以用手指摩擦钥匙就把它们弄弯。于是我应他所邀，前往他下榻的酒店房间，一睹读心术与弯钥匙的演示。他的读心术表演无一成功，我猜没人能测出我的思想。我儿子拿着一把钥匙，盖勒摩擦它，没有什么发生。然后他告诉我们，水下表演效果更好。你可以想象，我们站在浴室里，把浴缸水阀打开，淹没了钥匙，他用手指摩擦钥匙。还是没有什么发生，我可没法研究这种现象了。

   But then I began to think, what else is there that we believe? (And I thought then about the witch doctors, and how easy it would have been to cheek on them by noticing that nothing really worked.) So I found things that even more people believe, such as that we have some knowledge of how to educate. There are big schools of reading methods and mathematics methods, and so forth, but if you notice, you'll see the reading scores keep going down--or hardly going up in spite of the fact that we continually use these same people to improve the methods. There's a witch doctor remedy that doesn't work. It ought to be looked into; how do they know that their method should work? Another example is how to treat criminals. We obviously have made no progress--lots of theory, but no progress-- in decreasing the amount of crime by the method that we use to handle criminals.

   但是，接下来我开始思考，对于这些东西，我们还能相信什么？ （然后，我又想到了巫医，只要注意到无用的医疗，就很容易识穿他们了。）所以，我发现了许多人相信的一些事情，例如我们所知的某些教育学。有几家大学派研究阅读方法，数学方法诸如此类的学问。但如果你留意的话，阅读能力的分数在持续下降，或者说少有提升。尽管我们一直用同一批人来改善这些学问，还是如同巫医一样疗效甚微。值得研究的是，他们如何知道他们的学问有用？另一个例子是，如何处分罪犯。尽管有着一大堆理论，我们通过老法子处理罪犯，以降低犯罪数量的做法明显没有收效。

   Yet these things are said to be scientific. We study them. And I think ordinary people with commonsense ideas are intimidated by this pseudoscience. A teacher who has some good idea of how to teach her children to read is forced by the school system to do it some other way--or is even fooled by the school system into thinking that her method is not necessarily a good one. Or a parent of bad boys, after disciplining them in one way or another, feels guilty for the rest of her life because she didn't do "the right thing," according to the experts.

   我们研究的这些东西仍然被称作科学。我想，有常识的普通人会被这些伪科学吓住。一位老师虽然知道一些教学生阅读的好想法，却被学校体系所迫，用别的办法教学，或者说，是被学校体系所愚，觉得她的法子并非是必要良策。再举一例，有顽劣儿子的父母，用某些规矩管束孩子后，余生都会内疚，因为她（译注：原文为She）没按那些专家说的做“正确的事”。

   So we really ought to look into theories that don't work, and science that isn't science.

   因此，我们要研究这些没用的理论和那些不是科学的科学。

   I tried to find a principle for discovering more of these kinds of things, and came up with the following system.Any time you find your self in a conversation at a cocktail party in which you do not feel uncomfortable that the hostess might come around and say,"Why are you fellows talking shop?"or that your wife will come around and say,"Why are you flirting again?"--then you can be sure you are talking about something about which nobody knows anything.

   我曾试着发现一条方法来揭示这些乃至更多事情，得出下面我要说的理论体系。每当你在一场鸡尾酒会里谈论，而无需困扰于女主人凑近来问“为什么你们男人讨论购物？”，或你老婆凑近来问“你为什么又在调情？”时，你就能肯定，你所谈论的东西，没人明白。

   Using this method, I discovered a few more topics that I had forgotten --among them the efficacy of various forms of psychotherapy.So I began to investigate through the library,and so on, and I have so much to tell you that I can't do it at all. I will have to limit myself to just a few little things. I'll concerntrate on the things more people believe in. Maybe I will give a series of speeches next year on all these subjects. It will take a long time.

   通过这个方法，我发现了好多故事，我原本都忘记了的，其中包括各种形式的心理治疗的功效。于是我开始在图书馆和其他场所研究这些。我有太多的东西要告诉你们，我简直没法全部说完。我不得不限制自己只说几件事。我会重点说那些大家都深信不疑的事。或许我明年会做一系列的报告来演讲所有的论题。这会花很长时间了。

   (译注，费曼文集中收录的本文并不包含上面两段。上面的文字引自加州理工网站上校刊记录。http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/2/CargoCult.pdf）

   I think the educational and psychological studies I mentioned are examples of what I would like to call cargo cult science. In the South Seas there is a cargo cult of people. During the war they saw airplanes land with lots of good materials, and they want the same thing to happen now. So they've arranged to imitate things like runways, to put fires along the sides of the runways, to make a wooden hut for a man to sit in, with two wooden pieces on his head like headphones and bars of bamboo sticking out like antennas--he's the controller--and they wait for the airplanes to land. They're doing everything right. The form is perfect. It looks exactly the way it looked before. But it doesn't work. No airplanes land. So I call these things cargo cult science, because they follow all the apparent precepts and forms of scientific investigation, but they're missing something essential, because the planes don't land.

   上面我提到的那些教育学和心理学研究的例子，我想可以称为 拜运输机教科学。南太平洋群岛上有一群崇拜运输机的人们，在二战期间，他们目睹运载大量物资的飞机着陆，战争结束后的今日，他们希望同样的事情再次发生。于是他们模仿着铺设跑道，在跑道周边生火以作指示。搭建一座棚屋，让一个人坐在里边扮演地面领航员，他头戴两片耳机形状的木头，上边还伸出几条竹枝，仿佛天线---他们期待着飞机降落。他们所做的一切都没错。形式完美无缺，与之前他们所见一般无二，可就是不奏效，没有飞机降落。我称这些事物为拜运输机教科学。他们遵循了所有科研的表面规矩和形式，却缺少了某些要素。因为飞机没有降落。

   Now it behooves me, of course, to tell you what they're missing. But it would be just about as difficult to explain to the South Sea Islanders how they have to arrange things so that they get some wealth in their system. It is not something simple like telling them how to improve the shapes of the earphones. But there is one feature I notice that is generally missing in cargo cult science. That is the idea that we all hope you have learned in studying science in school--we never explicitly say what this is, but just hope that you catch on by all the examples of scientific investigation.

   现在，我有必要告诉你们，什么是他们没有做的。但这有点难，就象向岛民们解释如何安排才能通过他们那一套发财。这可不是告诉他们 如何修改木头耳机的外形 这么简单。不过，我注意到拜运输机教科学中缺失了一件特性。那就是我们都希望你们在学校科研中学到的思维方式，我们从来没有清楚地说明这是什么，却希望你们通过所有的科研范例来把握的。

   It is interesting, therefore, to bring it out now and speak of it explicitly. It's a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty--a kind of learning over backwards. For example, if you're doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid--not only what you think is right about it; other causes that could possibly explain your results; and things you thought of that you've eliminated by some other experiment, and how they worked--to make sure the other fellow can tell they have been eliminated.

   因此，把这种思维方式提出来，清楚的说明白是一件有趣的事。这是一种正直的科学精神，遵循一种完全诚实的科学思考原则---一种尽可能的学习方式。例如：当你做实验时，应当报告所有你考虑到的，会使实验失效的因素---不仅是你想到的，还有那些其他可能也能解释你的实验结果的部分，那些你以为已经通过其他实验排除的部分以及如何实验的---以确认别人可以认为这些因素已经排除了。

   Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given, if you know them. You must do the best you can--if you know anything at all wrong, or possibly wrong--to explain it. If you make a theory, for example, and advertise it, or put it out, then you must also put down all the facts that disagree with it, as well as those that agree with it. There is also a more subtle problem. When you have put a lot of ideas together to make an elaborate theory, you want to make sure, when explaining what it fits, that those things it fits are not just the things that gave you the idea for the theory; but that the finished theory makes something else come out right, in addition.

   如果你知道有哪些细节会对你的阐释引起疑点，那么这些细节也得列出来。如果你知道任意一个漏洞或可能的错失，你必须全力以赴来解释它。如果你要得出一个理论，例如宣传它，证明它，然后你要记录下那些与之相冲突的事实，正如记录那些与之相符的事实。还有一个小问题，当你把许多想法整合在一起，得出一套你要确认的精巧理论时，你要解释这套理论支持的不仅是那些启发你得出结论的事实，而且还有那些已经证明的理论推导出的正确的其他事实。

   In summary, the idea is to try to give all of the information to help others to judge the value of your contribution; not just the information that leads to judgment in one particular direction or another.

   总的来说，这个思维方式就是试图给出所有的信息，让别人来判断你的贡献的价值，而不是给出部分信息，只能根据其在某些方向作出判断。

   The easiest way to explain this idea is to contrast it, for example, with advertising. Last night I heard that Wesson oil doesn't soak through food. Well, that's true. It's not dishonest; but the thing I'm talking about is not just a matter of not being dishonest, it's a matter of scientific integrity, which is another level. The fact that should be added to that advertising statement is that no oils soak through food, if operated at a certain temperature. If operated at another temperature, they all will-- including Wesson oil. So it's the implication which has been conveyed, not the fact, which is true, and the difference is what we have to deal with.

   解释这个思维方式，最简单的方法是作比较。用广告举个例子，昨晚我听说维森油品不会渗透到食物中，好，这是真的，不算假广告。不过我要说的可不是不诚实的事，而是科学的正直，这是另一个层次了。事实上，这个广告词应该补充说明事实：如果在特定的温度下，没有油会渗透到食物中。如果在另一个设定的温度，所有的油都会渗透到食物中，包括维森油。这个广告传达的是暗示，并不是事实。真实与事实之间的区别就是我们需要说明白的。

   We've learned from experience that the truth will come out. Other experimenters will repeat your experiment and find out whether you were wrong or right. Nature's phenomena will agree or they'll disagree with your theory. And, although you may gain some temporary fame and excitement, you will not gain a good reputation as a scientist if you haven't tried to be very careful in this kind of work. And it's this type of integrity, this kind of care not to fool yourself, that is missing to a large extent in much of the research in cargo cult science.

   我们从经验知道，真相终会证实。其他的实验者重复你的实验来确认你是否正确。自然现象会证实或证伪你的理论。而且，倘若你在试验中没有仔细工作，尽管你可能获得暂时的声望与激动，你并不会得到科学家的美誉。仔细的工作态度是正直的方式，这种方式不会愚弄你自已，这就是许多拜运输机教式科学探索中在很大程度上所缺失的。

   A great deal of their difficulty is, of course, the difficulty of the subject and the inapplicability of the scientific method to the subject. Nevertheless it should be remarked that this is not the only difficulty. That's why the planes don't(网络其他版本为didn't ) land--but they don't land.

   当然了，他们的许多困难在于论题本身的难点和不能采用科学方式来证明这一论题。无论如何，应该记住这不是唯一的难点，得知道现在不降落的原因外，还要知道过去不降落的原因。

   （译注：这一句的翻译存在疑问。与加校图书馆联系后，确认此处应为误植，故从didn't。)

   We have learned a lot from experience about how to handle some of the ways we fool ourselves. One example: Millikan measured the charge on an electron by an experiment with falling oil drops, and got an answer which we now know not to be quite right. It's a little bit off, because he had the incorrect value for the viscosity of air. It's interesting to look at the history of measurements of the charge of the electron, after Millikan. If you plot them as a function of time, you find that one is a little bigger than Millikan's, and the next one's a little bit bigger than that, and the next one's a little bit bigger than that, until finally they settle down to a number which is higher.

   我们从经验中学习到许多东西，如何处理某些会愚弄自己的陷阱。举例：米利根通过滴落油滴测量一个电子所带的电荷，得到了一个结果，我们现在知道那并不太准确。因为他在设定空气的黏性系数时取了不正确的值，所以结果有一点小偏差。审视在他之后电子电荷测定的历史，我们发现这很有趣。倘若你把这些结果当成一个时间变量函数，你发现一个略大于米利根的结果，其后几个又略大于这个结果，最后确定了一个更高的数据。

   （译注：米利根测值偏小的原因，除费曼指出的空气黏度外，还有其他科研人员认为实验中没有考虑到科里奥利力）

   Why didn't they discover that the new number was higher right away? It's a thing that scientists are ashamed of--this history--because it's apparent that people did things like this: When they got a number that was too high above Millikan's, they thought something must be wrong--and they would look for and find a reason why something might be wrong. When they got a number closer to Millikan's value they didn't look so hard. And so they eliminated the numbers that were too far off, and did other things like that. We've learned those tricks nowadays, and now we don't have that kind of a disease.

   为什么他们没能立刻发现新数据更高呢？这让相关历史上的科学家们都羞愧。很明显，他们是这么操作的：当他们得到一个比米利根的数据高出许多的结果时，他们想到肯定有某些地方出错了，然后找到一个原因说明某些地方出错。而当他们得到和米利根相近的结果时，他们就不那么起劲地寻错了。如此，他们排除了那些偏差太大的数据，他们也如此处理其他的事务。我们今天已经知道这些把戏，也不再犯这样的错误了。

   But this long history of learning how not to fool ourselves--of having utter scientific integrity--is, I'm sorry to say, something that we haven't specifically included in any particular course that I know of. We just hope you've caught on by osmosis.

   学习如何不要自我愚弄，保持顶级的正直的科学精神，这是一段漫长的历史。我很抱歉地说，我们还没把它归纳在任何一门我所知道的特定的课程里。我们就是希望你们潜移默化地掌握它。

   The first principle is that you must not fool yourself--and you are the easiest person to fool. So you have to be very careful about that. After you've not fooled yourself, it's easy not to fool other scientists. You just have to be honest in a conventional way after that.

   第一条原则就是：你们一定不要愚弄自已---你们是最容易被愚弄的对象。所以你们必须非常地仔细。当你们不愚弄自己后，不愚弄别的科学家就很简单了。那之后，你们就得习惯诚实了。

   I would like to add something that's not essential to the science, but something I kind of believe, which is that you should not fool the layman when you're talking as a scientist. I am not trying to tell you what to do about cheating on your wife, or fooling your girlfriend, or something like that, when you're not trying to be a scientist, but just trying to be an ordinary human being. We'll leave those problems up to you and your rabbi. I'm talking about a specific, extra type of integrity that is not lying, but bending over backwards to show how you are maybe wrong, that you ought to have when acting as a scientist. And this is our responsibility as scientists, certainly to other scientists, and I think to laymen.

   我要多说一件于科学并不必要，但我却深信的事。你们作为科学家谈话时，不要愚弄外行。我不是试着告诉你们，不做科学家，作为常人，怎么欺骗你们的妻子，愚弄你们的女友或者其他类似的事，这是你和你的牧师（译注：原文为RABBI，犹太教士）的事。我说的特别的，额外的正直不是扯谎，而是尽可能的弯下腰，表示你可能如何地犯错。这才是作为一个科学家，你应有的品质。这是我们作为科学家，对其他科学家，我想还有外行们，必需的职责。

   For example, I was a little surprised when I was talking to a friend who was going to go on the radio. He does work on cosmology and astronomy, and he wondered how he would explain what the applications of this work were. "Well," I said, "there aren't any." He said, "Yes, but then we won't get support for more research of this kind." I think that's kind of dishonest. If you're representing yourself as a scientist, then you should explain to the layman what you're doing--and if they don't want to support you under those circumstances, then that's their decision.

   举个例子，我有次和一个要上电台的朋友谈话时，小小地惊讶了。研究宇宙论和天文学的他想解释自已的工作如何得到应用的。“嗯,”我说，“就没有嘛。”他说：“是啊，可这么说，就不会有人支持我们更多的探索工作了。”我想，这就是一种不诚实。倘若你自称是一个科学家，那么就应该向外行解释清楚你所做的工作。---如果在这些环境下，他们不想支持你，那是他们的决定。

   One example of the principle is this: If you've made up your mind to test a theory, or you want to explain some idea, you should always decide to publish it whichever way it comes out. If we only publish results of a certain kind, we can make the argument look good. We must publish both kinds of results.

   这条原则的一个范例就是：如果你下了决心测验一个理论，或者想要解释某个想法，无论结果如何，你一直应该决定公开。如果我们只是公开一部分结果，可以把论据做得很好看。我们必须公布两种结果。

   For example--let's take advertising again--suppose some particular cigarette has some particular property,like low nicotine.It's published widely by the company that this means it is good for you--they don't say, for instance,that the tars are a different proportion,or that something else is the matter with the cigarette. In other words,publication probability depends upon the answer. that should not be done.

   再举一个广告的例子---某种特别的雪茄具有某种特性，比如低尼古丁含量。烟草公司广泛宣传这个对你有好处的特性。他们没说的是，比如焦油含量与其他雪茄不同，或者是雪茄里有其他的东西。也就是说，宣传内容是由客户回应导向的。这可不应该。

   I say that's also important in giving certain types of government advice. Supposing a senator asked you for advice about whether drilling a hole should be done in his state; and you decide it would be better in some other state. If you don't publish such a result, it seems to me you're not giving scientific advice. You're being used. If your answer happens to come out in the direction the government or the politicians like, they can use it as an argument in their favor; if it comes out the other way, they don't publish it at all. That's not giving scientific advice.

   我认为，在给政府作某些方面的建议时，这也是很重要的。假设一位参议员向你征求意见，是否可以在他的州钻个洞，你认为在其他州钻洞更好。如果你不公布整个研究结果，在我看来，你就没有给出科学的建议。你被他利用了。如果你的回答正巧与政府或政客们喜欢的方向相符，他们会按自己的喜好把它当作自己的论据；如果你的结果和他们的期望有分歧，他们根本不会公布。这算不得是给出科学的建议。

   Other kinds of errors are more characteristic of poor science. When I was at Cornell, I often talked to the people in the psychology department. One of the students told me she wanted to do an experiment that went something like this--it had been found by others that under certain circumstances, X, rats did something, A. She was curious as to whether, if she changed the circumstances to Y, they would still do A. So her proposal was to do the experiment under circumstances Y and see if they still did A.

   其他类型的错误有着更不科学的特征。我在康奈尔大学的时候，（译注：曼哈顿计划结束后，费曼曾短期任教康奈尔物理系）经常和心理学系的人谈话。其中一个同学告诉我，她希望做一个实验，内容是这样的：前人发现在特定的环境X下，老鼠会做A动作。她想知道，当她把环境改成Y后，老鼠仍然会做A动作。也就是说，她的建议是在环境Y下，看老鼠是否仍然会做A动作。

   I explained to her that it was necessary first to repeat in her laboratory the experiment of the other person--to do it under condition X to see if she could also get result A, and then change to Y and see if A changed. Then she would know that the real difference was the thing she thought　she had under control. 

   我跟她解释，首要的是在她的实验室里 重复前人已经做过的实验，在环境条件X下观察她是否也能得到结果A。然后把条件X改变成条件Y，再观察结果A是否改变了。那时她会知道，真正的差异是那些她本以为自己已经控制了的因素。

   She was very delighted with this new idea, and went to her professor. And his reply was, no, you cannot do that, because the experiment has already been done and you would be wasting time. This was in about 1947 or so, and it seems to have been the general policy then to not try to repeat psychological experiments, but only to change the conditions and see what happens.

   听到这个主意，她很开心，然后去找她的教授。他的回复是“不，你不要那么做，因为这个实验已经做过了，你在浪费时间”。这事发生在１９４７年前后，看来不重复实验，只是改变条件来观察结果已经成为心理学的常规了。

   Nowadays there's a certain danger of the same thing happening, even in the famous (?) field of physics. I was shocked to hear of an experiment done at the big accelerator at the National Accelerator Laboratory, where a person used deuterium. In order to compare his heavy hydrogen results to what might happen with light hydrogen" he had to use data from someone else's experiment on light hydrogen, which was done on different apparatus. When asked why, he said it was because he couldn't get time on the program (because there's so little time and it's such expensive apparatus) to do the experiment with light hydrogen on this apparatus because there wouldn't be any new result. And so the men in charge of programs at NAL are so anxious for new results, in order to get more money to keep the thing going for public relations purposes, they are destroying--possibly--the value of the experiments themselves, which is the whole purpose of the thing. It is often hard for the experimenters there to complete their work as their scientific integrity demands.

   现在，同样的做法所引起的这种危险也出现了，甚至出现在著名的物理学。我得知某人用氘在国家加速器实验室的大加速器上做的实验时，大吃一惊。为了比较他所做的重氢实验结果与轻氢实验可能的结果；他“不得不”使用别人在不同设备上的轻氢实验结果。当被问到原因时，他说因为他的项目里没有安排时间在大加速器上做轻氢实验，因为不会有什么新结果。（时间那么少，设备那么贵）。项目负责人也是如此急于得到新结果，为了搞到更多的钱保住项目运作以满足公众关系目的。他们极大可能地破坏了实验本身的价值---这才是实验的目的。实验者要秉持着正直科学的品质来完成工作，这经常难以做到。

   All experiments in psychology are not of this type, however. For example, there have been many experiments running rats through all kinds of mazes, and so on--with little clear result. But in 1937 a man named Young did a very interesting one. He had a long corridor with doors all along one side where the rats came in, and doors along the other side where the food was. He wanted to see if he could train the rats to go in at the third door down from wherever he started them off. No. The rats went immediately to the door where the food had been the time before.

   不过并不是所有的心理学实验都是这么做的。例如，有过许多的老鼠跑各种迷宫之类的种种实验，没有取得明确的结果。但是在１９３７年，一位杨先生做了一个非常有趣的实验。他做了一条长廊，一侧有几扇门，他从这些门放进老鼠。长廊另一侧的门边放了食物。他想看看；不管他从哪扇门放进老鼠，是否可以训练老鼠跑向出来后的第三扇门。结果是不，老鼠立刻跑到之前放食物的门边。

   The question was, how did the rats know, because the corridor was so beautifully built and so uniform, that this was the same door as before? Obviously there was something about the door that was different from the other doors. So he painted the doors very carefully, arranging the textures on the faces of the doors exactly the same. Still the rats could tell. Then he thought maybe the rats were smelling the food, so he used chemicals to change the smell after each run. Still the rats could tell. Then he realized the rats might be able to tell by seeing the lights and the arrangement in the laboratory like any commonsense person. So he covered the corridor, and still the rats could tell.

   问题是，长廊的做工如此漂亮，外观如此标准，老鼠怎么知道这就是之前施食的同一扇门的？显然，这扇门和其他门有些不同。于是他把所有门都仔细刷了漆，把表面的纹理变得完全相同。老鼠还是认得出来。然后他想这或者是老鼠能闻出食物的气味。于是每次老鼠跑完，他都用化学品改变气味。老鼠还是认得出来。然后他意识到老鼠可能能象常人一样通过观察灯光和实验室的布置来辨别。于是他盖上了长廊，结果老鼠还是认得出来。

   He finally found that they could tell by the way the floor sounded when they ran over it. And he could only fix that by putting his corridor in sand. So he covered one after another of all possible clues and finally was able to fool the rats so that they had to learn to go in the third door. If he relaxed any of his conditions, the rats could tell.

   最后，他发现老鼠能够根据跑过地板时的响声来认出门，他只能把长廊放进沙子，来修正这个条件。这样他依次掩盖了所有的可能的线索，终于可以欺骗老鼠，让它们不得不学习跑进第三扇门。只要他放松条件之一，老鼠们就能察觉。

   Now, from a scientific standpoint, that is an A-number-one experiment. That is the experiment that makes rat-running experiments sensible, because it uncovers the clues that the rat is really using--not what you think it's using. And that is the experiment that tells exactly what conditions you have to use （in　order to be careful　and control everything ）in an experiment with　rat-running.

   现在，从科学的观点来看，这是一个顶级棒的实验。这个实验让“老鼠跑”实验变得有条理，因为在实验中，发现了老鼠用到的真正线索，而不是你以为它们所用的线索。而且，它准确地揭示了当你操作一个“老鼠跑”实验时，为了仔细控制所有细节，你必须使用的条件。

   I looked into the subsequent history of this research. The next experiment, and the one after that, never referred to Mr. Young. They never used any of his criteria of putting the corridor on sand, or being very careful. They just went right on running rats in the same old way, and paid no attention to the great discoveries of Mr. Young, and his papers are not referred to, because he didn't discover anything about the rats. In fact, he discovered all the things you have to do to discover something about rats. But not paying attention to experiments like that is a characteristic of cargo cult science.

   我检视过此后的“老鼠跑”探索的历史。接下来的实验，和再接下来的实验，从没有参考杨先生的实验。他们从没用到他在沙基上放置长廊的或是非常仔细的实验准则。他们只是直接用同样的老方法让老鼠跑步，对杨先生的伟大发现毫不留意，他的论文也未被参考，因为他并没有在老鼠身上发现什么。实际上，他发现了所有的要素，这是你在老鼠身上做出新发现的前提条件。忽视这样的伟大实验，是拜运输机教科学的特征之一。

   Another example is the ESP experiments of Mr. Rhine, and other people. As various people have made criticisms--and they themselves have made criticisms of their own experiments--they improve the techniques so that the effects are smaller, and smaller, and smaller until they gradually disappear. All the parapsychologists are looking for some experiment that can be repeated--that you can do again and get the same effect--statistically, even. They run a million rats no, it's people this time they do a lot of things and get a certain statistical effect. Next time they try it they don't get it any more. And now you find a man saying that it is an irrelevant demand to expect a repeatable experiment. This is science?

   另一个例子，莱恩先生和其他人的超感觉实验。正如不同的人所批评的那样---他们自己也批评了实验---改善了技术，结果导致了实验效果越来越小，直到消失。甚至，所有的诡异心理学家们寻找着一些统计学上可重复的实验。即你重做实验时可以得到相同结果的那种。他们放出一百万只老鼠，啊，这次他们研究的是人。他们做许多的事情，取得某个统计结果。下一次再试，也没有新收获。现在你发现某人说期待可重复性实验是不重要的要求。这是科学吗？

   This man also speaks about a new institution, in a talk in which he was resigning as Director of the Institute of Parapsychology. And, in telling people what to do next, he says that one of the things they have to do is be sure they only train students who have shown their ability to get PSI results to an acceptable extent-- not to waste their time on those ambitious and interested students who get only chance results. It is very dangerous to have such a policy in teaching--to teach students only how to get certain results, rather than how to do an experiment with scientific integrity.

   在卸任诡异心理学院总监的谈话中，这位先生还阐述过一个新规矩。在告诉别人接下来怎么做的时候，他说你们必须要做的事情之一，是确认只培训那些已经显现出能力，可以把超心理做到可接受程度的学生；而不是在那些只获得机率性结果的，有抱负，感兴趣的学生身上浪费时间。这样的教育方式很危险。只教育学生如何去获得特定的结果，而不是如何秉持正直的科学精神来做实验。

   So I have just one wish for you--the good luck to be somewhere where you are free to maintain the kind of integrity I have described, and where you do not feel forced by a need to maintain your position in the organization, or financial support, or so on, to lose your integrity. May you have that freedom.

   因此，我对你们只有一个希望。无论身处何处，你们可以自由地保有我所描述的正直的科研精神；你们不会为了自己在单位里的职位，或是财务支持等别的原因丢掉你们的正直。愿你们保有这份自由。

   译者后记：

   1974年6月，加州理工学院的毕业典礼上，著名物理学家费曼作了一篇演讲Cargo Cult Science。后人翻译作《祖神来归式科学》。

   我得知这篇演讲是在大学英语学习的阅读理解中，那时费曼先生已经过世。但南太平洋土人崇拜运输货机的故事却一直留在印象里。前不久有朋友约稿，谈到科学思维，想起了这篇文章。新语丝上已经有前辈翻译过一回，语言风趣浅近易懂。但可能当时条件所限，这位前辈的译文中有少许错漏。

   国庆长假的最后两天里，在加州理工的网络上找到了原文，重新翻译了一回。其中有部分句子存在疑问，写信向加州理工图书馆咨询，得到了他们的热心回复，一一纠正。正直的科学精神一脉相承，足见盛情。

   翻译的过程中，深深感受到费曼先生幽默的语言风格，严谨的科学态度。即使对于怪力乱神之类的研究，他也并没有轻易的否定。尤其是科研工作者需要保持以诚待己，以诚待人的谦卑态度，足以为训。

   当然，由于个人能力所限，翻译错失在所难免。希望方家指正。多谢。

   编辑于 2017-10-12 12:54

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