给《美国科学家》编辑部的信

武夷山

2002年2月27日

To the Editors:

I was excited to read “The Engaged Arts and Humanities”(From the President, January-February) and fully echo Mr. Marye Anne Fox’s call for moral and financial support for the enhanced interaction between science and engineering on the one hand and arts and humanities on the other. In China, more and more scientists as well as PUS (public understanding of science) workers begin to commit their energy and enthusiasm into such interactions. Yesterday (Feb. 26, 2002), I just attended the Workshop on Science and Literature, organized by China Research Institute for Science Communication, which is an institute supported by the China Association of Science and Technology, China’s counterpart of AAAS. In my presentation in the workshop, I analyzed three types of people who are active in marrying science and literature. The first group is scientists-turned writers, represented by Carl Djerassi, also mentioned by Mr. Fox. The second group is consisted of those professional writers who are interested in and good at describing scientists, such as British dramatist Michael Frayn, whose “Copenhagen” was a big success. The third type refers to those so-called “third-culture thinkers”, as defined by John Brockman in 1991. Though these thinkers do not write literature works, their science books are so gracious and beautiful in their style and expression, based on the authors’ literacy in humanities and arts, that they achieve excellent result in getting public interested in S & T issues. 

I would like to find more articles in your magazine on how to train or nurture above-mentioned three types of people, who will play an increasingly important role in the society and deserve to be called really influential masters in the 21^st century.

Wu Yishan

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (ISTIC)

Beijing, China