科学的第一种价值是人人皆知，那就是科学知识让人们能够做成各种事情，造出各种东西。当然，如果我们做了善事，那也不纯是科学的功劳；那也得归功于引导我们行善的道德选择。科学知识是一种力量，它既能让我们行善，也能让我们为恶，但是它本身并不附带使用说明。这样的力量显然是有价值的，尽管用好用坏取决于人。

The first way in which science is of value is familiar to everyone. It is that scientific knowledge enables us to do all kinds of things and to make all kinds of things.  Of course if we make good things, it is not only to the credit of science; it is also to the credit of the moral choice which led us to good work.  Scientific knowledge is an enabling power to do either good or bad - but it does not carry instructions on how to use it.  Such power has evident value - even though the power may be negated by what one does with it.

          科学的另一价值是趣味，也叫做心智的享受。这种享受，有人从读科学、学科学、思索科学得到，也有人从研究科学得到。这一点很重要，是那些告诉我们要考虑科学对社会影响的人们所忽视的。

          难道说，这种纯粹的个人享受，对整个社会有什么价值吗？话不能这样说。应该说，关注社会本身的目标，也是一种责任。倘若社会的目标，就是要人们能够享受自己所做的事情，那么，科学带来的享受就像别的事情一样重要。

          科学的另一不容低估的价值，是它改变了我们关于世界的概念。科学引导我们想象各种各样的事情，这些事情比过去年月里的诗人和梦想家所想的更加迷人。科学研究告诉我们，自然的想象力比人的想象力要伟大得多。比如，这么多人被一种神秘的吸引力吸在一个旋转的球上，一半人头朝下，一旋转就是几十亿年，不是比无底的大海里有只大龟，龟驼着大地更来劲吗？

Is this mere personal enjoyment of value to society as a whole? No! But it is also a responsibility to consider the aim of society itself.  Is it to arrange matters so that people can enjoy things?  If so, then the enjoyment of science is as important as anything else.

     But I would like not to underestimate the value of the world view which is the results of scientific effort.  We have been led to imagine all sorts of things infinitely more marvelous than the imaginings of poets and dreamers of the past.  It shows that the imagination of nature is far, far greater than the imagination of man.  For instance, how much more remarkable it is for us all to be stuck - half of us upside down - by a mysterious attraction to a spinning ball that has been swinging in space for billions of years than to be carried on the back of an elephant supported on a tortoise swimming in a bottomless sea. 

          现在，我要讲讲科学的第三种价值了。这种价值稍稍有些间接，但是并不牵强。科学家对于自己的无知、怀疑和不确定有很多体验，我以为这些体验非常非常重要。当一个科学家不知道某个问题的答案时，他是无知的。当他猜到结果会是怎样时，他是不确定的。而当他对结果如何相当有把握时，他仍然有些怀疑。我们发现，下述的心态顶顶重要，那就是：要想进步，我们必须承认自己的无知，并留下怀疑的余地。科学知识是一些陈述的集合，这些陈述有不同程度的确定性——有的根本不确定，有的几乎确定，但是没有一条是绝对的有把握。

          今天，我们科学家已习惯了这一点，并且理所当然地认为，不确定与科学毫无矛盾之处，认为，不知照样能活下去。可是，我不知道是否每个人都意识到这是真的。我们今天的怀疑的自由，乃产生于科学早期与权威做过的斗争。那一斗争极其深刻，极其有力：我们就是要争取，允许我们质问，允许我们怀疑，允许我们不确定。提醒人们绝不要忘了这场斗争，以免失去业经得到的东西。这乃是科学家对社会的责任。

          想到人类难以置信的潜力，而相比之下成就却如此渺小，我们都会难过。一次又一次，人们认为自己理应做得更好些。前人在自己时代的恶魇中梦想未来。作为他们的梦里人，我们今人看到了，在某些方面，古人之梦，今人已醒，而在许多方面，却是旧梦依然。今人对于未来的希望，也还是古人对今天的梦想。古今同一梦，今天丝毫也不比昨天逊色。

I would now like to turn to a third value that science has.  It is a little less direct, but not much.  The scientist has a lot of experience with ignorance and doubt and uncertainty, and this experience is of very great importance, I think.  When a scientist doesn't know the answer to a problem, he is ignorant.  When he has a hunch as to what the result is, he is uncertain.  And when he is pretty darn sure of what the result is going to be, he is still in some doubt.  We have found it of paramount importance that in order to progress we must recognize our ignorance and leave room for doubt.  Scientific knowledge is a body of statements of varying degrees of certainty - some most unsure, some nearly sure, but none absolutely certain.

     Now, we scientists are used to this, and we take it for granted that it is perfectly consistent to be unsure, that it is possible to live and not know.  But I don't know whether everyone realizes this is true.  Our freedom to doubt was born out of a struggle against authority in the early days of science.  It was a very deep and strong struggle: permit us to question - to doubt - to not be sure.  I think that it is important that we do not forget this struggle and thus perhaps lose what we have gained.  Herein lies a responsibility to society.

     We are all sad when we think of the wondrous potentialities human beings seem to have, as contrasted with their small accomplishments.  Again and again people have thought that we could do much better.  Those of the past saw in the nightmare of their times a dream for the future.  We, of their future, see that their dreams, in certain ways surpassed, have in many ways remained dreams.  The hopes for the future today are, in good share, those of yesterday.

          古往今来，人们一直都在试图测度人生的意义。他们想，如有某种方向或意义指导行动，人类定会释放出巨大的力量。于是乎，很多很多的答案应运而生。可是，这些答案彼此太不同了，一种答案的倡导者，会把信奉另一种答案的行动者视为洪水猛兽。他们很可怕，因为，换一个角度看，那就是人类的所有潜能都被引入一条狭隘的死胡同。历史告诉我们，虚妄信仰产生巨大恶性。实际上，哲学家正是从这一历史的观照中，才意识到人类显然拥有无穷的潜力。于是乎，又来了一个梦：这一回，梦想的是如何找到那条开放通达的康庄大道。

          那么，这一切其中的含义又是什么呢？如何来一语尽释存在之谜呢？

          总结归齐，古人之所知也好，古人未之知而吾人之所知也好，吾人将以何以言之？吾人将谓：我们必须坦白承认，我们不知道。

          可是，在这一坦白中，也许我们已然找到了通途。

Through all ages of our past, people have tried to fathom the meaning of life.  They have realized that if some direction or meaning could be given to our actions, great human forces would be unleashed.  So very many answers have been given to the question of the meaning of it all.  But the answers have been of all different sorts, and the proponents of one answer have looked with horror at the actions of the believers in another - horror, because from a disagreeing point of view all the great potentialities of the race are channeled into a false and confining blind alley.  In fact, it is from the history of the enormous monstrosities created by false belief that philosophers have realized the apparently infinite and wondrous capacities of human beings.  The dream is to find the open channel.

     What, then, is the meaning of it all?  What can we say to dispel the mystery of existence?

     If we take everything into account - not only what the ancients knew, but all of what we know today that they didn't know - then I think we must frankly admit that we do not know.

     But, in admitting this, we have probably found the open channel.

          人类尚且年轻，一切才刚刚开始，问题成堆也无足怪。但未来还有千千万年。我们有责任尽力做，尽力学，寻求更好的解决办法，并传给后人。我们有责任留给后人一双自由之手。从前年轻性急，人类可能犯下过严重的错误，长时间阻碍了自己的成长。我们如此年轻，如此无知，假如我们说我们今天已经有了答案，那就犯下了这样的错误。如果我们压制讨论，压制批评，宣称“这就是答案，朋友嘛；人类得救了！”我们就会给人类套上权威的锁链，让自己局限于眼前的想象。这样的事从前发生得太多了。

          我们科学家，知道以往的无知哲学如此令人满意，思想自由取得的进步如此伟大，所以我们有责任宣称，这一自由是有价值的；我们就有责任宣扬，为什么不要害怕怀疑而是要欢迎怀疑，讨论怀疑；有责任坚持拥有这一自由。这就是我们对于天下后世应尽的责任。

We are at the very beginning of time for the human race.  It is not unreasonable that we grapple with problems.  But there are tens of thousands of years in the future.  Our responsibility is to do what we can, learn what we can, improve the solutions, and pass them on.  It is our responsibility to leave the people of the future a free hand.  In the impetuous youth of humanity, we can make grave errors that can stunt our growth for a long time.  This we will do if we say we have the answers now, so young and ignorant as we are.  If we suppress all discussion, all criticism, proclaiming "This is the answer, my friends; man is saved!" we will doom humanity for a long time to the chains of authority, confined to the limits of our present imagination.  It has been done so many times before.

     It is our responsibility as scientists, knowing the great progress which comes from a satisfactory philosophy of ignorance, the great progress which is the fruit of freedom of thought, to proclaim the value of this freedom; to teach how doubt is not to be feared but welcomed and discussed; and to demand this freedom as our duty to all coming generations.

What Do You Care What Other People Think? ——Richard Feynman

参考：

中文翻译出自《你干吗在乎别人怎么想》R·P·费曼 著 R·莱顿 笔录 李绍明 李超 译 湖南科学技术出版社 2005

英文出处：http://www.phys.washington.edu/users/vladi/phys216/Feynman.html