Science is a journey without an end.

At the end of 2019, Covid-19 (Covid-19) appeared in Wuhan and swept the world in just a few months. Although medical experts all over the world are stepping up scientific research, up to now, our understanding of Covid-19 is still very limited, and we don’t even know where the virus comes from, whether it mutates, whether the recovered people have immunity, etc., let alone find out the methods of treatment and prevention. Not to mention COVID-19, which theory and doctrine in science can definitely be completely "proved"? As one of the greatest undertakings of mankind, science has never been casually successful. In such a situation, I met "The Journey of Science" and read Einstein’s sentence, "The nature I see is a spectacular structure, and we can only grasp it very limited. Therefore, a thoughtful person must have a feeling of" humility ".

The Journey of Science is a popular science book written by famous American journalists Ray Spangenberg and Diana Mo Ze. The book was published by Peking University Publishing House in November 2008. For more than ten years, the book has been reprinted many times, won many awards in the publishing industry, and was fully affirmed and praised by readers from all walks of life. Different from other works on the history of science, the history of science presented by this book is not brilliant all the way, but a history written by "right" and "wrong", "success" and "failure", and a history approaching the truth in constant error correction.

　　　　The more we know, the more we feel ignorant.

From the day of its birth, human beings have tried to know, understand and use the world around them, but in the face of the capricious nature, human beings are always at a loss. 2,500 years ago, when the fresh Mediterranean air blew into the sun-bathed buildings in the ancient Greek seaport, people began to take a fresh look at the world and slowly pushed open the door of science. In the short history of human civilization, we have moved slowly along the journey of science from awe to understanding-from looking up at the stars to launching spacecraft to explore space, from observing the fluctuation of river water to using tidal energy to generate electricity, from discovering chemical elements to using nuclear energy to benefit life, from recognizing life to artificially synthesizing living cells, and peeling off the mystery of science layer by layer. Today’s science has penetrated into every corner of human life, and the power of science is everywhere. It seems that we have exhausted all our knowledge of everything in the world.

When the young Planck said that he would devote himself to physics, his teacher said, "Physics is a completed science, and there will be no further development." However, it turns out that science, like time and space, is endless, and Planck himself has become an important founder of quantum mechanics, standing side by side with Einstein. As far as its capacity is concerned, science will not be exhausted; As far as its goal is concerned, it is always unattainable. British chemist humphry davy said, "The more we know, the more we feel ignorant." In this way, Newton also said: "I don’t know what the world thinks of me, but in my opinion, I am just like a child playing on the beach, happy to find a smoother stone or beautiful shell than usual;" But the vast ocean of truth has not been discovered before me! " At the moment when the COVID-19 epidemic is raging all over the world, hearing such teachings is tantamount to LUN Yin’s Buddhist language.

　　　　Scientific thought is the first spiritual force.

The author believes that science is actually a way of thinking, a vivid and ever-changing view of the world. In the long early history of human development, most views about the world are full of supernatural and mythical colors. Humans try to call gods and heaven with witchcraft to help cure diseases, fight floods, win wars, etc. This is naturally not science.

When human beings began to use tools to transform the world, animal husbandry, agriculture and foundry came into being one after another. People began to observe the sun, moon and planets and found the change of seasons and the flooding of rivers. In the author’s view, these are just technologies, not science in the strict sense, because these "can’t enhance the knowledge, angle and method of understanding the world". From this point of view, China’s four great inventions can only be regarded as technology, because they have not promoted the change and progress of human thought and changed people’s cognition of the world.

Scientific progress is not simply technological progress, but the evolution of scientific ideas. Since ancient Greece, the spirit of legislation for nature has given birth to the embryonic form of modern science. After the catalysis of the Middle Ages, especially the Renaissance, scientific thought realized modern transformation and successfully promoted three scientific and technological waves in the West. Why China civilization did not produce modern science similar to that in Europe may be related to the absence of "scientific thought". The author reminds me of a sentence by Yu Yingshi: "If we analyze the western science that China has been longing for since the May 4th Movement, we can see that there are few elements of’ science’ and many elements of’ science and technology’, and this is still the case today, and even worse." Being eager for quick success and instant benefit for science and technology will inevitably stifle "scientific thinking".

One of the great charms of this book is that it not only narrates the development process from the birth of science to modern science, but more importantly, it takes the change of ideas and the development of ideas as the main line of narration, which makes a "big book" with more than 500 pages clear. It is found in reading that it often takes a long time, even hardships, for a new scientific idea to be widely accepted from birth. For example, when Heliocentrism put forward, many people thought of cruel persecution in religion. In fact, the real resistance was not religion, but the academic authority and "scientific common sense" at that time. Planck said: "A new scientific truth won not by convincing its opponents and seeing the light of truth, but by the fact that these opponents eventually died and a new generation familiar with it grew up." It is meaningful to think about it.

　　　　Critical thinking is the most precious spirit of science.

In the author’s view, scientific thinking is essentially critical thinking, which advocates doubting the old adage and authority, as well as transcending oneself. It does not allow nature to deceive you, nor does it allow others to deceive you, nor does it allow you to deceive yourself. Therefore, before a hypothesis becomes a theory, it must be repeatedly tested and evaluated by many people before it can become a "theory" known by the scientific community and the public. Even the theory must be subject to falsification and revision, and it must be fully proved by the examiner, so that it can enter the textbook. For example, when Roentgen discovered "X-ray", it was delayed for seven weeks when he announced the discovery result, because he repeatedly experimented with the reliability of his discovery. In the history of science, there are many examples of a theory that takes time to test from discovery to confirmation.

Scientists have also specially designed a series of rules to help find mistakes, so that science has an internal mechanism that can prove itself wrong. It is this unique error-correcting mechanism and self-critical ability of science itself that makes science the most rigorous and effective means for human beings to understand the mysteries of nature, and makes the development of science constantly break through the barriers of old ideas, surpass authority and be full of vitality forever.

Throughout the book, we find that every new theory is always corrected, expanded or simplified by later generations, and constantly improved. There are many such examples: Aristotle’s assertion that different weights fall from the same height, and the heavy one falls first is overthrown by Galileo; In the 20th century, atoms were found to have a structure, so they entered it and split it. Classical physics thought system ruled the physical science for two centuries, but after the theory of relativity was put forward, everything became a thing of the past …

Under the background of exam-oriented education, "critical thinking" is the scarcest quality and ability. It is timely to read this book and deeply feel the critical spirit of science, which can improve our thinking quality and ability.

Because standing on the shoulders of our ancestors, our scientific concepts and knowledge have made great progress today, but this does not mean that we are in complete control of ourselves and the world. Science is originally a journey without an end. While enjoying its benefits, we are also facing unprecedented challenges.

(The author is a teacher of hanshan county No.2 Middle School)

China Education News, April 22, 2020, 10th edition