内容摘要 《聆乐夜思》名字，来自书中一篇的题目。那篇文章，是谈论对于热核战争的忧思的。看起来，热核战争的危险，是作者当时关注的热点。书中有好几篇是谈论这个话题的。除了这个和其他几个重大课题，这本书还比较集中地谈到了一些奇异的、也就是科学所不知道、无从索解的事物。2500多米的海下喷出的300多摄氏度的热水里，竞有活得好好的细菌；羊瘙痒病的慢作用病毒里，找不到DNA和RNA；甲虫oncideres妈妈会寻到共生树产卵，完了还不忘把树枝切断；人的皮肤怎样做到仅凭催眠师的暗示就能烧起燎泡或除掉疣子；还有，还有，聪明的马，聪明的猫和蜜蜂…… 托马斯写这些，不仅是为了满足我们的好奇。这里谈的是科学教育。弄得不好，科学教育是容易成为迷信教育的。我们从小学科学，就是学着相信。从来没有人教我们去怀疑。我们以为科学是既定的，万能的，只要相信，学会，就成。托马斯说，不，我们是无知的。20世纪科学的成果，就是知道了我们的无知。科学就是一大堆困惑。科学就是承认无知。批评愚见，激发思索，切中时弊。人间真理，复杂深奥，需要这样的科学家的头脑，而出之于诗人的语言。 This magnificent collection of essays by scientist and National Book Award-winning writer Lewis Thomas remains startlingly relevant for today’s world. Luminous, witty, and provocative, the essays address such topics as “The Attic of the Brain,” “Falsity and Failure,” “Altruism,” and the effects the federal government’s virtual abandonment of support for basic scientific research will have on medicine and science. Profoundly and powerfully, Thomas questions the folly of nuclear weaponry, showing that the brainpower and money spent on this endeavor are needed much more urgently for the basic science we have abandoned—and that even medicine’s most advanced procedures would be useless or insufficient in the face of the smallest nuclear detonation. And in the title essay, he addresses himself with terrifying poignancy to the question of what it is like to be young in the nuclear age. “If Wordsworth had gone to medical school, he might have produced something very like the essays of Lewis Thomas.”—TIME “No one better exemplifies what modern medicine can be than Lewis Thomas.”—The New York Times Book Review
占位居中
直播中，去观看