Name: 【TED】Laura Snyder: 《哲學早餐會》的故事 (Laura Snyder: The Philosophical Breakfast Club)
Uploaded: 2013-06-10T13:15:05.000Z
Duration: 12 min 35 s

I'd like you to come back with me for a moment

情態副詞

The British Association for the Advancement of Science

英國科學協會（The British Association for the Advancement of Science）

is holding its third meeting at the University of Cambridge.

正在劍橋大學舉行第三次會議。

and a confrontation is about to take place

一位頭髮花白的長者站了起來。

The members of the Association are shocked to realize

that it's the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge,

他是詩人山姆.泰勒.柯勒律治(Samuel Taylor Coleridge)，

who hadn't even left his house in years until that day.

一位多年足不出戶的詩人－直到那天。

They're even more shocked by what he says.

更讓他們驚訝的是他所說的話。

"You must stop calling yourselves natural philosophers."

「你不能再稱自己為自然哲學家。」

Coleridge felt that true philosophers like himself

柯勒律治覺得哲學家們，像他自己本身，

pondered the cosmos from their armchairs.

都是坐在扶手椅上思索宇宙的。

They were not mucking around in the fossil pits

or conducting messy experiments with electrical piles

或是用電子零件作混亂的實驗，

like the members of the British Association.

The crowd grew angry and began to complain loudly.

會議成員開始生氣，還大聲抗議。

A young Cambridge scholar named William Whewell stood up

一位年輕的劍橋學者，威廉.修艾爾(William Whewell)站了起來

He politely agreed that an appropriate name

for the members of the association did not exist.

一個適合協會成員使用的稱號並不存在。

"If 'philosophers' is taken to be too wide and lofty a term,"

「如果“哲學家”這個稱號過於廣義和高尚，」

he said, "then, by analogy with 'artist,'

他說。「那麼，參考“藝術家”(artist)這個稱呼，

我們可以自稱為“科學家”(scientist)。」

This was the first time the word scientist

I first found out about this confrontation when I was in graduate school,

我是在研究所的時候第一次聽到這個故事，

怎麼可能在1833年以前都不存在？

What had changed to make a new name necessary

Prior to this meeting, those who studied the natural world

在會議之前，那些研究自然世界的人

像查爾斯.達爾文 (Charles Darwin)，

or, the hired help of a nobleman, like Joseph Priestley,

或是貴族雇用的幫手，像約瑟夫.普利斯特里 (Joseph Priestley)，

蘭斯多恩侯爵 (Marquis of Lansdowne) 的伙伴，

在這之後，他們全成了科學家，

professionals with a particular scientific method,

成了專精於某種科學研究方法的專業人士，

有著科學研究目標、學會和資助。

Much of this revolution can be traced to four men

Charles Babbage, John Herschel, Richard Jones and William Whewell.

查爾斯.巴貝奇、約翰.赫歇爾、理查.鐘斯和威廉.休厄爾。

他們都是非常聰明的、有雄心的人

Charles Babbage, I think known to most TEDsters,

查爾斯.巴貝奇(Charles Babbage)，我想你們多數人都知道他，

他發明了世上第一個力學計算機

and the first prototype of a modern computer.

John Herschel mapped the stars of the southern hemisphere,

約翰.赫歇爾 (John Herschel)畫下了南半球的星圖，

and, in his spare time, co-invented photography.

並在他空閒的時間和別人一起發明了相機。

我相信我們都可以有如此的有生產力

without Facebook or Twitter to take up our time.

只要Facebook和Twitter不再佔用我們的時間。

Richard Jones became an important economist

理查.鐘斯 (Richard Jones)成為了一名重要的經濟學家

他後來影響了卡爾.馬克斯 (Karl Marx)。

And Whewell not only coined the term scientist,

而休厄爾(William Whewell)不但創造了科學家一詞，

as well as the words anode, cathode and ion,

以及陽極、陰極和離子這些詞，

but spearheaded international big science

In the Cambridge winter of 1812 and 1813,

the four met for what they called philosophical breakfasts.

這四個年輕人在他們的「哲學早餐會」聚會

and the need for a new scientific revolution.

since the days of the scientific revolution that had happened

and what's so amazing about these guys is,

即使這些夢想聽起來像天馬行空。

about four major changes to science these men made.

這些年輕人帶來的四個重大改變。

Francis Bacon and then, later, Isaac Newton,

法蘭西斯.培根 (Francis Bacon) 和之後的艾薩克.牛頓 (Issac Newton)，

had proposed an inductive scientific method.

and moves to generalizations about nature called natural laws,

而後將結果歸納成大自然的規則，

which are always subject to revision or rejection

這些規則將持續被修正，甚至被否決，

However, in 1809, David Ricardo muddied the waters

可是，在1809年，當大衛.李嘉圖 (David Ricardo)

should use a different, deductive method.

該以和歸納法不同的演譯法來研究。

The problem was that an influential group at Oxford

問題在於牛津一群有影響力的人

began arguing that because it worked so well in economics,

也開始認為演譯法既然在經濟學上有效，

this deductive method ought to be applied

The members of the philosophical breakfast club disagreed.

They wrote books and articles promoting inductive method

他們為了推廣歸納法著書立說，

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【TED】Laura Snyder: 《哲學早餐會》的故事 (Laura Snyder: The Philosophical Breakfast Club)

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