Once in a while along comes a scientist who captures the public imagination and communicates their passion for science in an exciting and understandable way.
偶尔会有一位科学家来捕捉公众的想象力，并以一种令人兴奋和易于理解的方式传达他们对科学的热情。
Rob(罗伯)
In this programme, we’ll be meeting one of America’s best-known popular scientists. Astronomer Neil deGrasse Tyson. He’s a man with a gift for communicating and inspiring people with his television shows and books on cosmology – the study of the origin and nature of the universe.
In his day job he runs the Hayden Planetarium in New York’s American Museum of Natural History, but Neil’s real mission is to encourage scientific thinking among the American public.
We’ll be hearing from the famous astronomer, and learning some new vocabulary, soon. But first I have a question for you, Sam. Science is ever-changing with new discoveries updating our understanding all the time. For centuries, the Earth was thought to be the centre of the Universe - but who was the first astronomer to have the correct idea that, in fact, the Earth and the planets revolve around the Sun? Was it: a) Nicolaus Copernicus? b) Isaac Newton? or c) Galileo Galilei?
OK, Sam. I’ll reveal the correct answer later in the programme. Recent events like the Covid pandemic and climate crisis have put scientists under pressure from critics motivated by political views. Neil deGrasse Tyson thinks facts are not dependent on politics, but should be established with the scientific method, a process of finding the truth through testing and experimentation.
Here’s Neil explaining more about the scientific method to BBC World Service programme, HardTalk.
这是尼尔向BBC世界服务节目HardTalk解释更多关于科学方法的信息。
Neil deGrasse Tyson(尼尔·德格拉斯·泰森)
If you have a brilliant idea and you test it and it unearths so much of what has been known before, we’re gonna double-check that – the rest of us – we’ll say, ‘But did he do it? Did he cross his t’s and dot his i’s? Did he … Let me check the power that’s driving his experiment, you know, the wall current, let me check how that was conceived and done’. And if no-one can duplicate your results, it’s not a result.
如果你有一个绝妙的想法，你测试它，它发掘了很多以前已知的东西，我们将仔细检查它 —— 我们其他人 —— 我们会说，'但他做到了吗？他有没有划掉他的 t 并点缀他的 i？他......让我检查一下驱动他实验的功率，你知道，壁电流，让我检查一下它是如何构思和完成的。如果没有人可以复制你的结果，那就不是结果。
Rob(罗伯)
Before scientists can confirm the truth of an experiment, their findings must be doubled-checked - making certain something is correct by carefully examining it again. This process is called ‘peer review’ - other scientists double-checking the experiment to make sure everything was done correctly. One way they do this is to duplicate, or repeat, the experiment to see if they get the same result.
In other words, Neil wants scientists to have crossed the t’s and dotted the i’s, a phrase which means paying attention to the small details of whatever you are doing.
換句話說，Neil希望科學家們越過t，把i標點滅在，這句話意味著注意你正在做的任何事情的小細節。
Rob(罗伯)
A scientific approach requires an open mind and critical thinking, but Neil believes the most important thing is to know the difference between fact and opinion. People have opinions about all kinds of things but that doesn’t make what they believe a fact.
Yet fact and opinion are becoming harder to separate. As protests by anti-vaccine groups and climate change deniers have shown, many Americans, even presidents, seem suspicious of scientific fact. It’s a worrying trend that Neil thinks is a result of the US education system, as he told BBC World Service programme, HardTalk.
It has to do with how science is taught in schools. It’s currently taught as a body of information, a satchel of facts that are imparted upon you and then you regurgitate that for an exam. That’s an aspect of science, but it’s not the most important part of science. The most important part of science is knowing how to question things and knowing when an answer has emerged that represents an objective truth about this world.
Neil says that science is taught by encouraging students to regurgitate facts - to repeat information without properly understanding it.
尼尔说，科学是通过鼓励学生反刍事实来教授的 —— 在没有正确理解信息的情况下重复信息。
Sam(山姆)
Knowledge is important, but what’s also needed is a questioning attitude than can recognise objective truth - a truth about the natural world which is not influenced by human bias, opinions or emotion. Without that, anyone is free to call whatever they like a ‘fact’, which only leads to chaos.
Right. No matter how hard I believe that the Moon is made of cheese, or the Sun goes round around the Earth, believing it doesn’t make it true.
好的。无论我多么努力地相信月球是由奶酪制成的，或者太阳绕着地球转，相信它不会使它成为现实。
Sam(山姆)
That sounds like something Neil deGrasse Tyson would agree with – and maybe Galileo too!
这听起来像是尼尔·德格拉斯·泰森会同意的事情 —— 也许伽利略也会同意！
Rob(罗伯)
Yes. In my question I asked who first came up with the idea that the Earth revolves around the Sun.
是的。在我的问题中，我问谁首先提出了地球围绕太阳旋转的想法。
Sam(山姆)
And I said it was Renaissance astronomer, Galileo.
我说是文艺复兴时期的天文学家伽利略。
Rob(罗伯)
Which was the wrong answer, I’m afraid. Galileo knew the Earth revolved around the Sun, but the first person with the idea was Polish astronomer, Nicolaus Copernicus, in 1543 – unfortunately, centuries before the invention of television could spread the news of this objective truth – a provable truth which is uninfluenced by human bias or opinion.
OK, let’s recap the rest of the vocabulary from our chat about American scientist Neil deGrasse Tyson and his love of cosmology - the study of the Universe.
To double-check something means to make certain it’s correct by carefully re- examining it. One way scientists do this is to duplicate, or repeat exactly, an experiment.
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