Text | Li Yuebai
The Outer History of Science is a collection of essays written by Jiang Xiaoyuan, a historian of science and chair professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and has been very popular since the first volume was written. On the one hand, it has won many honors such as the first "China Good Book" and "First Prize of Shanghai Book Award", which means social benefits; On the other hand, it has been published by a number of high-quality publishing houses so far, which represents market support. Recently, the two volumes of "The Foreign History of Science" have been newly published, and what characteristics and directions have Jiang Xiaoyuan been thinking about in recent years?
Science and Literature
There are many writers of science and popular science articles, but there are not many that can really be recognized by the market. Although Jiang Xiaoyuan said that "The History of Science" was originally a niche book, and it was an accident that it was welcomed by the market, there are reasons behind the phenomenon. Many readers have commented that "The History of Science" is an interesting and easy to read. "Interesting" and "easy to read" are just descriptions of superficial feelings, and I think the deeper connotation is that "The History of Science" has a higher aesthetic value than other popular science books.
How to make science and popular science articles both aesthetic? This is a difficult task. After Mr. Sai entered China, the literati of the Republic of China, who thought about change and innovation, explored the way of writing that integrated science and literature, but the results were not successful. Most of the "scientific essays" they explored were just interesting popular science dressed up in various literary modifiers. For example, white blood cells can be compared to human warriors, or the cuckoo's blood cry can be used to explain its biological habits...... Although these articles can be evaluated as "vivid" and "interesting", it is difficult to say that they are literary.
For this kind of article, the writer Zhou Zuoren once criticized: "I don't know what the so-called scientific sketch is, according to me, it should always be the content of the science and the beauty of the article, if the article is written and the subject of natural history or the scientific outlook on life is used to write the article, it seems to be just an article, and other titles do not need to be added." ”
From this point of view, Jiang Xiaoyuan's "Foreign History of Science" truly realizes "the content of science and the beauty of articles". Even if you ignore the scientific aspects, it is a good essay to read only as an essay. In the exploration of the marriage between science and literature, Jiang Xiaoyuan gave an answer sheet that surpassed his predecessors.
Although the term "science essays" is no longer popular today, I would still like to call the "Science Extrahistory" series of articles as the aesthetic benchmark of science essays, similar to Yashe essays and Zhitang essays.
Carry the road and my way
The marriage of science and literature is difficult only because ideal authors are hard to find. It is rare for professional scientific people to write popular articles, and they can no longer be extravagant in the beauty of literature. Literati who are good at writing lack the understanding and internalization of scientific content, and are unable to touch on profound topics in the field of science. In between, there is a very small group of people who are best suited to be matchmakers between science and literature: historians of science.
Scholars of the history of science study the history of science, so there is no shortage of in-depth thinking about science. Most of the traditional science essays and popular science articles take "carrying the Tao" as their own responsibility and disseminate correct scientific views, so no matter how they are packaged, it is difficult to hide the traces of "preaching" between the lines. The reason why "The History of Science" is unique among other scientific and popular science works is that it does not have the vow to carry the word for science, so it naturally has a better reading experience.
Of course, thought is the bone of the article, and the text cannot stand without thought. "The Foreign History of Science" also contains the Tao, but it does not contain the "Avenue of Science", but the essential insight and reflection of the historian of science scholar Jiang Xiaoyuan on many issues in the field of science and technology. It is precisely because of this transformation that the beauty of thought can be truly displayed in scientific articles, and the scientific content and literature can be combined with thought as the core.
Compared with the previous three volumes, the newly published "Extra-scientific History" IV. and "Extra-scientific History" V. have a clearer sense of problems and sharper thinking. The awareness of problems is reflected in the close connection with the current social reality, and the sharp ideology is behind the controversial issues.
In Chapter 3 of "The Outer History of Science", Jiang Xiaoyuan used 13 articles to solve the problem of the worship of impact factors in the scientific community today. He used the meticulous logic of science historians to trace the origin of history to meticulously deconstruct the business routine of Nature magazine from obscurity to the throne of the top publication, and sharply exposed the essence of the "open access" model of scientific papers. 4 articles in Nature Magazine, the quadruple scam of open access...... Just from the titles of these series of articles, we can see Jiang Xiaoyuan's style of using the pen as a knife and pointing directly to the truth.
The study of the relationship between science and technology is the latest academic field that Jiang Xiaoyuan has expanded in recent years, and his academic achievements and thoughts in this area have also appeared in the latest two volumes as in-depth articles. Questions such as "where is the boundary between science and technology" and "is it possible without science and technology" can indeed hit the blind spots of thinking and improve the reader's "view of science and technology".
My favorite article in both books is "From Psychic Vision to Scientific Vision: A Superpower Quest." It tells the interesting history of the director of the US Defense Intelligence Agency who funded experimental projects such as human remote vision and tried to apply them to spy warfare. Of course, this kind of content is like gossip, but it is actually a representative of the classical demarcation problem in the philosophy of science, which explores the problem of scientific boundaries.
Four taels and a thousand catties
Jiang Xiaoyuan is undoubtedly a prolific author. The Extra-Scientific History series has so far been published in five volumes, containing some 200 articles, and this is only a part of his work outside of his academic work as a scholar.
For a scholar, academic articles often have the meaning of a life, but articles for the general public do not have such value. However, this is not always the case. In some cases, there is no shortage of examples where the prestige gained in the public sphere can inversely influence value judgments within the academic system. Therefore, many scholars have an ambivalence about the writing of non-academic articles, which has led to the debate between "four taels" and "thousands of catties".
As a scholar, is it a matter of "four or two thousand pounds" to succeed in the field of popular writing? I don't think that's fair.
It is easy to specialize, but it is rare to be popular. The popularity of scholars is based on the complete internalization of knowledge and the thorough transparency of logic. Therefore, successful mass text writing is not easier than academic writing, and it often requires more research work to develop and support it. There are only four or two, and they can't move a thousand pounds.
Taking the "Extra-Scientific History" series as an example, there is a wide accumulation of knowledge and profound literary attainments behind it. What is even more admirable is Jiang Xiaoyuan's continuous development of academic direction and decades of self-discipline. From the history of traditional astronomy to the exchange of Chinese and foreign civilizations, from science fiction and science to anti-scientism, from the study of Nature and the impact factors to the essential thinking of the relationship between science and technology...... In the preface of the new work, Jiang Xiaoyuan mentioned that the column of "Foreign History of Science" began in July 2006, one article per month, and has been insisted on until the 18th year, which can be said to be "10,000 catties to 1,000 catties".
However, there is one place where it may be appropriate to describe it as "four or two thousand pounds". That is, for readers, just open the book, spend a few minutes to read one, and you can get niche and professional conversations, which is really the best way to "transfer thousands of pounds".