我們講到“文化”，講到一個人的修養，似乎聯想到更多的是音樂、美術、文學、哲學等等，太少人appreciate the beauty of science。誰關心波粒二象性、宇宙曲率、時間起源、人如何成為人？社會越來越對人進行明碼標價。換句話說，不能夠直接創造經濟價值的，越來越被視為無用。我的那些好高騖遠不切實際的興趣就是活生生的例證。
這讓我不由自主想到了Virginia Woolf的“A Room of One’s Own”。書中一段話，大概可以作為我最近思維活動的一個總結：
All I could do was to offer you an opinion upon one minor point — a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction; and that, as you will see, leaves the great problem of the true nature of woman and the true nature of fiction unsolved.
難道我真要過那種內心彪悍外表落魄的流浪生活嗎？再給我一點時間！
achie 發表評論於
俺也相信生命有神秘和奇跡存在。。。
對於宇宙大爆炸假說，進化論的細節，以及Intelligent Design(ID)，乃至宗教的要義，俺都是門外漢（女？）行外人。真是學無涯，學到無牙也不夠。剛孤狗了一下Edwards v. Aguillard的高院案子，大概了解了一下。根據維基詞條正文，其實ID倒是因該案子的審定而起的（參見consequences一節）。案子裏被（主？）告一方涉及的更確切地說是creation science(該主張被判為有宗教意圖）. 當然CS和ID也許沒有本質的區別。看看維基詞條的討論頁也很有意思 - 有人指出應該刪除consequences一節，因為它隻是POV（point of view):
One side in this debate claims that the other side is just creationists in disguise who are trying to get around court rulings by not mentioning God. The other side, however, includes (besides an unknown number of such cryptocreationists) people who sincerely believe that random mutations and natural selection alone cannot explain the evolution of life, and who don't think that this implies the existence of a personal God, let alone a specifically Christian one, let alone a literal reading of Genesis. So the intelligent design movement can't be described as merely a consequence of the effect a certain ruling had on Christian creationists.
我不是搞進化的，但是接觸到很多證據是來自支持進化和支持intelligent design 雙方的辯論。具體到眼睛的例子，你的引用是不錯，但是不完整。Darwin的確說眼睛看起來似乎很難是進化出來的，但是接著又說如果眼睛的進化是漸進的，而且每一步都是有選擇優勢的，那麽 the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection can hardly be considered real.也就是說，達爾文自己隻不過說眼睛“貌似”不能進化出來。關於眼睛的進化因為研究了很久，證據相當多而翔實（wiki 上有個 evolution of eyes的詞條寫的還不錯，我上麵就copy了），太容易搜索到，所以搞intelligent design的人都不好意思拿來當例子。在著名的最高法院案子 Edwards v. Aguillard 裏麵，支持intelligent design的一方用的好像是一個鞭毛的例子。 弄到分子生物學裏麵去，一方麵讓老百姓覺得他們是用科學在說話，一方麵懂得人也不多，更容易被說服。當然，在這個案子裏，為這一方陳詞的“科學家”顯然在對方列出的scientific evidence 麵前相當沒麵子。
很多人是因為生命太奧妙了，覺得這不可能進化出來。如果因為近化論的細節不完善而傾向不可知（agnostic）我還比較理解，如果用造物主來解釋，簡直跟大地是巨龜馱著一樣：巨龜下麵是什麽啊？我們人類太複雜，所以不能自發地由進化產生，非得有個上帝來造，精心設計，上帝得比人還複雜了吧？特定的，有personalized的宗教到這裏，必須引入"信"這個概念，也就是說，問題必須到頭。神龜下麵不許問了。當然，不是特定宗教的，相信一個”冥冥中”什麽東西的，可以解釋為：所謂神就是 big bang. 那之前怎麽樣？科普還沒搞到這一步。
To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree. Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species, p. 175.
f it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species, p. 179.
我們講到“文化”，講到一個人的修養，似乎聯想到更多的是音樂、美術、文學、哲學等等，太少人appreciate the beauty of science。誰關心波粒二象性、宇宙曲率、時間起源、人如何成為人？社會越來越對人進行明碼標價。換句話說，不能夠直接創造經濟價值的，越來越被視為無用。我的那些好高騖遠不切實際的興趣就是活生生的例證。
這讓我不由自主想到了Virginia Woolf的“A Room of One’s Own”。書中一段話，大概可以作為我最近思維活動的一個總結：
All I could do was to offer you an opinion upon one minor point — a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction; and that, as you will see, leaves the great problem of the true nature of woman and the true nature of fiction unsolved.
