逍遙大漢至
畫界之獨孤求敗
我的“理科男”一文，在海外網絡上引起激烈討論，其中旅居美國的科學家李持先生的見解最全麵，我在這裏把他給我的信登出來，可以幫助檢討我文章的一些過激，也把一些事實披露給年輕人。附上李持先生畫的素描，可以看到他的造型藝術功底，令人敬佩。
第一篇：
I strongly disagree with you. There is nothing in science and engineering education that restrict a person's creativity and imagination. In fact many good scientists and engineers are also good in literature, music, or visual art. Of course, there are narrow minded scientists but there are also narrow minds artists.
After seeing your drawings and paintings I developed a deep admiration for your talent and artistic expression. However, I disagree your way to label Chinese male as low in imagination and creativity, high in jealousy. I studied fine art in the 1970s when I was not even allowed to go to high school after graduating from middle school in 1971 because I was classified as born to a bad family, my parents were professors. Working in a factory in Beijing during the day and studying both math/physics/chemistry and drawings at night for a couple of years, I did well in both fine art and science. The reason I decided to take the science route was due to the fact art in China was so subjective and no criteria what was right and what was wrong. I got in one of the best universities in China in 1977 and later came to US to continue study in 1981.
Pursuing my science and engineering training I got my PhD in polymer physics in 1988 and started to work for one of the American automobile companies right after graduation. Over the years I used both my engineering training and artistic intuition in developing vehicles. I became a chief engineer for one of the compact suv programs and put my passion for beautiful shapes/forms to create new products supported by good engineering feasibility.
Over the years, I have published 32 scientific papers and got 24 US patents. Although I did not have any formal training in fine art but I continue to have deep passion for it. Visiting museums and galleries has been a life long hobby. I respectively reject your one sided opinion of "Chinese science male".
I am sorry I left China many years ago and now have trouble to type quickly in Chinese.
我的回信：
我完全同意你說的事實，而且非常希望結交你這樣的朋友。
但是，你肯定沒有看清我說的問題，是針對中國現在文理分科（高中開始）的係統影響下的狀況，你自己的經曆，以及很多世界上傑出的科學家，都為我的說法提供了正麵的例子，也就是我希望看到的將來的中國科學家應該具有的綜合素質。
我絕對沒有專業或學科歧視的意思，反過來，非常尊崇有創新的科學家和發明家。
你的出色的素描作品，也證實了一個偉大科學家同時可以掌握的藝術技巧以及創造力。
謝謝你寫信給我！
第二篇：
Unfortunately I was not even allowed to attend high school in 1971. At that time, there was no divsion between science track and humanity track either. Most of the universities at that time, however, followed the Russian model of technical education, rather than the western model of general education popular in Chine before 1949. Nevertheless, if you look the 77/78 graduates, many of us have passions for both disciplines.
我的回信：
Now we are on the same page！ 當然，藝術界裏文化知識局限的問題其實更嚴重！但是文理分科，直接影響了對社會具有更直接影響力的最普遍民眾和國家的領導階層的素質，直接關係到決策和未來，我由是覺得更有必要一說。至於文科學生，他們和在西方的文化人不一樣，他們基本上隻是文秘一類的職位，可有可無，更不要說藝術家了，很多人的知識結構還在小學程度。
第三篇：
The fundamental issue started in 1951 when Chinese communist party started blindly copy the Russian model of education and divided the good universities such as Tsinghua, JiaoTong into technical schools, eliminated humanity classes in science and engineering curriculum. I grew up in the Tsinghua campus and could personally observe the cultural gap between the old generation of professors who graduated before 1950 and those who got their education after 1952. Simply put, even their styles of hand writing were dramatically different. As you said, the narrow mindedness has also been wide spread among humanity and art students as there was no requirement for fine art students to study ancient Chinese or European literature. The foreign language students never touch art or music. There has been a completely lack of general education, like what we have here in US and Europe, that emphasize on the character building and culture enhancement up to today. Dividing high school students into science and humanity certainly made it worse.
Although many current Chinese leaders are science/engineering graduates, they are still far superior in their logical thinking and planning skills for the better of the nation than many US politicians. I felt compelled and disguised to watch the political debates lately. What a shame of these idiots in the lack of basic common senses and scientific knowledge, they do not know humanities either. Basically the matureness of American public remains at the 8th grade.
Another interesting case is Japan where I lived and worked as a chief engineer for a US automaker for three years. Japan has a general education model and a balanced science/humanity education from secondary schools all the way through universities. Unfortunately the culture of "hell of college entrance exam" suffocated imagination and creativity of its young minds for too long. It appeared to me the narrow mindedness was due to the way their education system force fed so much materials into the young mind when it is still fragile, so they end up with identical copies of "injection molded" mind for the population.
我的回信：
畢竟您更見多識廣，看到的問題，不僅僅是中國的，也有美國的，和日本的。我們的確應該思考，怎樣的教育係統，才能培養有綜合素質的人才，尤其是國家的管理和決策人才。我的文章，確實過激，就我現在人微言輕，還有機會撥動一下很多人的神經，讓人們去想一想這樣的問題，還是值得的。當然，我也希望這篇文章早點作廢，早點被事實唾棄。
第四篇（有一些私人的內容根據李先生的建議刪了）：
I really like the soul searching discussion with you. We are the very few really think what is the fundamental issues of a nations future related to its value and education systems. Nothing is perfect, even the Russian system produced top notch scientists and artists in its native country. Unfortunately when it was copied into China, it overemphasized math and science and ignored humanity and art. The "hell of college entrance exam", similar to Japan, further damaged young Chinese children, sufficating their imagination and creativity.The US has a highly polarized, two track education system. For the elites, it has the best in the world education represented by the Ivys, Stanford, MIT, and Caltech. For the poor, the education system produces shamful products and causing the wisdom of the population remains at about 8th grade level.
My son is a high school senior this year. ...Although my son, as the winner of Siemans Award for AP, excels in math and science but he also loves literature, philosophy, history, and art. .... When we talked to the students on (a technology-university)campus, we were surprised to find more than half of the undergrads are Asians. Here in the USA, there is no government to force kids to be technical but many Chinese parents still have the mentality of over emphasizing math and science, ignoring humanity and arts. Old habits die hard.
他的最後一段話，我太同意了。
絕大多數教育，一如絕大多數產品，考慮的是絕大多數人的需求，必須有所平衡。美國教育的成功，也在於更多的允許個性的發揮。其實中國也有“因材施教”的傳統。對人文教育的重視自高考後已經開始，還在繼續。