[U.S.] Lancy Peirce Charles Thurston: The Soul of Science—A 500-Year History of the Interaction between Science, Faith, and Philosophy, translated by Pan Bitao, Jiangxi People’s Publishing House, December 2006
The very first book in my reading plan was already disappointing—the theme of this book is undoubtedly one I care about deeply, yet the book itself is not outstanding at all (perhaps because I had expected too much). In terms of content, its account of Christianity’s role in promoting science may seem strange to the general public, but to me there was not much that was new. For the history of the interaction between science and religion, books such as Brooke’s Science and Religion, Hooykaas’s Religion and the Rise of Modern Science, and Barbour’s When Science Meets Religion are much better. Moreover, some of the statements in this The Soul of Science concerning the history of science also seem a bit problematic.
As for the translation, it is truly a total mess, dreadful to behold… The translator is a biology PhD teaching in the United States (and also a Christian), and his Chinese seems to be only barely at a basic everyday level; all sorts of academic terms and proper names are translated into chaos. This book counts as one of the worst translations I have read so far; several other bad translations I had seen before were also related to Christianity. It is entirely reasonable for the translator to devote himself to translation out of religious enthusiasm, but after all one still has to put effort into academic standards. Come to think of it, Ah Gui’s translations of Science and Religion and When Science Meets Religion were truly excellent.
Judging from recently published new books and reprinted old ones (for example, two famous anti-evolution books, as well as books such as The Bridge: Science and Religion, have all recently been reissued), the momentum of “religious fever” is clearly still growing, which is only natural—a void of faith. More and more people hope to reconsider the relationship between science and religion, and that is a good thing. But this current seems still somewhat slanted toward frivolous haste (the poor translation shows this).
There is not much worth noting:
Page 22 The order of this thinking is important. Early scientists did not argue that because the world is orderly, therefore a rational God must exist; they said that because there is a rational God, therefore the world must be orderly.////—This order is indeed worth paying attention to.
[U.S.] C. Adams, J. Haas, A. Thompson: The Dragon-Slaying Magic Sword of Calculus, translated by Yang Shu, Hunan Science and Technology Press, May 2004
The blurb on the cover quotes a comment by a Fields Medalist from 1982: “The contents of this book are so clear, direct, and hilarious that they may jeopardize calculus’ enduring and important function of ‘confusing students and forcing them to retake courses.’ I suggest: schools should list this book as banned reading!”
To be honest, this book is indeed quite funny, with a very humorous style, interspersed with many jokes and quips. But I do not feel that these jokes really help draw students’ interest toward mathematics itself. If one were to end up with a math teacher like this, one probably would never doze off in class—but whether one dozes off or not in class is not of decisive importance. To learn math well requires, first, insight, and second, practice; neither of these can be brought about by being funny. In the end, mathematics is not something one understands by listening, nor by looking; one understands it only by doing problems oneself.
I only skimmed the first few chapters and some of the jokes and examples, and got little out of it. Still, books from Hunan Science and Technology are generally pretty good, and this one is rather unusual, so I’ll keep it in my collection for now~
[India] Vandana Shiva: The Stolen Harvest—The Global Seizure of Agriculture by Transnational Corporations, translated by Tang Jun, Actual Publishing Group / Shanghai People’s Publishing House, September 2006
This book was recommended on Liu Huajie’s blog, so of course its quality could not be wrong. In fact, I had bought it even before seeing Liu’s recommendation: first, because at the time I was taking a course on globalization; second, because I saw the preface written by Liu Bing. Whenever I see a book recommended by that group of teachers, I generally buy it without hesitation, and practice has also proved that my tastes are indeed fairly close to theirs.
The author of this book is an ecofeminist from the Third World. I am rather fond of feminism: not only does it offer a distinctive perspective and forceful arguments, its style of writing is also unique. I can appreciate the distinctly feminine way of reasoning—not that mechanical sort of orderly sequence of “because first second third… therefore first second third” (that is the masculine way)—yet it still feels equally clear and concise, and moreover has a certain special persuasive power.
In one of my very early notes, “Is Science and Technology the Primary Productive Force?”, I also touched on the issue of agricultural modernization. People really ought not to cheer “long live” agricultural modernization. Agricultural modernization has indeed increased “output,” but if one takes ecological costs into account, its productive efficiency may not even be as good as slash-and-burn agriculture! Modern agriculture consumes vast quantities of nonrenewable resources such as petroleum and chemical raw materials, and causes irreversible damage to the ecological environment. And “shifting cultivation has a lower ‘absolute cost’ than irrigated agriculture” (Donald L. Hardesty: Ecological Anthropology, Wenwu Press, p. 52); “burning makes the land more fertile, large trees breathe in more air, and regularly and planfully controlled slash-and-burn cultivation reduces flammable grasses and trees, thereby preventing truly disastrous forest fires.” (Joachim Radkau: Nature and Power—A Global History of the Environment, Hebei University Press, p. 49) The “output” increased by agricultural modernization is nothing more than killing the goose that lays the golden eggs and draining the pond to catch the fish; it is nothing to be proud of.
Going further, the globalization of agriculture, the loss of seed diversity, genetically modified technologies, and suchlike things cannot even truly improve relative productive efficiency. Praising gene technology as helpful for solving the global food problem is probably a fantasy, or a lie. Only by preserving agricultural diversity is it possible to avoid a food crisis. China and India, long before the introduction of modernized agriculture, were already feeding the world’s most densely populated peoples by relying on their own distinctive agricultural cultures and dietary structures—so why do Western countries not come and learn from us, while we ourselves must insist on introducing the so-called agricultural modernization? Moreover, agriculture is not just a collection of techniques; it is also a carrier of culture. The distinctive features of cultivation and diet are also features of culture, and now both ecological diversity and cultural diversity are suffering irreparable destruction.
January 20, 2007
at Yangrou Paoju (from this point on, unless otherwise noted, everything is written by Yangrou Paoju)
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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