Author: 胡翌霖

On Reform of the Gaokao Guaranteed Admission System and the Jiaozhou Road Fire

Culture & Public Commentary2010.11.22
On Reform of the Gaokao Guaranteed Admission System and the Jiaozhou Road Fire
China’s education system seems to be reforming ever more in the wrong direction; the cancellation of the Olympiad recommendation system is regrettable. Of course, the Olympiad system really did have problems. A competition originally suitable only for a tiny number of top students in math and science ended up being forced by too many people crowding into it, and that is bad. As for the widespread imbalance in students’ strengths caused by the Olympiads, that is another issue, which I will discuss later. Measures such as banning Olympiad competitions in primary school and competition classes in middle school seem insufficient to put an end to the craze for Olympiad math….
China commentary education sociology
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2010年11月22日
Bioethics and Legal System Building — Reflections on a Lecture by Zhang Daqing

History of Science & Scholarship2010.11.18
Bioethics and Legal System Building — Reflections on a Lecture by Zhang Daqing
Today Teacher Zhang Daqing talked about the birth and development of bioethics, introducing many of the ethical dilemmas brought about by modern medicine. What I paid particular attention to was the relationship between bioethics and legal system building. Teacher Zhang said that the development of bioethics in the West has, to a very large extent, been worked out through one lawsuit after another. In China, by contrast, this area is still quite lacking. Teacher Zhang encouraged hospitals and doctors to dare to “eat lawsuits”: when facing things that, although they violate existing rules, ought to be insisted upon on ethical grounds, then they should be done—even if one loses the…
China science law life
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2010年11月18日
Media and the Externalization of “Knowledge”

AI & the Future of Technology2010.11.15
Media and the Externalization of “Knowledge”
Reply to a netizen’s question: Why did knowledge change from a “virtue” into a “power”? Is it possible to reveal the root of this shift from the perspective of media? This is a great question ~ and it really can be revealed from the perspective of media. Roughly speaking, the media through which knowledge is displayed move from the age of oral speech, to manuscripts, and finally to printed books. In the oral age, the only or main way knowledge could be displayed was through speech; knowledge was displayed in lectures or debates. In such a situation, it is easy to imagine that the display of knowledge was always tied…
culture technology media knowledge
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2010年11月15日
The Blog’s Indenture

Site Matters2010.11.12
The Blog’s Indenture
When we register for a free online service, its “terms of service” are often completely ignored. In fact, this thing really ought to be taken seriously; otherwise, before you know it, you’ve signed a deed of sale for yourself. Recently I’ve been looking for alternatives to Ycool Blog, but I still haven’t found anything suitable. I absolutely won’t use Sina Blog, because its terms of service are basically a deed of sale. What I care about mainly are two things: first, privacy protection; second, protection of intellectual property rights. The policies involved differ greatly from one blog to another, and the difference between blogs inside the firewall and those outside…
blog website knowledge law
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2010年11月12日
Natural History as a Historiographical Program—Reflections on Liu Huajie’s Lecture

History of Science & Scholarship2010.11.12
Natural History as a Historiographical Program—Reflections on Liu Huajie’s Lecture
Just after finishing a paper arguing that “natural history” should be translated as 自然史, today happened to be the day when Professor Liu came to speak on natural history and its methods of historiography, so I might as well continue and write a couple more thoughts. Like historiographical programs such as Whig history, intellectual history, and social history, “natural history,” as a program of historiography, is a pun. On the one hand, “scientific natural history” can be read as some kind of “scientific chronicle” or “scientific record.” The feature of natural history lies in its emphasis on classificatory description, but not on temporal narration, especially not on constructing causal chains…
science Liu Huajie historiography Whig history
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2010年11月12日
Reviving the Culture of the Court Historian——The Institution of the Court Historian as a Religious System

Culture & Public Commentary2010.11.09
Reviving the Culture of the Court Historian——The Institution of the Court Historian as a Religious System
Earlier I wrote a paper on “natural history,” but it was rather hasty, and there is still much work to be done. On the one hand, the inner connection between the rise of natural history and the rise of historiography in modern Western thought still awaits examination from the standpoint of intellectual history; on the other hand, the relationship between history and nature also deserves further philosophical reflection. Senior Brother Ke suggested that I read Foucault’s The Order of Things; he seemed to mean that the book would support the translation “natural science” [博物学], but when I flipped through it roughly, it was clearly supporting my line of thought. In…
China history faith religion
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2010年11月9日
“Natural History” Should Be Translated as “Natural History”

History of Science & Scholarship2010.11.07
“Natural History” Should Be Translated as “Natural History”
Natural history is generally translated as “博物学” (bowuxue, “studies of things”). In the Western tradition, natural history stands in opposition to natural philosophy, representing a way of studying nature that emphasizes observation, recording, and classification rather than reasoning or experiment. In the Chinese tradition, by contrast, though we lack a tradition of natural philosophy, we do have a developed tradition of “博物学.” But did ancient China really have a so-called tradition of bowuxue corresponding to Western natural history? Is it really appropriate to translate natural history as bowuxue? I have always been skeptical. In this article, I will revisit this translation, trace the similarities and differences between Chinese and Western…
history of science history paper natural history
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2010年11月7日
Reexamining Medicine, Reexamining Human Nature—Reflections on Wang Yifang’s Lecture

History of Science & Scholarship2010.11.05
Reexamining Medicine, Reexamining Human Nature—Reflections on Wang Yifang’s Lecture
Today, Teacher Wang spoke about many aspects centered on the question “What is medicine?”, with the emphasis on reflecting on the contemporary situation of medicine under the influence of modern science and technology. How medicine is defined is bound up with what role it plays in contemporary society. Is medicine a science? Or is it a technology? Or should one say that medicine is a combination of science and technology? These definitions are probably all inadequate. Medicine is not something that can be defined simply by the concepts of science, or science + technology—especially since science and technology in the modern sense of “big science” and “high technology” are very…
science tradition value human nature
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2010年11月5日
“The Two Cultures”: Science and Literature, or Science and the Humanities? — Reflections on Liu Bing’s Lecture

History of Science & Scholarship2010.10.29
“The Two Cultures”: Science and Literature, or Science and the Humanities? — Reflections on Liu Bing’s Lecture
Today Teacher Liu Bing’s topic was “STS and Science Communication in Drama and Fiction.” He first introduced some background on what Snow called the “two cultures,” and then discussed three dramatic works: *Life of Galileo*, *The Physicists*, and *Copenhagen*. There wasn’t time to talk about the fiction section, and the presentation was mainly a display of examples rather than a line of argument, so I’ll write my reflections on one issue from the background material. When Snow spoke of the “two cultures,” he meant scientific culture and literary culture. Teacher Liu mentioned that nowadays we more often speak of “science and the humanities.” “Humanities” is much broader in meaning than…
culture science Confucianism science communication
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2010年10月29日
Civilization History as History of Science—A Review of Sarton’s Ancient Science in the Golden Age of Greece

History of Science & Scholarship2010.10.24
Civilization History as History of Science—A Review of Sarton’s Ancient Science in the Golden Age of Greece
As the founder of the discipline of the history of science, George Sarton was the first generation of professional historians of science, and he is by no means unfamiliar to scholars in China. In 2007, Jiang Xiaoyuan and Liu Bing edited Sarton’s History of Science Series, bringing Sarton’s ideas on historiography into the Chinese context in a comprehensive way. One of the monumental representative works that reflects Sarton’s achievements in the history of science, Ancient Science Through the Golden Age of Greece, has also recently been introduced by Xiangxiang Press. Regarding Sarton’s value, the translator Lu Xudong says in the preface: “Anyone reading the history of science cannot but read…
book reading history of science Aristotle book review
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2010年10月24日