中科院博士研究生英语精读教材翻译及原文整理

第1课知识的悖论The Paradox of Knowledge

The greatest achievement of humankind in its long evolution from ancient hominoid ancestors to its present status is the acquisition and accumulation of a vast body of knowledge about itself, the world, and the universe. The products of this knowledge are all those things that, in the aggregate, we call "civilization," including language, science, literature, art, all the physical mechanisms, instruments, and structures we use, and the physical infrastructures on which society relies. Most of us assume that in modern society knowledge of all kinds is continually increasing and the aggregation of new information into the corpus of our social or collective knowledge is steadily reducing the area of ignorance about ourselves, the world, and the universe. But continuing reminders of the numerous areas of our present ignorance invite a critical analysis of this assumption.

In the popular view, intellectual evolution is similar to, although much more rapid than, somatic evolution. Biological evolution is often described by the statement that "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny"--meaning that the inpidual embryo, in its development from a fertilized ovum into a human baby, passes through successive stages in which it resembles ancestral forms of the human species. The popular view is that humankind has progressed from a state of innocent ignorance, comparable to that of an infant, and gradually has acquired more and more knowledge, much as a child learns in passing through the several grades of the educational system. Implicit in this view is an assumption that phylogeny resembles ontogeny, so that there will ultimately be a stage in which the accumulation of knowledge is essentially complete, at least in specific fields, as if society had graduated with all the advanced degrees that signify mastery of important subjects.

Such views have, in fact, been expressed by some eminent scientists. In 1894 the great American physicist Albert Michelson said in a talk at the University of Chicago:

While it is never safe to affirm that the future of Physical Science has no marvels in store even more astonishing than those of the past, it seems probable that most of the grand underlying principles have been firmly established and that further advances are to be sought chiefly in the rigorous application of these principles to all the phenomena which come under our notice .... The future truths of Physical Science ate to be looked for in the sixth place of decimals.

In the century since Michelson's talk, scientists have discovered much more than the refinement of measurements in the sixth decimal place, and none is willing to make a similar statement today. However, many still cling to the notion that such a state of knowledge remains a possibility to be attained sooner or later. Stephen Hawking, the

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great English scientist, in his immensely popular book A Brief History of Time (1988), concludes with the speculation that we may "discover a complete theory" that "would be the ultimate triumph of human reason--for then we would know the mind of God." Paul Davies, an Australian physicist, echoes that view by suggesting that the human mind may be able to grasp some of the secrets encompassed by the title of his book The Mind of God (1992). Other contemporary scientists write of "theories of everything," meaning theories that explain all observable physical phenomena, and Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg, one of the founders of the current standard model of physical theory, writes of his Dreams of a Final Theory (1992).

Despite the eminence and obvious yearning of these and many other contemporary scientists, there is nothing in the history of science to suggest that any addition of data or theories to the body of scientific knowledge will ever provide answers to all questions in any field. On the contrary, the history of science indicates that increasing knowledge brings awareness of new areas of ignorance and of new questions to be answered.

Astronomy is the most ancient of the sciences, and its development is a model of other fields of knowledge. People have been observing the stars and other celestial bodies since the dawn of recorded history. As early as 3000 B.C. the Babylonians recognized a number of the constellations. In the sixth century B.C., Pythagoras proposed the notion of a spherical Earth and of a universe with objects in it chat moved in accordance with natural laws. Later Greek philosophers taught that the sky was a hollow globe surrounding the Earth, that it was supported on an axis running through the Earth, and chat stars were inlaid on its inner surface, which rotated westward daily. In the second century A.D., Ptolemy propounded a theory of a geocentric (Earth-centered) universe in which the sun, planets, and stars moved in circular orbits of cycles and epicycles around the Earth, although the Earth was not at the precise center of these orbits. While somewhat awkward, the Ptolemaic system could produce reasonably reliable predictions of planetary positions, which were, however, good for only a few years and which developed substantial discrepancies from actual observations over a long period of time. Nevertheless, since there was no evidence then apparent to astronomers that the Earth itself moves, the Ptolemaic system remained unchallenged for more than 13 centuries.

In the sixteenth century Nocolaus Copernicus, who is said to have mastered all the knowledge of his day in mathematics, astronomy, medicine, and theology, became dissatisfied with the Ptolemaic system. He found that a heliocentric system was both mathematically possible and aesthetically more pleasing, and wrote a full exposition of his hypothesis, which was not published until 1543, shortly after his death. Early in

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the seventeenth century, Johannes Kepler became imperial mathematician of the Holy Roman Empire upon the death of Tycho Brahe, and he acquired a collection of meticulous naked-eye observations of the positions of celestial bodies chat had been made by Brahe. On the basis of these data, Kepler calculated that both Ptolemy and Copernicus were in error in assuming chat planets traveled in circular orbits, and in 1609 he published a book demonstrating mathematically chat the planets travel around the sun in elliptical orbits. Kepler's laws of planetary motion are still regarded as basically valid.

In the first decade of the seventeenth century Galileo Galilei learned of the invention of the telescope and began to build such instruments, becoming the first person to use a telescope for astronomical observations, and thus discovering craters on the moon, phases of Venus, and the satellites of Jupiter. His observations convinced him of the validity of the Copernican system and resulted in the well-known conflict between Galileo and church authorities. In January 1642 Galileo died, and in December of chat year Isaac Newton was born. Modern science derives largely from the work of these two men.

Newton's contributions to science are numerous. He laid the foundations for modem physical optics, formulated the basic laws of motion and the law of universal gravitation, and devised the infinitesimal calculus. Newton's laws of motion and gravitation are still used for calculations of such matters as trajectories of spacecraft and satellites and orbits of planets. In 1846, relying on such calculations as a guide to observation, astronomers discovered the planet Neptune.

While calculations based on Newton's laws are accurate, they are dismayingly complex when three or more bodies are involved. In 1915, Einstein announced his theory of general relativity, which led to a set of differential equations for planetary orbits identical to those based on Newtonian calculations, except for those relating to the planet Mercury. The elliptical orbit of Mercury rotates through the years, but so slowly that the change of position is less than one minute of arc each century. The equations of general relativity precisely accounted for this precession; Newtonian equations did not.

Einstein's equations also explained the red shift in the light from distant stars and the deflection of starlight as it passed near the sun. However, Einstein assumed chat the universe was static, and, in order to permit a meaningful solution to the equations of relativity, in 1917 he added another term, called a "cosmological constant," to the equations. Although the existence and significance of a cosmological constant is still being debated, Einstein later declared chat this was a major mistake, as Edwin Hubble established in the 1920s chat the universe is expanding and galaxies are receding from

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one another at a speed proportionate to their distance.

Another important development in astronomy grew out of Newton's experimentation in optics, beginning with his demonstration chat sunlight could be broken up by a prism into a spectrum of different colors, which led to the science of spectroscopy. In the twentieth century, spectroscopy was applied to astronomy to gun information about the chemical and physical condition of celestial bodies chat was not disclosed by visual observation. In the 1920s, precise photographic photometry was introduced to astronomy and quantitative spectrochemical analysis became common. Also during the 1920s, scientists like Heisenberg, de Broglie, Schrodinger, and Dirac developed quantum mechanics, a branch of physics dealing with subatomic particles of matter and quanta of energy. Astronomers began to recognize that the properties of celestial bodies, including planets, could be well understood only in terms of physics, and the field began to be referred to as "astrophysics."

These developments created an explosive expansion in our knowledge of astronomy. During the first five thousand years or more of observing the heavens, observation was confined to the narrow band of visible light. In the last half of this century astronomical observations have been made across the spectrum of electromagnetic radiation, including radio waves, infrared, ultraviolet, X-rays, and gamma rays, and from satellites beyond the atmosphere. It is no exaggeration to say chat since the end of World War II more astronomical data have been gathered than during all of the thousands of years of preceding human history.

However, despite all improvements in instrumentation, increasing sophistication of analysis and calculation augmented by the massive power of computers, and the huge aggregation of data, or knowledge, we still cannot predict future movements of planets and other elements of even the solar system with a high degree of certainty. Ivars Peterson, a highly trained science writer and an editor of Science News, writes in his book Newton's Clock (1993) that a surprisingly subtle chaos pervades the solar system. He states:

In one way or another the problem of the solar system's stability has fascinated and tormented asrtonomers and mathematicians for more than 200 years. Somewhat to the embarrassment of contemporary experts, it remains one of the most perplexing, unsolved issues in celestial mechanics. Each step toward resolving this and related questions has only exposed additional uncertainties and even deeper mysteries.

Similar problems pervade astronomy. The two major theories of cosmology, general relativity and quantum mechanics, cannot be stated in the same mathematical language, and thus are inconsistent with one another, as the Ptolemaic and Copernican

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theories were in the sixteenth century, although both contemporary theories continue to be used, but for different calculations. Oxford mathematician Roger Penrose, in The Emperors New Mind (1989), contends that this inconsistency requires a change in quantum theory to provide a new theory he calls "correct quantum gravity."

Furthermore, the observations astronomers make with new technologies disclose a total mass in the universe that is less than about 10 percent of the total mass that mathematical calculations require the universe to contain on the basis of its observed rate of expansion. If the universe contains no more mass than we have been able to observe directly, then according to all current theories it should have expanded in the past, and be expanding now, much more rapidly than the rate actually observed. It is therefore believed that 90 percent or more of the mass in the universe is some sort of "dark matter" that has not yet been observed and the nature of which is unknown. Current theories favor either WIMPs (weakly interacting massive particles) or MACHOs (massive compact halo objects). Other similar mysteries abound and increase in number as our ability to observe improves.

The progress of biological and life sciences has been similar to that of the physical sciences, except that it has occurred several centuries later. The theory of biological evolution first came to the attention of scientists with the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species in 1859. But Darwin lacked any explanation of the causes of variation and inheritance of characteristics. These were provided by Gregor Mendel, who laid the mathematical foundation of genetics with the publication of papers in 1865 and 1866.

Medicine, according to Lewis Thomas, is the youngest science, having become truly scientific only in the 1930s. Recent and ongoing research has created uncertainty about even such basic concepts as when and how life begins and when death occurs, and we are spending billions in an attempt to learn how much it may be possible to know about human genetics. Modern medicine has demonstrably improved both our life expectancies and our health, and further improvements continue to be made as research progresses. But new questions arise even more rapidly than our research resources grow, as the host of problems related to the Human Genome Project illustrates.

From even such an abbreviated and incomplete survey of science as this, it appears that increasing knowledge does not result in a commensurate decrease in ignorance, but, on the contrary, exposes new lacunae in our comprehension and confronts us with unforeseen questions disclosing areas of ignorance of which we were not previously aware.

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Thus the concept of science as an expanding body of knowledge that will eventually encompass or dispel all significant areas of ignorance is an illusion. Scientists and philosophers are now observing that it is naive to regard science as a process that begins with observations that are organized into theories and are then subsequently tested by experiments. The late Karl Popper, a leading philosopher of science, wrote in The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (1960) chat science starts from problems, not from observations, and chat every worthwhile new theory raises new problems. Thus there is no danger that science will come to an end because it has completed its task, clanks to the "infinity of our ignorance."

At least since Thomas Kuhn published The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), it has been generally recognized that observations are the result of theories (called paradigms by Kuhn and other philosophers), for without theories of relevance and irrelevance there would be no basis for determining what observations to make. Since no one can know everything, to be fully informed on any subject (a claim sometimes made by those in authority) is simply to reach a judgment that additional data are not important enough to be worth the trouble of securing or considering.

To carry the analysis another step, it must be recognized that theories are the result of questions and questions are the product of perceived ignorance. Thus it is chat ignorance gives rise to inquiry chat produces knowledge, which, in turn, discloses new areas of ignorance. This is the paradox of knowledge: As knowledge increases so does ignorance, and ignorance may increase more than its related knowledge.

My own metaphor to illustrate the relationship of knowledge and ignorance is based on a line from Matthew Arnold: "For we are here as on a darkling plain...." The dark chat surrounds us, chat, indeed, envelops our world, is ignorance. Knowledge is the illumination shed by whatever candles (or more technologically advanced light sources) we can provide. As we light more and more figurative candles, the area of illumination enlarges; but the area beyond illumination increases geometrically. We know chat there is much we don't know; but we cannot know how much there is chat we don't know. Thus knowledge is finite, but ignorance is infinite, and the finite cannot ever encompass the infinite.

This is a revised version of an article originally published in COSMOS 1994. Copyright 1995 by Lee Loevinger.

Lee Loevinger is a Washington lawyer and former assistant attorney general of the United States who writes frequently for scientific c publications. He has participated for many years as a member, co-chair, or liaison with the National Conference of Lawyers and Scientists, and he is a founder and former chair of the Science and

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Technology Section of the American Bar Association. Office address: Hogan and Hartson, 555 Thirteenth St. NW, Washington, DC 20004.

人类从古类人猿进化到当前的状态这个长久的进化过程中的最大成就是有关于人类自身、世界以及宇宙众多知识的获得和积聚。这些知识的产物就是那些我们总称为―文化‖的所有的东西，包括语言、科学、文学、艺术、所有的物质机器、仪器、我们所用的结构以及社会所依赖的物质基础设施。我们之中大多数人认为现代社会中各种知识在不断增长，与此同时社会或群体对新知识的积累也在稳步减少我们对人类自身、世界及宇宙的未知。然而，现有的无垠的未知领域在不断提示着我们需要批判性地分析这个设想。

普遍的观点认为，智力的演变与身体的发育相似，虽然要快上许多。生物的进化经常被描述为―个体的进化重演物种的进化‖，意思就是个体的胚胎在其从受精卵发展到人类胎儿的过程中经历了几个阶段，在这些阶段中个体胚胎类似人类物种的祖先形式。普遍的观点认为人类从天真无邪的状态进步的，这个状态可以比作婴儿，然后逐渐的获得越来越多的知识，就像一个小孩通过学习通过了教育体系的几个年级一样。这种观点中暗含着一种臆断，那就是种系发育类似个体发育，知识的积累最终能达到一个基本完整的阶段，至少在特定的领域中是如此，就好像社会已获得了所有的高等学位，这些学位表明它已经掌握了各个重要学科的知识。

实际上，一些杰出的科学家已经表达了这样的观点。1894年伟大的物理学家Albert Michelson在芝加哥大学的一个演讲中讲到：虽然不能断言未来的物理学不会再取得比过去更惊人的成就，但很可能大多数的重要的基本原理都已经牢固的确立了，那么，进一步的发展将可能主要是如何将这些基本原理精确地应用到我们注意的现象上去。人们很难在物理学领域再作突破。

在迈克尔逊讲述上一段话之后的一个世纪，科学家们在物理学上的发现远远超出了对小数点第六位测量的改进，而今天没有人会再进行与Michelson相似的阐述。但是仍有许多人坚持认为知识有迟早达到穷尽的可能性。英国伟大的科学家斯蒂芬·霍金在他的非常流行的<<时间简史>>一书中, 推测得出以下结论, 我们可以―发现一种终极理论,那将是人类理性的最终胜利, 那时候我们将知道上帝在想什么‖。澳大利亚物理学家保罗·戴维斯附和斯蒂芬·霍金的观点，在他的书名为《上帝的智慧》一书中提出人类才智能使人类掌握一些上帝的思想的一些秘密。其他一些同时代的科学家有提及―万物之理‖，也就是解释所有可以观察到的物理现象的理论。物理理论的现代标准模型的构建者之一诺贝尔奖获得者斯蒂芬·温伯格则提到他的著作《终极理论之梦》。

尽管这些科学家和现代的其他科学家做出了卓越贡献并且对知识孜孜以求，但是在科学史上没有任何事情表明任何对于科学知识体系增加的数据和理论曾经给任何领域的所有问题提供答案。相反，科学史表明，增加的知识使人们认识到新的无知的领域并带来新的问题。

天文学是最古老的科学，它的发展是其他领域知识发展的模型。自从有史记

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载以来，人们一直在观察星星和天体。早在公元前3000年，巴比伦人认识了一定数量的星座。在第一个五千年或者更早一些的时间，天文学观察仅限于狭窄的可见光波长范围内。在过去的这半个世纪，天文学观察已经可以在电磁辐射波长（包括广播电波、红外、紫外、X射线、伽玛射线）范围内进行，还可以通过大气层外的卫星来观察。可以毫不夸张地说，自从第二次世界大战以来收集的天文学数据，比在人类持续的几千年历史中收集的数据还要多。

然而，虽然仪器的应用有了长足的改进，由于计算机以及大量数据和知识的积累，分析和计算的复杂程度有了大幅度的提高，但是我们仍然难以预测出行星未来的运动以及另一些原理甚至是太阳系中被高度确定的原理。一个训练有素的科普作家以及科学新闻的编辑Ivars Peterson，在他的书―牛顿的时钟‖里提到一种奇妙的细微的混乱弥漫着太阳系中。他写到：

两百多年以来，太阳系的稳定性问题以一种或是另一种方式吸引着并且困扰着天文学家和数学家。而这仍然是天体力学中最为困扰并且未能解决的问题，当代的科学家们对此也感到很尴尬。每一步对于此问题以及与此相关的问题的解决都会产生而外的不确定的问题甚至是更深的奥秘。

相似的问题在天文学中中也很流行。关于宇宙的最主要的两个理论，广义相对论以及量子力学不能够用形同的数学语言来表达，因此两者是不一致的，就像16世纪时托勒密和哥白尼的理论一样，虽然当代的理论仍在被应用，但是所用的计算公式不同。牛津大学的数学家Roger Penrose在他的书―新思想的帝国‖中提到由于量子论中存在不可调和的争论，因此他提出了一种名为―修正的量子重力―理论‖。

生物和生命科学的发展过程与物理学的发展过程相似，只是它的发生晚了几个世纪。生物进化论第一次引起科学家的注意是在1859年达尔文的―物种起源―的出版。但是达尔文没有解释造成性状遗传和变异的原因。孟德尔在1865年和1866年发表的论文中运用了基于基因的数学理论解释了这些原因。

按照Lewis Thomas的观点，医学是最年轻的科学，二十世纪三十年代才成为真正的科学。正在进行的和将要进行的研究产生了很多不确定东西。有些是关于一些基本的概念，比如：生命是何时诞生的，是怎样诞生的，死亡会在什么时候发生；并且我们现在花费数十亿美元来设法了解我们对于人类的基因能够知道多少。现代医学显著的提高了我们的寿命和健康状况，而且随着研究过程的深入将来还会继续改善。但是新的问题的出现速度要比我们得到的研究成果的增长速度快得多，比如说在有关人类基因工程项目中所出现的大量的问题。

仅仅通过对科学如此粗略而浅显的认识来看，认识的增加并没有造成无知相称的减少，相反揭露了我们理解中的新的空缺，还使我们面临着意料之外的问题，这些问题揭开我们不可预料的未知领域。

因此，把科学作为能够包围和消除一切重要无知领域的不断扩充的知识的这种观念只不过是一种错觉。科学家和哲学家正在认识到，把科学简单的看成先观察，然后根据观察的结果总结成理论再被随后的实验验证的过程，这是很幼稚的。

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已故的科学哲学先驱Karl Popper，在他1960年的著作《科学知识的发展》中提到，科学起源于问题而非观察，每个有真实价值的新科学理论都引出新的问题。因此不用担心科学会因完成它的使命而走到尽头，这归功于无穷无尽的未知。

至少自从Thomas Kuhn在1962年出版了《科学革命史》一书以来，人们普遍认为观测只不过是科学理论的结果，这种观点常常被Kuhn和其他哲学家拿来作范例，这是由于如果没有恰当的和不恰当的理论，要做什么样观察就将没有决定基础。既然没有任何人能够知道一切，那么在某一领域获得全面的了解（有时是权威的观点）只不过达到一种判断（境界），即另外的信息都不重要了，不值得去费神求证和考虑了。

进一步分析，我们必须认识到理论是问题的产物而问题是已认知的未知的产物。因此，正是未知引起了探究，探究产生知识然后反过来揭开了新的未知领域。这就是知识的矛盾之处：未知随着知识的增长而增长且有可能比其相关知识增长的更多。

我对知识和未知两者关系的形容来自Matthew的一句话：―我们如同置身于一个黑暗笼罩的平原上……‖，笼罩我们并包裹着我们的世界的这片黑暗，就是未知。知识是由我们能提供的所有―蜡烛‖散发出来的光芒。光照的面积随着我们点亮越来越多的―蜡烛‖而扩大，但是光照之外的面积也在几何增长。因此，知识是有限的，而未知是无限的，有限囊括无限永远是不可能的。

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第二课Modular Man

by Alvin Toffler

Urbanism -- the city dweller's way of life – has preoccupied sociology since the turn of the century. Max Weber pointed out the obvious fact that people in cities cannot know all their neighbors as intimately as it was possible for them to do in small communities. Georg Simmel carried this idea one step further when he declared, rather quaintly, that if the urban inpidual reacted emotionally to each and every person with whom he came into contact, or cluttered his mind with information about them, he would be completely atomized internally and would fall into an unthinkable mental condition.

Louis Wirth, in turn, noted the fragmented nature of urban relationships. ―Characteristically, urbanites meet one another in highly segmental roles ...‖ he wrote,― Their dependence upon others is confined to a highly fractionalized aspect of the other's round of activity. ‖Rather than becoming deeply involved with the total personality of every inpidual we meet, he explained, we necessarily maintain superficial and partial contact with some. We are interested only in the efficiency of the shoe salesman in meeting our needs; we couldn't care less that his wife is an alcoholic.

What this means is that we form limited involvement relationships with most of the people around us. Consciously or not we define our relationships with most people in functional terms. So long as we do not become involved with the shoe salesman's problems at home, or his more general hopes, dreams and frustrations, he is, for us, fully interchangeable with any other salesman of equal competence. In effect, we have applied the modular principle to human relationships. We have created the disposable person: Modular Man.

Rather than entangling ourselves with the whole man, we plug into a module of his personality. Each personality can be imagined as a unique configuration of thousands of such modules. Thus no whole person is interchangeable with any other. But certain modules are. Since we are seeking only to buy a pair of shoes, and not the friendship, love or hate of the salesman, it is not necessary for us to tap into or engage with all the other modules that form his personality. Our relationship is safely limited. There is limited liability on both sides. The relationship entails certain accepted forms of behavior and communication. Both sides understand, consciously or otherwise, the limitations and laws. Difficulties arise only when one or another party oversteps the tacitly understood limits, when he attempts to connect up with some module not relevant to the function at hand.

Today a vast sociological and psychological literature is devoted to the alienation presumed to flow from this fragmentation of relationships. Much of the rhetoric of existentialism and the student revolt decries this fragmentation. It is said that we are

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not sufficiently ―involved‖ with our fellow man. Millions of young people go about seeking ―total involvement.‖

Before leaping to the popular conclusion that modularization is all bad, however, it might be well to look more closely at the matter. Theologian Harvey Cox, echoing Simmel, has pointed out that in an urban environment the attempt to ―involve‖ oneself fully with everyone can lead only to self-destruction and emotional emptiness. Urban man, he writes, ―must have more or less impersonal relationships with most of the people with whom he comes in contact precisely in order to choose certain friendships to nourish and cultivate. His life represents a point touched by dozens of systems and hundreds of people. His capacity to know some of them better necessitates his minimizing the depth of his relationship to many others. Listening to the postman gossip becomes for the urban man an act of sheer graciousness, since he probably has no interest in the people the postman wants to talk about.

Moreover, before lamenting modularization, it is necessary to ask ourselves whether we really would prefer to return to the traditional condition of man in which each inpidual presumably related to the whole personality of a few people rather than to the personality modules of many. Traditional man has been so sentimentalized, so cloyingly romanticized, that we frequently overlook the consequences of such a return. The very same writers who lament fragmentation also demand freedom -- yet overlook the un-freedom of people bound together in totalistic relationships. For any relationship implies mutual demands and expectations. The more intimately involved a relationship, the greater the pressure the parties exert on one another to fulfill these expectations. The tighter and more totalistic the relationship, the more modules, so to speak, are brought into play, and the more numerous are the demands we make.

In a modular relationship, the demands are strictly bounded. So long as the shoe salesman performs his rather limited service for us, thereby fulfilling our rather limited expectations, we do not insist that he believe in our God, or that he be tidy at home, or share our political values, or enjoy the same kind of food or music that we do. We leave him free in all other matters as he leaves us free to be atheist or Jew, heterosexual or homosexual, John Bircher orCommunist. This is not true of the total relationship and cannot be. To a certain point, fragmentation and freedom go together.

All of us seem to need some totalistic relationships in our lives. But to decry the fact that we cannot have only such relationships is nonsense. And to prefer a society in which the inpidual has holistic relationships with a few, rather than modular relationships with many, is to wish for a return to the imprisonment of the past -- a past when inpiduals may have been more tightly bound to one another, but when they were also more tightly regimented by social conventions, sexual mores, political and religious restrictions.

This is not to say that modular relationships entail no risks or that this is the best

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of all possible worlds. There are, in fact, profound risks in the situation. Until now, however, the entire public and professional discussion of these issues has been badly out of focus.

城市居民的生活方式，已经成为社会学家在世纪之交研究的重点。马克思.韦伯指出这样一个明显的事实：因为住在城市里的人交流范围的缩窄，使得他们并不能与所有的邻居保持一种亲密的关系。GXX进一步阐述了这样一种观点，他更巧妙的指出：如果单个城市居民与他周围所有人都保持情感交流，或者他满脑子都被周围这些人的信息所包围，那么他会陷入―精神分裂‖，以及难以想象的精神状况中。

LXX，进一步指出，城市居民关系的不完整特性：―这很典型，现在城市居民只与其他人中的很少一部分人保持联系‖，他写道：―他们与其周围人的相互依赖，被局限在高度分割的一些方面里。‖他解释道，我们并不是将遇到的每一个个体都去深度涉及他的完全个性。我们只需要与他们保持一种表面的、部分的关系就可以了。我们只关心卖鞋人的工作效率，我们并不需要关心他的老婆是不是一名酒鬼。

这个论点的意思是：我们与周围大多数人形成一种限制关系。自不自觉中，我们以功能来定义我们与周围人的关系。只要我们不被牵涉进卖鞋人的家庭问题、或者他自己的希望、梦想和挫折中，那么他对于我们来讲，在能力上他与其他卖鞋人就是可以完全互换的了。实际上，我们将模块化原理应用到了人际关系中。我们创造了一种可以随意处理的人：模块化的人。

我们将他的个性进行模块化，而不是将我们自己卷入到他的整个人性里。这样，我们可以想象每一种个性都具有独特的特性，它是由成千上万的模块组合而成的。因此，没有一个人是可以与其他人进行互换的。但是，特定的模块可以。只要我们的目的只是为了买鞋，而不是为了交朋友，无论对这位卖鞋人或爱或恨，我们都不必卷入或者与构成他个性的所有模块建立联系。我们的友谊是安全有限制的。这种限制依靠双方。人际关系必须只承担行为和交流的特定方面。双方都必须有意识的建立这种理解，或者通过其他手段，例如禁令或者法律。当你或者对方部分的逾越了这种心照不宣的限制，即当他试图与他自己并无关联的功能模块进行接触时，一种功能上的困境就会随之发生。

今天，大量的社会学和心理学文献认为异化的发生是来源于这种人际关系的破碎。很多存在主义者和学生用斥责的言词反对这种破碎。他们声称我们并不是与我们的同伴保持―肤浅‖的关系。成千上万的青年人正在寻找一种―全面的参与‖。

在立即做出模块化都是不好的这一流行结论前，我们应该更加深入的看待这一问题。神学家XX，回应XX时指出：在城市环境中，那些试图将自己完全―融入‖到其他人当中，只会导致他的自我毁灭和精神空虚。他写到：城市人，―必需与大多数人保持一种或多或少的非个人的关系，他与这些人保持这种关系目的是为了有选择的培养特定的交友对象…在与众多系统和众多人的接触中，他的生活

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方式代表了一种点式接触。他有能力认识到与周围中的一些人保持良好的关系，会迫使他缩短与其他人关系的深度。从邮递员那里听到绯闻已经成为城市人寒暄的一种方式，即使这些邮递员讲的故事我们其实并不关心。‖

此外，在哀悼模块化的关系之前，我们必须扪心自问，我们是不是真的喜欢回归传统人际关系当中，即假定每个个体只与一部分人的全部关系，而不是与大多数人的个性模块发生关系。当我们审视这种回归的时候，会发现传统关系中人们是那么的多愁伤感，那么的厌烦，那么的被浪漫化了。那些哀悼破碎关系的人同样也在要求自由，他们忽视了那些没有自由的人，是被束缚在集权主义的关系中。对于任何一种关系，这里都具有这样一种含义，即关系的双方都具有共同的渴望和期待。随着双方关系变的更加亲密，那么施加在双方那种实现他们共同期望的压力就会增大。也就是说，随着关系变的更加紧密，以及包含的内容更多，那么更多模块就会发挥作用，随之而来就是我们会产生更多的期望。

在模块化的关系中，期望是被严格限制的。只要卖鞋人限制自己只是提供我们卖鞋的服务，从而满足我们买鞋的有限期望，那么我们也并不需要坚持让他信仰我们的上帝，或者让他把家里打扫干净，或者与我们分享政治信仰，或者与我们一样喜欢相同的食物或音乐。我们让他在卖鞋以外的其他方面享有充分的自由，正如他对与我们是不是无神论或者犹太人，同性恋或者异性恋，XX和共产主义一样，在这些方面也享有自由。对于那种完全的关系，这不是也不可能是真实的。在一定程度上，破碎与自由是相互结合的。

我们所有人似乎在生活中需要一些完全的关系。但是诋毁我们不能拥有单一的人际关系这个事实是没有道理的。而且，对于喜欢那种将个体与少数人建立完全的人际关系，而不是与大多数人建立模块化关系的社会的人来说，这是希望回归到过去那种个体与其他人被紧密束缚的牢笼中，但是，同时他们也是处在被社会习俗，性观念、政治和宗教禁忌严密限制的过去。

这并不意味着模块化关系不需要承担任何风险，这种关系就是对于全世界最好的选择。事实上，这里还是有一些具有深刻风险的情况的……然而直到现在，无论是在整个公共社会或者专业领域对于这个问题的讨论，还远没有抓住问题的关键。

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第3课西方是特例，不是常例The West Unique, Not Universal

In recent years Westerners have reassured themselves and irritated others by expounding the notion that the culture of the West is and ought to be the culture of the world. This conceit takes two forms. One is the Coca-colonization thesis. Its proponents claim that Western, and more specifically American, popular culture is enveloping the world: American food, clothing, pop music, movies, and consumer goods are more and more enthusiastically embraced by people on every continent. The other has to do with modernization. It claims not only that the West has led the world to modern society, but that as people in other civilizations modernize they also westernize, abandoning their traditional values, institutions, and customs and adopting those that prevail in the West. Both theses project the image of an emerging homogeneous, universally Western world--and both are to varying degrees misguided, arrogant, false, and dangerous.

Advocates of the Coca-colonization thesis identify culture with the consumption of material goods. The heart of a culture, however, involves language, religion, values, traditions, and customs. Drinking Coca-Cola does not make Russians think like Americans any more than eating sushi makes Americans think like Japanese. Throughout human history, fads and material goods have spread from one society to another without significantly altering the basic culture of the recipient society. Enthusiasms for various items of Chinese, Hindu, and other cultures have periodically swept the Western world, with no discernible lasting spillover. The argument that the spread of pop culture and consumer goods around the world represents the triumph of Western civilization depreciates the strength of other cultures while trivializing Western culture by identifying it with fatty foods, faded pants, and fizzy drinks. The essence of Western culture is the Magna Carta, not the Magna Mac.

The modernization argument is intellectually more serious than the Coca-colonization thesis, but equally flawed. The tremendous expansion of scientific and engineering knowledge that occurred in the nineteenth century allowed humans to control and shape their environment in unprecedented ways. Modernization involves industrialization; urbanization; increasing levels of literacy, education, wealth, and social mobilization; and more complex and perse occupational structures. It is a revolutionary process comparable to the shift from primitive to civilized societies that began in the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates, the Nile, and the Indus about 5000 B.C. The attitudes, values, knowledge, and culture of people in a modern society differ greatly from those in a traditional society. As the first civilization to modernize, the West is the first to have fully acquired the culture of modernity. As other societies take on similar patterns of education, work, wealth, and class structure, the modernization argument runs, this Western culture will become the universal culture

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of the world.

That there are significant differences between modern and traditional cultures is beyond dispute. A world in which some societies are highly modern and others still traditional will obviously be less homogeneous than a world in which all societies are comparably modern. It does not necessarily follow, however, that societies with modern cultures should be any more similar than are societies with traditional cultures. Only a few hundred years ago all societies were traditional. Was that world any less homogeneous than a future world of universal modernity is likely to be? Probably not. "Ming China . . . was assuredly closer to the France of the Valois," Fernand Braudel observes, "than the China of Mao Tse-tung is to the France of the Fifth Republic.''Modern societies have much in common, but they do not necessarily merge into homogeneity. The argument that they do rests on the assumption that modern society must approximate a single type, the Western type; that modern civilization is Western civilization, and Western civilization is modern civilization. This, however, is a false identification. Virtually all scholars of civilization agree that Western civilization emerged in the eighth and ninth centuries and developed its distinctive characteristics in the centuries that followed. It did not begin to modernize until the eighteenth century. The West, in short, was Western long before it was modern.

To Modernize, must non-Western societies abandon their own cultures and adopt the core elements of Western culture? From time to time leaders of such societies have thought it necessary. Peter the Great and Mustafa Kemal Ataturk were determined to modernize their countries and convinced that doing so meant adopting Western culture, even to the point of replacing traditional headgear with its Western equivalent. In the process, they created "torn" countries, unsure of their cultural identity. Nor did Western cultural imports significantly help them in their pursuit of modernization. More often, leaders of non-Western societies have pursued modernization and rejected westernization. Their goal is summed up in the phrases ti-yong (Chinese learning for the fundamental principles, Western learning for practical use) and woken, yosei (Japanese spirit, Western technique), articulated by Chinese and Japanese reformers of a century ago, and in Saudi Arabia's Prince Bandar bin Sultan's comment in 1994 that "'foreign imports' are nice as shiny or high-tech 'things.' But intangible social and political institutions imported from elsewhere can be deadly -- ask the Shah of Iran . . . Islam is for us not just a religion but a way of life. We Saudis want to modernize but not necessarily westernize." Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, Saudi Arabia, and, to a lesser degree, Iran have become modern societies without becoming Western societies. China is clearly modernizing, but certainly not westernizing.

Interaction and borrowing between civilizations have always taken place, and

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with modern means of transportation and communication they are much more extensive. Most of the world's great civilizations, however, have existed for at least one millennium and in some cases for several. These civilizations have a demonstrated record of borrowing from other civilizations in ways that enhance their own chances of survival. China's absorption of Buddhism from India, scholars agree, failed to produce the "Indianization" of China; it instead caused the Sinification of Buddhism. The Chinese adapted Buddhism to their purposes and needs. The Chinese have to date consistently defeated intense Western efforts to Christianize them. If at some point they do import Christianity, it is more than likely that it will be absorbed and adapted in such a manner as to strengthen the continuing core of Chinese culture.

Similarly, in past centuries Muslim Arabs received, valued, and used their "Hellenic inheritance for essentially utilitarian reasons. Being mostly interested in borrowing certain external forms or technical aspects, they knew how to disregard all elements in the Greek body of thought that would conflict with 'the truth' as established in their fundamental Koranic norms and precepts." Japan followed the same pattern. In the seventh century Japan imported Chinese culture and made the "transformation on its own initiative, free from economic and military pressures," to high civilization. "During the centuries that followed, periods of relative isolation from continental influences during which previous borrowings were sorted out and the useful ones assimilated would alternate with periods of renewed contact and cultural borrowing." In similar fashion, Japan and other non-Western societies today are absorbing selected elements of Western culture and using them to strengthen their own cultural identity. It would, as Braudel argues, almost "be childish" to think that the "triumph of civilization in the singular" would lead to the end of the plurality of cultures embodied for centuries in the world's great civilizations.

Modernization and economic development neither require nor produce cultural westernization. To the contrary, they promote a resurgence of, and renewed commitment to, indigenous cultures. At the inpidual level, the movement of people into unfamiliar cities, social settings, and occupations breaks their traditional local bonds, generates feelings of alienation and anomie, and creates crises of identity to which religion frequently provides an answer. At the societal level, modernization enhances the economic wealth and military power of the country as a whole and encourages people to have confidence in their heritage and to become culturally assertive. As a result, many non-Western societies have seen a return to indigenous cultures. It often takes a religious form, and the global revival of religion is a direct consequence of modernization. In non-Western societies this revival almost necessarily assumes an anti-Western cast, in some cases rejecting Western culture because it is Christian and subversive, in others because it is secular and degenerate. The return to the indigenous is most marked in Muslim and Asian societies. The

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Islamic Resurgence has manifested itself in every Muslim country; in almost all it has become a major social, cultural, and intellectual movement, and in most it has had a deep impact on politics. In 1996 virtually every Muslim country except Iran was more Islamic and more Islamist in its outlook, practices, and institutions than it was 15 years earlier. In the countries where Islamist political forces do not shape the government, they invariably dominate and often monopolize the opposition to the government. Throughout the Muslim world people are reacting against the "Westoxification" of their societies.

East Asian societies have gone through a parallel rediscovery of indigenous values and have increasingly drawn unflattering comparisons between their culture and Western culture. For several centuries they, along with other non-Western peoples, envied the economic prosperity, technological sophistication, military power, and political cohesion of Western societies. They sought the secret of this success in Western practices and customs, and when they identified what they thought might be the key they attempted to apply it in their own societies. Now, however, a fundamental change has occurred. Today East Asians attribute their dramatic economic development not to their import of Western culture but to their adherence to their own culture. They have succeeded, they argue, not because they became like the West, but because they have remained different from the West. In somewhat similar fashion, when non-Western societies felt weak in relation to the West, many of their leaders invoked Western values of self-determination, liberalism, democracy, and freedom to justify their opposition to Western global domination. Now that they are no longer weak but instead increasingly powerful, they denounce as "human rights imperialism" the same values they previously invoked to promote their interests. As Western power recedes, so too does the appeal of Western values and culture, and the West faces the need to accommodate itself to its declining ability to impose its values on non-Western societies. In fundamental ways, much of the world is becoming more modern and less Western.

(Adda B. Bozeman, "Civilizations under Stress," Virginia Quarterly Review, Winter , p. 7; William E. Naff, "Reflections on the Question of' 'East and West' from the Point of View of Japan," Comparative Civilizations Review, Fall 1985-Spring 1986, p. 222; Braudel, On History, pp. 212-213.

近年来，西方人通过阐述西方文化是并且理应是世界文化这种观念来使自己获得自信，但使其他人感到厌烦。这种观念分为两种，一种是可口可乐殖民理论，这种理论的支持者宣称西方，特别是美国流行文化正在全世界发展，如美国食品、衣服、流行音乐、电影和消费品正越来越被各洲人所热爱。另一种理论与现代化有关，该理论宣称不仅西方领导了全球现代化，并且由于其他现代化进程中的人也被西方化，他们抛弃了自己的传统价值观、制度、风俗，但吸收了那些西方流

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行的东西。这些都影射出正显现同化和全球西方人不同程度上的误导、傲慢、错误和危险。

可口可乐殖民主义理论的支持者把文化等同于物质产品的消费。然而文化的核心包括了语言、宗教、价值观、传统和风俗。喝可口可乐没有使鄂罗斯人像美国人那样思考，就像吃寿司也没有使美国人像日本人那样思考一样。统观整个人类历史，时尚和物质商品从一个社会扩散到另一个社会但并没有明显改善那些易接受改变的社会的基本文化。对中国、印度和其他国家各种文化的热衷已经长期的席卷整个西方世界，这种情况没有明显的长时间的影响。全球流行文化和物质消费的扩展代表了西方文明的胜利的这种争论低估了其他国家的力量，他们把西方文化定义为发胖食品、退色的牛仔裤和冒泡的饮料。西方文化的本质是大宪章而不是Magna Cac。

尽管有关现代化的讨论从理论上看比古柯殖民化命题更知性，但它同样有缺陷。发生在19世纪的科学和工程知识的极度扩展使得人们可以以空前的方法来控制和创造他们的环境。现代化涉及了诸如工业化；都市话；人们文化水平，教育，财富和社会动员的增加与提高；及更复杂更变化多样的职业结构。与大约5000年前发生在底格里斯河，幼发拉底河，尼罗河，印度河村庄的从原始状态进入到人类文明社会的的转变比较，现代化是一个革命的过程。现代社会的人们和一传统社会的人们在看法，价值观念，知识和文化上都有很大差异。作为第一个进入现代化的文明社会，西方第一个完整的获得了现在文化。在现代化争论继续的同时，其他社会接受了类似与教育，工作，财富，阶层结构等诸多方面，从而西方文化将成为世界上最普遍的文化。

现代化和传统文化时间存在显著的差异是不用争论的了。一个有些社会高度现代话，而有些社会仍然保持传统的世界明显比一个相对都是现代化社会的世界更没有共同性。仅仅在几百年前所有社会都是传统的，这样的一个世界有可能成为一个比一个普遍现代化的未来世界更没有共同性的世界吗？显然是不可能的。―中国明朝与法国的瓦卢瓦王朝肯定比中国毛泽东时代与法国第五共和国亲近‖。现代社会具有许多共同点，但他们不必须进入同一种社会。他们依据这样的假设认为：现代化社会必须近似一单的西方形态，现代文明就是西方文明，西方文明就是现代文明。然而这是一个假的论断。事实上所有研究文明的学者都认为西方文明出现在八，九世纪而在随后几世纪里发展成其独有特性，直到19世纪才成为现代文明，而不是一开始就是现代的。简单的说，西方在其成为现代化很久以前都只是西方的。

对于现代化来说，非西方社会必须放弃他们的自有文化并且采用西方文化的核心元素吗？长久以来，这些社会的领导人认为这是必要的。Peter the Great（彼德大帝）和Mustafa Kemal Ataturk（穆斯塔法．凱莫尔．阿塔土耳克）曾经决定将他们的国家进行现代化并且相信这样做意味着采用西方文化，甚至到了要将他们的传统头饰替换为西方的等价物的地步。在这个过程中，他们发明了具有穆斯林习俗但是西方式现代化的国家，这处国家的文化单一性模糊。西方文化的输入

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在追求现化代的道路上并没有显著地帮到他们。非西方社会的领导人更多地追求现化代但是抵制西方化。他们的目标集中体现在―体用‖（中学为体，西学为用）和―woken, yosei‖（日本精神，西方技术），这是在一个世纪以前的中国和日本改革者明确地提出的，同时Saudi Arabia（沙特阿拉伯）的Prince Bandar（班达王子）在1994年评论说―?外国进口‘的炫丽的或高技术的东西很好，但是从别国进口的无形的社会和政治制度是致命的—告诉伊朗国王。。。伊斯兰对我们不仅仅是宗教而且是一种生活方式。我们沙特人希望现代化但是不希望不必要的西方化。‖日本，新加坡，台湾，沙特阿拉伯以及程度没那么深地伊朗已经在没有变成西方社会的情况下变成了现化代国家。中国显然正在进行现代化，但是当然没有正在西方化。

文明间的交叉以及相互借鉴已经是经常发生，进行现代化意思是进行更加广泛的迁移和交流。但是，世界上大多数伟大的文明已经至少存在了一千年，很多已经是好几千年。这些文明已经通过增加自身的生存机会的方式拥有了从其它文明借鉴的示范纪录。学者们同意，中国从印度吸收了佛教，但是没有对中国产生―印度化‖；它反而产生了佛教的中国化。中国人依自身的目的和需要对佛教进行了改变。中国人必须持续地战胜西方将中国基督教化的努力。如果在某些时刻他们确实输入了基督教，它将会被吸收和改造以强化中国文化持久的核心。

类似的，在过去的几个世纪里，信奉穆斯林的阿拉伯人出于实用的目的，接收、评价并利用了他们的古希腊文化遗产。他们对于借用一些外界东西或技术方面的东西是最感兴趣的，同时他们知道怎样去忽视所有希腊思想中那些与―真理‖相冲突的元素，这些―真理‖是在他们最根本的古兰经规范和教规中建立的。

日本也跟着这么做了，在七世纪，日本引入了中国文化，并在没有经济和军事压力的情况下自己首创性的对中国文化做出了走上更高文明的改变。接下来的几个世纪里，两种时期开始更替，一个时期是与大陆影响隔离，在这期间，先前引入的东西得以整理，有用的东西得以同化，另一个时期则是重建接触和文化引入。同样的方式下，现在的日本和其他非西方社会正在吸收选择过的西方元素，并利用它们来加强自身的文化特征。正如布罗代尔所说的，认为单一文化的胜利会导致世界伟大文明中蕴藏了几个世纪的文化多样性的消亡是幼稚的。

现代化和经济发展既不会需求也不会产生文化上的西方化。相反，它们促进了本土文化的复兴，并且是对本土文化的再次承诺。个人层次上，人们迁移到陌生的城市、社会环境和工作破坏了他们传统的地方关系，产生了疏远和不确定的感觉，并且产生了身份危机，而这些常常可以从宗教得到答案。在社会层面上，现代化加强了国家整体的经济财富和军事力量，并鼓励人们在获得对于自己遗产的信心和文化上更自信。结果，很多非西方社会已经回归到本土文化。它经常以宗教的形式出现，并且全球性的宗教复兴正是现代化的直接结果。在非西方社会，这种复兴几乎必须是反西化的形式，一些情况下，拒绝西方文化是因为它是基督的是具有颠覆性的，另一些情况是因为它是世俗的和堕落的。本土化的回归在穆斯林和亚洲社会最显著。伊斯兰教的复兴在每一个穆斯林国家得到了证明；几乎

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所以都体现在社会、文化和知识分子运动，并且大部分对政治有深刻的影响。实际上，1996年，除了伊朗的每个穆斯林国家都在看法上、实践上和制度上比15年前更加伊斯兰化。在伊斯兰政治力量没能组建政府的国家，他们一定支配并经常垄断政府反对派。所以穆斯林世界的人都正在反对他们社会的西方化。

东亚社会都经历了一个同样的重新发现本土价值观的过程并日益引起了本土文化和西方文化平等的比较。几百年来，他们以及其他非西方国家的人民，羡慕西方社会的经济繁荣，技术先进，军事强大和政治凝聚。他们寻求这一在西方实践和习俗中成功的秘密，当他们认为他们想到的可能是答案时，他们便试图将其运用到自己的社会中。然而，现在这一情形已经从根本上发生了改变。今天，东亚没有将其惊人的经济发展归因于输入西方文化，而是归因于坚持他们自己的文化。他们成功了，他们认为，这并不是因为他们变得像西方国家，而是因为他们一直不同于西方。有点相似地是，当非西方社会认为弱于西方时，他们的许多领导人援引西方价值观的自决，自由主义，民主，和自由来证明他们反对西方统治全球是正当的。现在，他们不再是弱者，而是越来越强大，他们谴责作为―人权帝国主义‖所有相同的价值观，他们曾经援引来以促进他们的利益。由于西方力量消退，西方价值观和文化的吸引力也同样消退，西方国家面临着需要调整其自身能力的下降来适应将其价值观强加在非西方社会上。在根本的习俗上，世界许多地方正变得越来越现代化和较少西方化。

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第四课科学的事实：如何与基督徒的信仰协调？

Scientific Facts: Compatible with Christian Faith?

One would think the battle between science and Christianity had been resolved long ago. Recent statements by both scientists and theologians belie that thought, however. For instance, Richard Dawkins, an outspoken anti-Christian biologist, wrote, "Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist." On the theological side, the Institute of Creation Research (ICR), a fundamentalist Christian organization, continues to publish anti-evolutionary material such as: ". . . the notion that a reptile gradually evolved into a mammal is scientifically unacceptable." As flawed as some of the scientific statements of ICR have been, though, they seem to be more informed in science than the anti-Christian scientists have been in theology.

The causes of the science vs. Christianity battle may be traced to three errors. First, the proponents on both sides often neglect to define the term "evolution." Second, both sides have failed to see science as a product of a Christian worldview. Third, both sides confuse the realms (limits) of science and theology.

The American Scientific Affiliation has published an excellent book, Teaching Science in a Climate of Controversy, for high school science teachers. In it, they list a variety of definitions of "evolution." Micro evolution (breeding programs that have produced hybrids and species adapting to changing environments in minor ways) is the most obvious. No educated person would argue with that. Macro evolution (the hypothesis that homo sapiens evolved from a single cell or even from inorganic compounds) is not obvious and is much more debatable. Finally, evolution sometimes is used as a religiously value-laden tenet of naturalistic faith that man is the result of a purposeless and natural process. Few, if any, would disagree that minor changes are seen over time in the plant and animal kingdoms. Conversely, few would agree that homo sapiens, along with the rest of the universe, are a product of chance or random events.

When some biologists refer to the macro evolutionary hypothesis as a "fact," they distort the evidence and cloud the issue. There is considerable debate among biologists and paleontologists about the mechanism and possibility of macro evolution. Consequently, overstating the case for macro evolution raises a large target for some Christian fundamentalists. This results in attacks on evolutionary biology, which distracts biologists from a critical study of their own hypotheses and causes them to band together against a common enemy.

Extending scientific hypotheses into a theological (metaphysical) worldview under the guise of being scientific is completely unwarranted. Whatever hypotheses evolutionary biologists espouse (as long as they are limited to biology) say nothing about who started and sustains the process. Likewise, theologians who read the Bible

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