龔鵬程對話海外學者第一百一十期：在后現代情境中，被技術統治的人類社會，只有強化交談、重建溝通倫理，才能獲得文化新生的力量。這不是誰的理論，而是每個人都應實踐的活動。龔鵬程先生遊走世界，并曾主持過“世界漢學研究中心”。我們會陸續推出“龔鵬程對話海外學者”系列文章，請他對話一些學界有意義的靈魂。范圍不局限于漢學，會涉及多種學科。以期深山長谷之水，四面而出。

黛博拉·科恩教授（Professor Deborah Coen）

美國耶魯大學科學史與醫學史教授、科學史與醫學史研究項目主席

龔鵬程教授：您好。大多數人都知道，氣候正在發生變化，而且由于人類排放的溫室氣體。這種變化在過去幾十年中已經加速。然而，關于這些發現背后的故事卻鮮為人知。 那么，是什么時候發現了氣候在變化的？科學家和社會對這一發現的反應又如何？

黛博拉·科恩教授：龔教授，您好。兩千多年來，人類一直在猜測氣候的變化及其原因。在公元前4世紀，亞里士多德的學生西奧弗拉斯特（Theophrastus）觀察到，清除森林會使空氣變暖，而排干沼澤地會產生冷卻效果。當歐洲國家在16世紀開始建立海外帝國時，他們引用了這些觀察結果，認為這意味著他們有能力 “改善”外國的氣候。

這種早期意義上的氣候變化是一種治理工具，而不會引人關注。但今天，氣候變化指的是一種特定的物理過程：由于化石燃料的燃燒，溫室氣體在大氣中的積聚，使本來會釋放在太空中的熱量被困住。

這一物理過程于1856年首次由美國業余科學家和婦女權利倡導者尤尼斯-福特（Eunice Foote）證實。不過通常情況下，這要歸功于英國物理學家約翰?廷德爾（John Tyndall），他是一位英國教授，也是精英皇家學會的成員。

廷德爾（Tyndall）和他同時代的人都沒有發現任何理由需要擔心大氣中二氧化碳的變暖效應。相反，廷德爾（Tyndall）寫道，如果沒有這種效應，“我們的田地和花園的溫暖會無聲無息地傾瀉到太空中，太陽會在冰霜鐵鎖的小島上冉冉升起。”

早在二十世紀，科學家們就相信，大氣中任何多余的二氧化碳都會被海洋吸收。科學家們認為地球對人類活動麻木不仁是宗教中的天意。

到19世紀末，科學家們提供無可爭辯的證據表明，地球曾經經歷過氣候條件截然不同的時期——例如，巖石痕跡表明，冰川此前覆蓋了歐洲和北美的大部分地區。但是猶太教和基督教認為地球是為人類量身定做的，這種想法很難動搖。

Humans have been speculating about local changes in climate and their causes for over two thousand years. In the 4th century BCE, Aristotle’s student Theophrastus observed that clearing a forest made the air warmer, while draining a marsh had a cooling effect. When European states began building overseas empires in the sixteenth century, they invoked these observations, taking them to mean that it was in their power to “improve” foreign climates. Climate change in this early sense was a tool of governance, not a cause for concern. Today, though, climate change refers to a specific mechanism: the build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, due to the burning of fossil fuels, which traps heat that would otherwise escape into space. That mechanism was first demonstrated in 1856 by Eunice Foote, an American amateur scientist and advocate of women’s rights. Usually, though, the credit goes to the British physicist John Tyndall, who was a professor in England and a member of the elite Royal Society. Neither Tyndall nor his contemporaries saw any reason for concern about the warming effect of atmospheric carbon dioxide. On the contrary, Tyndall wrote that without this effect, “The warmth of our fields and gardens would pour itself unrequited into space, and the sun would rise upon an island held fast in the iron grip of frost.” Well into the twentieth century, scientists were convinced that any additional carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would be absorbed the oceans. I see their faith that the earth was insensitive to human activity as a modern version of religious providentialism. By the late nineteenth century, scientists had indisputable evidence that the earth had passed through periods of radically different climatic conditions—rock traces, for instance, that showed that glaciers had previously covered much of Europe and North America. But the Judeo-Christian idea that the earth tailor-made for human use proved very hard to shake.

龔鵬程教授：在最近的一篇論文中，您闡述了 "可用的氣候科學 "的歷史。 但是，有可能量化科學的可用性嗎？科學難道不是知識，而知識是有用的嗎？ 另外，科學家們會認為，要先驗地確定某個發現是否有用，是非常困難的。

黛博拉·科恩教授：實際上，長期以來，學術知識的價值在于其 “真實性”，而不是其有用性。許多我們今天認為必不可少的科學領域--包括氣象學，在進入18世紀之前一直被歐洲大學排除在外，因為這些知識被認為是具有不確定性的。

當時的黃金標準是在亞里士多德的邏輯學和歐幾里得的幾何學中找到的，在中世紀的歐洲人看來，這些領域的結論是絕對肯定的。因此，在歐洲的傳統中，追求知識的使用價值往往被認為違背了對真理的追求。

可以肯定的是，今天的大學都擁護對 "有用 "知識的追求。然而，當前的氣候危機，迫使我們發出疑問，科學知識是否真的那么有用？

當然，它對美國的能源政策幾乎沒有影響。這個問題可以追溯到20世紀70年代，當時的反核運動開始呼吁，科學應該對普通公民所擔心的事情給予更多回應。倡導者們呼吁科學是 "可用的"，即為特定社區的需求而設計，甚至可以與社區合作產生。

這就是 "可用的氣候科學 "背后的激進想法：它是一種打破專家和非專家之間的等級制度的科學方式。例如，一個城鎮可能會尋求科學家幫助他們計算當地煤廠產生了多少空氣污染；或者區域水務經理可能會要求提供詳細的降雨數據以解決干旱問題。像Public Lab和Thriving Earth Exchange這樣了不起的組織現在正在進行這樣的工作。

可用性確實是很難量化的，在這樣的情況下，成功必須由用戶來判斷而不是專家。

Actually, academic knowledge was long valued for its “truthfulness” rather than its usefulness. Many of the scientific fields that we would consider essential today—including meteorology—were excluded from European universities until well into the eighteenth century because their knowledge was considered uncertain. The gold standard back then was to be found in Aristotelian logic and Euclidean geometry, fields that seemed to medieval Europeans to promise absolutely certain conclusions. In the European tradition, then, pursuing knowledge for its use-value has often been seen as compromising the search for truth. To be sure, universities today embrace the quest for “useful” knowledge. And yet the current climate crisis forces us to ask whether scientific knowledge is all that useful after all. Certainly, it has had little impact on US energy policy. This question actually dates back to the 1970s, when the anti-nuclear movement began to call on science to be more responsive to the concerns of ordinary citizens. Activists called for science that was “usable,” in the sense of being designed for the needs of a given community and even produced in partnership with it. That’s the radical idea behind “usable climate science”: it’s a way of doing science that breaks down the hierarchy between experts and non-experts. For example, a town might seek out a scientist to help them calculate just how much air pollution a local coal plant is producing; or regional water manager might ask for detailed rainfall data to help plan for droughts. Such work is being carried out right now by amazing organizations like Public Lab and Thriving Earth Exchange. You’re right that usability is hard to quantify, and in cases like these I’d say that success has to be judged by the users, not the experts.

龔鵬程教授：在您的一篇論文中，曾提出了一個問題。“為什么只有64%的美國人認為氣候正在發生變化？怎么會有這么多人面對科學證據，卻否認結論？ ” 能否請您與我們分享您的見解？

黛博拉·科恩教授：記者納撒尼爾·里奇（Nathaniel Rich）將我們對氣候變化缺乏行動的原因歸咎于 “人性”。他說，這個問題需要我們考慮長期后果，我們的本性不會以犧牲長遠為代價來關注當下。

然而，有很多人類文化確實會跨代思考，也確實會考慮到那些尚未出生的人。作為一個歷史學家，我認為這個問題在新自由主義消費文化中更為具體。氣候變化的科學告訴我們，我們是脆弱的存在，極其依賴非人類環境和其他生物。

但任何形式的依賴對新自由主義來說都是不可取的。企業文化和廣告業使我們認為，繁榮來自于 "健康 "和 "獨立"，以及 "自由 “地去選擇在任何時刻都可以使我們愉悅的東西。

這些力量正在推動我們爭取一種獨立，從生態學的角度來看，這種獨立是致命的。精神分析學家薩利-溫特羅布（Sally Weintrobe）解釋說，新自由主義創造了一種特殊的人格類型，她稱之為 “例外”。

例外者被他們的欲望所支配，不愿意為了他人的利益而抑制自己的欲望。他們抗拒任何羞恥或內疚的暗示。從這個角度來看，氣候政治的核心問題是如何說服數百萬像這樣的人，從更大的利益角度考慮問題。在其他方面，我認為這將需要大規模的心理治療。

The journalist Nathaniel Rich blames “human nature” for our lack of action on climate change. He says it’s a problem that requires us to think about long-term consequences, but it’s not in our nature to focus on the present at the expense of the long-term. And yet, there are plenty of human cultures that do think inter-generationally and do look out for the needs of those yet to be born. As a historian, I see the problem as far more specific to the culture of neo-liberal consumerism. What the science of climate change tells us is that we are vulnerable beings, exquisitely dependent on the non-human environment and on other living things. But dependence of any sort is anathema to neo-liberalism. Corporate culture and the advertising industry train us to think that flourishing comes from being “fit” and “independent” and “free” to choose what pleases us at any given moment. These forces are pushing us to strive for a kind of independence that is, from an ecological perspective, simply fatal. The psychoanalyst Sally Weintrobe explains that neo-liberalism creates a specific personality type, what she calls “the Exception.” Exceptions are ruled by their desires, unwilling to curb them for the sake of others. They cannot tolerate the thought that their pleasures come at the expense of others—they ward off any hint of shame or guilt. From this perspective, the core question of climate politics is how to convince millions of individuals like this to think in terms of a greater good. Among other things, I think this would take psychotherapy on a massive scale.

龔鵬程教授：在您的研究中，您提及了家庭生活和科學之間的相互作用。(成功的)科學家的家庭是否以某種特定的方式構成的?

黛博拉·科恩教授：如果我們參考大約1850年之前的時期，在科學公共資金和實驗室興起之前，大多數實驗研究是在科學家的家里進行的。富裕的大家庭的男戶主有明顯的優勢：他們可以把空閑的房間和花園變成實驗室的空間，采購昂貴的設備和材料，并召集他們的親戚和仆人作為助手。

有許多這樣的例子：如果沒有家庭成員的幫助，科學家可能永遠不會有使他們成名的發現。一個著名的例子是天文學家威廉·赫歇爾（William Herschel）。作為天王星的發現者，赫歇爾（Herschel）也是第一個對恒星星云進行編目的人，如果沒有他的妹妹卡羅琳（Caroline）的熟練觀察，他是不可能完成這一壯舉的，卡羅琳（Caroline）也為他打理家務。

你可能會認為，一旦科學家們開始在家庭之外專門建造的實驗室和天文臺工作，這一切就會改變，這在19世紀后期變得越來越普遍。事實上，精英女性參與科學研究的機會變得越來越少。

但在某些情況下，科學仍然是一項家庭事業，尤其是當科學工作與旅行和休閑相結合時。幸福的家庭可能都是相似的，但科學家的家庭有無數種形式。

然而，它們有一個共同的特點，那就是紀律：現代科學是一項受規則支配的事業，通常要求嚴格遵守觀察規程以及不可更改的時間表。例如，獲得諾貝爾獎的生理學家卡爾-馮-弗里希（Karl Von Frisch）在蜜月期間讓他的妻子和他一起對蜜蜂的行為進行全天24小時的觀察。

當然，不是每個人都想生活在一個受這種規則約束的家庭里！

If you look at the period before roughly 1850, before the rise of public funding for science and of proper laboratories, most experimental research was carried out in the scientist’s home. Male heads of large, wealthy households had a clear advantage: they could turn spare rooms and gardens into lab space, procure expensive equipment and materials, and enlist their relatives and servants as assistants. There are numerous examples of scientists who would never have made the discoveries for which they became famous if not for the help of members of their household. One famous example is the astronomer William Herschel. Known as the discoverer of Uranus, Herschel was also the first to catalog stellar nebulae, a feat he could never have accomplished without the skilled observations of his sister Caroline, who also kept house for him. You might think that all this would change once scientists began to work outside the home in purpose-built laboratories and observatories, which became increasingly prevalent in the later nineteenth century. And indeed, opportunities for elite women to engage in scientific research did become scarce. But in some cases, science did remain a family business, particularly when scientific work was combined with travel and leisure. Happy families may all be alike, but scientific families have taken innumerable forms. One trait they share, however, is discipline: modern science is a rule-governed enterprise, often requiring rigid adherence to observational protocols and an unbendable schedule. For instance, the Nobel Prize-winning physiologist Karl von Frisch made his wife join him in round-the-clock observations of the behavior of bees during their honeymoon. Certainly, not everyone wants to live in a household bound by such rules!

龔鵬程，1956年生于臺北，臺灣師范大學博士，當代著名學者和思想家。著作已出版一百五十多本。

辦有大學、出版社、雜志社、書院等，并規劃城市建設、主題園區等多處。講學于世界各地。并在北京、上海、杭州、臺北、巴黎、日本、澳門等地舉辦過書法展。現為中國孔子博物館名譽館長、臺灣國立東華大學終身榮譽教授、美國龔鵬程基金會主席。