2023年经济学人 科学与宗教不一定对立(1)（在线收听）

    Culture

    文艺版块

    Book review

    书评

    Leaps of faith

    信仰之跃

    Science and religion need not be antagonistic, says an arresting history.

    一部引人入胜的历史著作表示，科学和宗教不一定是对立的。

    Magisteria. By Nicholas Spencer.

    《权威》，尼古拉斯·斯宾塞著。

    In the late 19th century two books on science and religion were published within a decade of each other.

    19世纪末，两本关于科学和宗教的书在十年内相继出版。

    In "The Creed of Science" William Graham tried to reconcile new scientific ideas with faith.

    在《科学信条》一书中，威廉·格雷厄姆试图调和新的科学思想与信仰之间的关系。

    In 1881 Charles Darwin, by then an agnostic, told him:

    1881年，当时还是不可知论者的查尔斯·达尔文对他说：

    "You have expressed my inward conviction, though far more vividly and clearly than I could have done, that the Universe is not the result of chance.""你表达了我内心坚信的看法，但比我讲述的更生动、更清晰，即宇宙不是偶然的结果。"The other book made a much bigger splash.

    另一本书引起了更大的轰动。

    "History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science" by John William Draper was one of the first post-Darwinian tomes to advance the view that--as its title suggests--science and religion are strongly antithetical.

    约翰·威廉·德雷珀的《宗教与科学的冲突史》是首先提出科学与宗教强烈对立这一观点（如其标题所示）的后达尔文巨著之一。

    Promoted hard by its publisher, the book went through 50 printings in America and 24 in Britain and was translated into at least ten languages.

    在出版商的大力宣传下，这本书在美国和英国分别经历了50和24次印刷，并被翻译成至少10种语言。

    Draper's bestseller told a story of antagonism that, ever since, has been the mainstream way to see this relationship.

    德雷珀的畅销书讲述的是对抗，此后对抗就成了看待科学与宗教的关系的主流方式。

    In "Magisteria", his illuminating new book, Nicholas Spencer claims that this framing, more recently espoused by Richard Dawkins and others, is misleading.

    在尼古拉斯·斯宾塞富有启发性的新书《权威》中，斯宾塞声称，这种看待方式具有误导性，更近期的理查德·道金斯和其他人也支持这种方式。

    For centuries, he says, science and religion have been "endlessly and fascinatingly entangled".

    他说，几个世纪以来，科学和宗教一直"无休止地、饶有趣味地纠缠在一起"。

    Even (or especially) those readers inclined to disagree with him will find his narrative refreshing.

    即使(或特别是)那些倾向于不同意他的读者也会发现他的叙述令人耳目一新。

    Mr Spencer works at Theos, a religious think-tank in London, and is one of Britain's most astute observers of religious affairs.

    斯宾塞在伦敦的宗教智库Theos工作，他是英国最敏锐的宗教事务观察者之一。

    Some conflict between science and religion is understandable, he argues, but not inevitable.

    他认为，科学和宗教之间的一些冲突是可以理解的，但不是不可避免的。

    He offers an engaging tour of the intersection of religious and scientific history:

    他带读者进行了一次引人入胜的旅程，展现了宗教史和科学史的交集：

    from ancient science in which "the divine was everywhere", to the Abbasid caliphate in Baghdad in the ninth century and Maimonides, an illustrious Jewish thinker of the 12th--and onwards, eventually, to artificial intelligence.

    从"神圣无处不在"的古代科学，到9世纪巴格达的阿拔斯哈里发，以及12世纪杰出的犹太思想家迈蒙尼德--再到最终的人工智能。

    Now and again he launches salvoes against ideologues on both sides.

    他时常向双方的理论家发起炮轰。

    "Medieval science" is not an oxymoron, he writes. Nor is religious rationalism.

    他写道，"中世纪科学"并不是矛盾修辞法，宗教理性主义也不是。

    In the 11th century Berengar of Tours held that "it is by his reason that man resembles God."在11世纪，图尔的贝伦加尔认为："正是因为有理性，人才像上帝。"As religious dissent spread following the Reformation, Mr Spencer says, theology helped incubate modern science through the propagation of doubt about institutions and the cracking open of orthodoxies.

    斯宾塞说，随着宗教异见在宗教改革后蔓延，神学通过传播对制度的怀疑和打破正统观念，从而帮助孵化了现代科学。

    For their part, an emergent tribe of naturalists strove, chisel and hammer in hand, to show that creation pointed towards a creator.

    对于他们来说，新兴的博物学家群体手持凿子和锤子，奋力证明造物指向的是造物主。

    Exploration of nature was itself a form of worship.

    探索自然本身就是崇拜的一种形式。